Her pulse ratcheted up, pounding right where his hand rested.
“Because I don’t think you could,” he said, voice low. “I think I’m holding your life against my palm, and if I asked in just the right way, you’d let me take it. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” The word emerged despite her attempt to hold it back. Anna’s eyes fell closed, and her body listed toward his, seeking support.
“I think you’d give me anything I want. I could take every dark thought that’s ever run through your head. I could force you to spill all your secrets. I could make you drop down and blow me in front of all these people.”
As he spoke, the pictures flickered in her mind—pictures of embarrassment, humiliation, fear. It didn’t matter that she’d grown familiar with this magic, with the way it floated through the mind to erase inhibitions. She was a slave to it same as everyone else.
But David would never do those things to her. He had the ability, not the desire.
And that was the moment she realized that shetrustedDavid Berkeley. She knew she liked him. She looked forward to her time with him. She could even admit that she found him attractive.
But trust?
She hadn’t expected that. Not of someone with his magic, hypocritical as it was.
“Is that what you want, Anna?” he whispered, his breath disturbing the strands of hair at her neck. “For me to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that I have no need to fight?”
“No.”
Flames licked at her skin every place he touched, hottest where his hand gripped her throat. So gentle, that hand. Like he held something precious and breakable, even as he threatened to destroy it.
“Then tell me what you want from me.”
So many answers flooded her mind—things she’d never wanted, things the pixie in her had suppressed, just waiting for the right person.
I want you to kiss me again. Harder.
I want you to drag your hand down my body and touch every bit of it.
I want to wrap my legs around your head.
But the greatest desire of all was the one to spill from her mouth.
“I want you to stop.”
He released her at once. The heat of his touch fizzled as he stepped away. Dazed, she turned to face him.
His smirk was in full force, but crests of color stained his cheeks and the green of his eyes had thinned behind dilated pupils. “I think it’s better if we keep pretending you can bring me to my knees. Don’t you think?” He nodded toward the crowd watching them. “It keeps the children happy.”
The image of him on his knees, staring up at her, pleading for her, poured through her mind. It woke something hot and pulsing deep inside. What would it take to bring a man like David Berkeley to his knees?
She suspected she’d never have enough influence over him to find out.
“They do like to watch you, don’t they?” she asked.
“They never stop.”
“Which means…they’d watch me, too,” she said mostly to herself.
His eyes narrowed.
Anna wasn’t sure if anything would ever spark between them, but she couldn’t live under scrutiny like Sean and Isobel. If David showed the slightest interest in someone, they’d be examined under a magnifying glass. They’d be called a Follower and spurned. If people watched her closely enough, they’d discover her secret.
And besides that, any sparks would flare and die under so much pressure.
She wanted these sparks to blaze.
