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Whether it’s my touch, my tone or my words, something gives him pause. The breeze wafts over us as his hand cups mine on his jaw.
“Why worry about what happens to a man who forced you to be with him?”
My eyes lower to his lips, and I run my thumb over their exquisite shape, wishing it was my tongue. “You never took me against my will, Micah, and you know what?” I lift my chin and kiss him lightly on the lips. He remains still as a statue, letting it happen, his eyes open and following me every second.
“I absolutely adore it when you claim me ruthlessly.” I rub my nose softly against his. “I enjoy your nasty fuckery. I did from the very first moment. But you already knew that.”
He shakes his head as if forcing himself out of a hypnotized state.
“You’re enjoying the sex, but I forced myself on you as your boyfriend. That was against your will and frankly—” his voice trails off, “it was never the plan.”
“Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts then. After all, we both know we have an expiration date.”
His eyes narrow, and behind them, I glimpse the demon.
“Is that what you hold on to? Why you can sometimes even make me feel loved? Because you know for a fact it will end?”
I revel in his possessiveness for a moment, but a moment is all I give it. “I don’t hate being with you, and you know it,” I whisper. “But sooner or later, you’ll have to make it official with the woman the Elders chose for you.”
Despite his silence, I can sense his aura grow spikes. There’s a scary determination in the way his jaw locks, like the decisions of a daredevil ready to risk his life in a suicidal mission. Whatever he’s thinking about, I can’t let him entertain it for long.
So I try to make some distance between us, which he allows, yet only like a prison ward waiting to see just how far a witless convict would go with an escape attempt.
“I can’t tell you what that...thing with Romano was all about,” I say. Then, quieter, “what it is about. But I can help you fuck up his plans—if you let me pretend that I’m still playing along.”
The corners of his mouth lift up in the grin of a patient killer.
“Right. And I suppose that would involve letting him get his hopes high again about tasting your pussy.” He grabs my jaw, bringing that beautiful mouth too close to mine. “Don’t you understand that I’m ready to kill him for you, Eva?” Then lower, rippling with danger, “consequences be damned.”
I take his face in my hands, letting everything I feel show in my eyes.
“If I betray him, I’ll have nothing more to live for, Micah.”
His arms wrap around me like a spider’s cocoon. One that could consume me alive. “Damn it, Eva, there’s nothing I can’t protect you from.”
“You can protect me, yes. But what’s at stake is much bigger than me. Besides—”
I hesitate, looking away, but Micah grabs my chin and turns my face back to him. My breath catches. The demon is now fully there. I can feel its presence, crawling in the cocoon he made around me.
“You’re protecting someone else,” he says, a muscle feathering in his jaw. I smile. Even now, his first thought is that I’m probably protecting a man I’m in love with.
“Micah, I can’t tell you what it is without putting what you love in danger, too,” I whisper, surrendering to the vortex of savagery in his eyes. “The moment a word spills from my mouth, he’ll know.”
“The only person who bugged your building is me,” he says, his voice filled with the insidiousness of a killer snake. “And I kept it to the landing. I also had your apartment checked, and there’s nothing in here that could enable Romano to listen in. So how can he possibly know?”
I press my forehead to his. “He will because you’ll lose your shit.”
“The only thing that ever made me lose control is you,” he breathes. “Whatever you tell me, I won’t act without thinking.”
“You will, because—” I lick my lips. When I finally let out the words, they stab me in the chest, and I become fully aware of what this man means to me, and that I’ll definitely lose him. “Because you’ll hate me when you know. You won’t care about what happens to me. In fact, you’ll feel that I deserve whatever Romano has coming at me.”
His expression slowly changes, the intense diabolism fading into a mix of surprise and curiosity.
“Eva—”
“Please,” I shake my head. “Let us enjoy what we have while it lasts. Because even if the world wasn’t against us, even if you didn’t have to marry the woman the Elders chose for you, you’d still spit me out like poison when you find out.” Then, lowering my eyes, “and you will find out. But let’s do this first. Let’s take down Romano and make sure that he can no longer touch you. Otherwise—” I shake my head. “Otherwise he won’t stop until you and Sade are dead.”
And he needs Rufus and Raphael, the bosses of the Morningstars, to blame it on. He’s been trying to get Annabelle’s boys killed since they were little, but even as children they proved unusually resilient. Plus, they had each other’s backs, even if they had to become psychos to stay alive. But this. The Morningstars. This is different.
