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The search for Sable. My freedom. Arlo’s freedom.
He exhales softly and shifts beneath me. “I need to go.”
His hands shift to my waist as he starts to move me off him, and all I can think is, Don’t leave me.
My hands grip his shoulders, legs squeezing around him, holding myself in place, refusing to let him push me away.
“Alessia—” he starts.
Before I can think it through, I lean forward and kiss him. His body goes rigid beneath mine, his hands tightening slightly on my waist. He doesn’t pull me closer, but he doesn’t push me away, either. He’s caught somewhere between desire and pride.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and something inside me snaps.
“What am I doing?” I ask incredulously. “What are you doing? You kissed me last night like your life depended on it, tore my shirt open, and then slammed a door in my face. Now you just crawl into bed with me like—”
“You’ve been sleepwalking.”
“I . . . What?”
He meets my gaze shamelessly. “I went back to my office last night, once you left. You found me in your sleep.”
“This happened before, didn’t it? You’ve been sleeping here and leaving before I wake up! You let me think you were rejecting me, avoiding me, but the whole time—”
“That’s enough,” he says, cutting me off. His eyes darken as he pointedly looks everywhere my body is touching his. “If this is about Arlo—”
“Why would it be about—”
“You don’t need to persuade me to send Arlo home to see his sister. I told you I would. It’s been arranged.” His jaw tightens. “You don’t need to act like this to get what you want. You don’t need to pretend to want me so that I will take you and Arlo home.”
Tears blur my vision instantly when he says the word home.
“That’s not what this is,” I say, shaking my head. The idea that he believes I would use him like that hurts more than anything else he could have said.
“Then what do you want?” he snaps.
I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
“That’s what I thought.” He tries to push me aside again.
“Why do you act like this is so easy for me?”
He pauses, his grip loosening slightly, but he doesn’t speak.
“I have loved Arlo for years, and—”
“No.” His hand falls away. “This conversation isn’t happening.” He leans to one side, trying to shift me off of him.
“Wait! I just—” My fingers dig into his shoulders as panic creeps in. “I just don’t want you to leave.”
He moves again, and my magic reacts.
Power surges through me without warning, and the moment he tries to get up, it pushes back, slamming him against the bed hard enough that the frame creaks.
His eyes flash wide. “Alessia!”
His words are cut off by my frantic lips, and my grip twits in his shirt, needing to feel him closer.
He growls, turning his face.
