“Like ... flying,” she whispered, feeling sick. This had been her fault. None of it would have happened if she’d walked across the highway slowly, or for that matter had taken her car in for a pre-Christmas checkup.
How terribly heroic.
“Hartgrave ... I’m sorry—I’msosorry.”
He frowned. “What are you suggesting? That I should have let you die?”
“No, but—”
“It was an accident. I don’t blame you.”
It shouldn’t have mattered, not when she was blaming herself, but his absolution helped. She pressed closer, reassured by the steady rise and fall of his chest,and was diverted for a moment by the realization that they were breathing perfectly in sync.
Then logic reasserted itself. “Wait—why are you able to fly in here?”
She could feel rather than hear his chuckle. “Because, as implausible as it might seem at a little college in the middle of nowhere, this room is the neatest bit of magic I’ve ever seen.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Magic-tight, one way. It can drift in, but it can’t get out. I’ve no idea how; it’s clearly old magic,” he added, anticipating the question about to fall from her lips. “But the point is, I can safely do anything in this room as long as the door’s closed. Their system can’t pick me up. And that, to more fully answer one of your earlier questions, is the reason I live here.”
Who could have built such a relic? How she would love to know. Her mind drifted down the path of fanciful speculation for about ten yards before pulling up short. “Oh no! When I barged in on you that first time—”
“A tiny burst of aura isn’t enough for the tracking system. It requires five uninterrupted seconds to recognize the signal.”
Ah. She grimaced. “That’s why you fell. You had no choice.”
“Well—and because I was startled into it. But it’s entirely why I didn’t use any magic afterward to hide myself. The consequences of you seeing me weren’t quite as dire as the consequences of younotseeing me. Also”—he angled his head to catch her eye, his smile sharp-edged—“I did foolishly assume you’d run straight off to get help, not dawdle about.”
She shifted away from him, wincing. “No wonder you detested me.”
“I just wished you were working elsewhere—I was sure you’d undo the enchantment on this room if you got too close to it.” Before she could manage more than a sharp intake of breath at that, he added: “But to my great surprise, you don’t.”
He took her free hand in his, rubbing his thumb down her palm. It tickled. His magic was reviving.
“And then I changed my mind about you,” he said, “and thought it a fool’s errand to get you to change yours about me.”
Her laugh was breathless. “You certainly made a rotten first impression. Horrible man, blaming me for my computer troubles when you knew it wasn’t anything I could help.”
“A perfectly accurate first impression. Iamhorrible.”
His delivery was as deadpan as usual. She gave him credit for insulting himself as thoroughly as he’d ever insulted her.
“Daggett,” he murmured, looking up from their intertwined hands. He stopped, as if searching for the words.
She wanted him. He wanted her. And now, it seemed, there was nothing standing in the way.Forgetwords. She pressed in.
This time when their lips touched, the tingling charge rushed all the way down her spine. He groaned, a sound nearly as arousing as the physical contact. Shesnaked a hand around the back of his smooth head to pull him closer, to feel more of him, and wondered as the buzz sizzled along her arm if people could actually pass out from sensory overload.
This was magic in a way that made even teleportation seem second-hand. And alongside that, equally powerful, all the things that were simplyhim: the wiry strength in his arms as they wound around her, the sandpaper-scratch of his jaw, the faint forest scent that did things to her with every inhale.
He pulled her onto his lap, and when she had the wherewithal to think anything butguh, she realized her heart was pumping just as fast as when she’d been fighting for dear life.
Kissing him was utterly intoxicating. What would it be like to do more?
He broke away first, breathing the air of the room like a man surfacing from deep water.
“I don’t want to stop,” he said in answer to her inarticulate noise of protest, his hands rubbing circles on her back. “But I’ve got the rather pressing matter of what to do now that the wizards know I’m not as deceased as advertised.”
