“Rune,” he says again. My name is an incantation, a plea.
I can have this, just for tonight, can’t I? It doesn’t mean I have to marry the guy. I can just…not. What’s he going to do, drag me to the altar by my hair?
I know better. But, as if driven by a force as inexorable as the one that powered my premonitions, I take one step toward him, then another. He meets me halfway, and I stand on my tiptoes, grabbing his shirt collar and tugging him down to me. The moment our lips touch, I’m done for.
My mouth opens under his, inviting, and his tongue traces my lips, then sweeps inside. One of his hands plunges into my hair, anchoring me to him. The other grips my hip, guiding us backward until he cages me against the door. He kisses the tears from my face, then trails hot kisses down my neck, his tongue flicking along my collarbone. “Tell me if you don’t want this,” he murmurs against my skin. “I’ll stop, I promise.”
I should tell him exactly that. But Donovan Frost is a man who hates liars. And just once, I want to tell him the truth and have him believe me.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I say, slipping my hands under his shirt. His skin is an inferno under my hands, like he has a fever. “I want?—”
“What?” His hand leaves my hip, hitching my leg so it wraps around him. He presses against me and we both moan. “God, Rune, just tell me.”
It’s like I’ve drunk some kind of truth serum, because when I open my mouth, what falls out is something I’d hardly dared to voice, even to myself. I’ve been numb for so damn long. But now the monster is dead, and maybe, just maybe, I can let my armor fall.
“Donovan,” I whisper, knotting my fingers in his dark hair. “I want you to make me feel.”
He draws back at that, looking down at me. His pupils are blown wide, his irises only a rim of blue. “Jesus Christ. What are you doing to me?”
“I—”
“Whatever it is,” he says roughly, “do it some more.”
He lifts me then. I wrap my legs around his waist and we move together against the door, still, somehow, fully clothed. His mouth devours mine, his tongue licking at me and his teeth biting gently into my lower lip, nipping along my jaw. He presses against me, moving me how he wants me, and I dig my nails into his shoulders, gasping.
“Feel this,” he whispers, one hand braced on the door above my head and the other supporting me, holding me up. “Feelme.”
And, oh God, I do. I feeleverything.
In that moment, I see our future, unrolling like a scroll in front of me. Nights spent twined around each other. Days spent trading banter and creating a life of our own design, my chaos and his obsessive organization somehow folding seamlessly together into a beautiful whole. We’ll argue and we’ll fight but we’ll always come back together. Until one day he’ll propose and I’ll say yes and then…and then…
My premonitions always come true. And if Donovan and I give in to the attraction between us, it will only end one way.
In his death.
Seeing the future is my gift. And my curse.
I refuse to let it curse him, too.
Gathering every bit of my resolve, I flatten the palms of both hands against his chest and shove. Startled, he drops me to the floor and stumbles backward, his blue eyes dazed.
“Rune, what?—”
“I don’t want you to stop,” I say again. “But we have to.”
I yank the door open, snatch my purse from the hook beside it, and flee.
Chapter
Eighteen
It’s justmy bad luck that I run out of Donovan’s office and straight into Ethan. Literally.
He’s rounding the corner as I flee down the hallway, Donovan calling my name. My hair’s in my face, the brown waves a mess from our ill-fated make-out session, so I don’t see Ethan until I plow right into him with an impact that sends me stumbling backward…straight into Donovan, who’s come after me.
Freaking perfect.
Donovan steadies me, his hands on my shoulders, then, just as quickly, lets me go. I step away from him, trying desperately to tame my hair and look like I wasn’t just climbing Smashbox’s data engineer’s gorgeous body. What if Ethan can tell? Also, what is he doing here at ten o’clock at night?
