He started, as he shoved his phone back into his front pocket. “Excuse me?”
“It hurts you to keep burying it all. I thought… me attending Loxley with you finally this year… I could help you. The painting being the beginning of working through it with you and—”
“Fuck, no. We’re not doing that.”
“You aren’t going to even consider it? That it could help? Even a small chance that it—”
“No. I’m gonna have it removed.”
“Fine. But… I did it, so I’ll take it out.”
“Stay the fuck away from it. I’ll have another magic-wielder of your caliber remove it.”
“As you wish. And… I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have done that, so I’m—”
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” he snapped.
“What?”
“I’m too worked up to be managed by an apology from you.”
“Managed? That’s not what I’m—”
His eyes flashed and then he was on me again, digging his blunt nails into my shirt.
I hissed as his pink flame flared, burning into me. It wasn’t heat, per se… not with my death-cold nature in play. But it certainly stung.
I called my power in response, my frost pushing against his magical flame.
So this was what he’d wanted… to let it out like this.
“Dammit,” he choked, his eyes rolling back in his head. He gazed up at me. “I hate you.”
I smiled. “If that were true, things would be a great deal simpler.”
Another grunt came, and then he shoved me into one of the stalls and locked the door behind him with a flick of his magic.
“I’m here for dinner with my dad,” I told him, as he grabbed at the waistband of my jeans.
He stilled. “Sylas is here?”
“Right outside.”
“Then I’ll teleport out if he barges on in here wielding all that crazy-level necromantic power, which will leave you all alone with your dick in your hand, cum dripping all over.”
“Hmm, your form of payback is definitely graphic—and mean.”
“That’s just it, Win, Iammean. Yet, you keep thrusting yourself into my path.”
“As I vividly recall, you’re rather fond of me thrusting myself at you.” My lips quirked. “Or,intoyou. Does that capture it better?”
He snarled. “You little—”
I snagged his hand, removing it from my waistband, then used the hold to spin him around and shove him up against the stall wall, face-first.
He growled, but it wasn’t in pain. No, I recognized his needy growl all too well. It was fury, passion, and desperate desire all rolled into one.
And it was utterly intoxicating.
