When it was done, and he found himself sitting on a dirty floor, kissing Isobel Faywood, he couldn’t elicit the wherewithal to stop. It felt too good, this magic, this pain-free existence. Her power peaked, and when it shifted to agony, instead of breaking the kiss, he shoved away her magic and pulled the woman closer like she belonged to him.
Because she did, didn’t she?
She was ruinous and complicated, but she washis.
Luxurious, bewitching lips molded to his. He dove his hand into her hair, and silken curls slithered over his fingers like they had hundreds of times before.
She didn’t retreat…not when he angled her head to kiss her properly, not when he tugged on her waist to draw her flush against his chest, not even when he opened her lips to taste her tongue. If anything, she raked fingernails into his flesh to get closer.
The gouges healed as soon as she made them, and he took a fistful of her hair, wrenching tight enough that it surely hurt. She urged him on with tiny sighs, ringing her arms around his neck, and he dropped his mouth to her throat, kissing and sucking and biting hard enough to leave marks that disappeared before he could make more.
And then his lips brushed over a chain at her neck.
A chain that represented his life.
No. Sean’s life.
Sean…
Sean, who was so deep in David’s soul that David had forgotten they were separate.
David jolted back to his body. He gripped her shoulders and shoved her away. Isobel blinked hazed eyes before reality set in, and her gaze sharpened.
With a vicious slide away from him, she rested her back on the desk opposite.
They stared, silent, hidden from the fight in the lobby by the dozen or so desks surrounding them.
David drew his knees up and set both elbows on them, resting his forehead on his fingers.
What the actual fuck had he just done?
“Let me go to him,” she hissed.
“No.”
Her emerald eyes blazed. “You cannot keep me here against my will!”
David lifted a brow. He could and would do exactly that. She cared about Sean’s safety to the detriment of herself, and Sean would maim him if anything happened to her.
He threaded spiked honey into his voice as he gazed deep into her eyes. “You will sit here and wait for him. You will not expose yourself to the Indies. You will keep yourself and your child out of danger.”
A muscle near her mouth twitched as she fought and lost against the compulsion.
“He’s safe,” David said, ignoring a phantom pain in his jaw. “I’d know if something happened to him.”
Her shoulders relaxed at that. “That’s true.”
“Just chill. He’ll be back soon.”
CHAPTER 41
SEAN
Battling the horrid impression of a hole through his chest, Sean left David and Isobel in the hands of each other to sprint toward the fight. His body fought for oxygen it already had, his pristine lungs pulling it in, but finding no relief.
At the other end of the connection, David fought for his life, but Sean forced the thought—thepanic—away.
Isobel would save him.
