I was surrounded by his strength and heat, and it made me dizzy.
For a moment, I thought our mouths would collide as he leaned his head down, but he stopped just before our lips touched.
I could feel the faintest whisper of his soft bottom lip against mine when he spoke. “Are you sure this is what you want, Ava?” When I tried to close the distance between us, he resisted, staring into my eyes with alarming intensity. As though my answer had the power to break him…or make him whole.
“I want you,” I replied, my voice trembling slightly. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath before I continued. “I trust you.”
His arms tightened around me, nearly to the point of pain. “You’re sure?” he asked again.
I groaned in exasperation. “Of course I’m sure, you giant pain in the a—”
Before I could finish the sentence, his lips caught mine.
With all the taut sexual tension between us, I expected him to plunder my mouth like a conqueror.
Instead, his lips were soft, coaxing, and addictive. I melted. There was no defense against gentle persuasion. His kiss reminded me of my dreams and how I couldn’t resist the Macgrath that I saw in my sleep.
Now, it was as if he’d become real.
His hands moved to cup my face and his fingertips slid into the hair at the nape of my neck and made my scalp tingle where they connected with my skin. When I shivered in his hold, he made a low sound in his throat and shifted closer.
Together, we knelt on the bed, our bodies melded together as our mouths tangled in slow, sensuous kisses that made my skin heat and my body soften.
Macgrath released my face and wound his arms around me. I mirrored his movement, only I slid my hands beneath the hem of his t-shirt and let my palms glide up the muscles on each side of his spine.
He was solid and warm, strangely real after weeks of dreaming of him. The kiss in the coffee shop seemed as though it were the dream now. I’d been so angry and overwhelmed that the onslaught of emotions had overshadowed the sensations Macgrath’s lips evoked.
But now…now I could savor him. The texture of his mouth, the taste of him, they were intoxicating. I felt nearly drunk on passion, my thoughts torn asunder by a sea of desire.
When Macgrath lifted his head, I tried to chase his mouth with mine, but he drew too far away.
“Aveta,” he whispered.
Every witch knows that names have power. And when Macgrath spoke that name, it crashed over me, smashing against mental barriers. I heard a loud crack, as though the walls that the curse created in my mind were about to collapse.
Then there was pain. The same agony I experienced yesterday when the two images of Macgrath superimposed themselves on one another.
I gasped at the pain, my eyes tearing. Before Macgrath could pull away, I reached up and grabbed his face in my hands, bringing it close enough that I all could see were the emerald irises of his eyes and the golden spikes radiating around his pupil.
I breathed past the pain and something leaked through the first crack in the curse that separated my present from my past. A word.
“Alaunus,” I breathed.
In the blink of an eye, his body stiffened and his eyes flared. His lips drew back and I saw that his fangs had dropped.
The growl that escaped his throat was low, vicious, and terrifying.
I opened my mouth to speak, to calm him, but I didn’t have a chance to make a sound.
He was on me in a blur of motion, moving so quickly that I was on my back on the bed before I could even process what was happening.
Macgrath growled again and his eyes moved from my face to the place where my pulse fluttered in my neck.
“Macgrath,” I whispered, trying to get his attention.
He snarled again, his face moving closer.
I tensed, torn between the desire to lie still and see what happened and to fight him off using magic. The urge to lie still was ridiculous because he was a vampire and he was practically feral. If I didn’t break through soon, he might rip my throat out.
Suddenly, he lunged forward. On instinct, I lifted my hands and pressed them to his chest, but he merely buried his face against my neck. I held my body perfectly still. I didn’t want to provoke him when he was so close to the vein that throbbed in my neck.
Just as I felt the light scrape of his fangs against my skin, Finn appeared, looming over us. Macgrath was so focused on me that he didn’t sense him.
When Finn’s eyes met mine, his jaw tightened and he looked grim.
Something must have alerted Macgrath to Finn’s presence because he suddenly straightened, whirled, and tackled the other vampire to the ground.
