“You joke when you should be focused. You push when you should back off. You make everything complicated.”
“I make things complicated?” She shot to her feet. “You’re the one who quoted legal statutes at pixies.”
“Those pixies were violating…”
“See? You’re doing it again.” She paced to the window, whirled back. “You turn everything into regulations and procedures, then you act like I’m the problem.”
He stood slowly, that careful control she’d grown to resent written in every line of his body. “You drive me insane.”
“Good.”
Marcus took a step closer.
“Why is that good?”
“Because at least you feel something.” The words tore out of her. “Two days ago, you kissed me like the world was ending, and now you act like I’m a problem to be solved.”
“You are a problem.” Another step. “The biggest problem I’ve ever had.”
“Then stop protecting me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I feel everything, Hazel. And it’s wrecking me.”
They stood three feet apart, both breathing hard. The afternoon light caught the gold in his eyes, made them burn like embers.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
She looked at his mouth, at the rigid set of his shoulders, at the careful distance he maintained even when every line of his body screamed that he wanted to close it.
“No.”
He moved so fast she barely saw it. One moment, he was across the room; the next, his hands framed her face, and his mouth crashed into hers. She gasped against his lips, and he backed her up until her shoulders hit the wall.
This kiss was nothing like the first one. His body pressed against hers, all heat and solid muscle, and she fisted her hands in his shirt to pull him closer.
Magic flared where they touched: their twined magic sparking bright across her vision. When he traced her lower lip with his tongue, she opened for him with a sound that might have been his name.
His hands slid from her face to her hair, fingers tangling in the strands. She arched against him and felt him shudder, felt the careful wall he’d built around himself crumble completely.
“Hazel,” he breathed against her mouth.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered back. “Please don’t stop.”
So he didn’t. He kissed her until she couldn’t remember why they’d been fighting, until the only thing that mattered was the heat of his mouth against hers.
The magic between them pulsed and settled, wrapping around them like a living thing. She could feel his heartbeat through the thin fabric of his shirt, could feel the tremor in his hands where they cradled her face. When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he said.
“I know.”
“It’s going to make everything harder.”
“Everything’s already hard.”
