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Ethan’s wicked chuckle made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Absolutely not,” I said with indignation. “I deserve far more than two minutes.”
“Imagine all the trouble we could get up to in two minutes.” He pressed warm lips to the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine.
“Yes, and if you go outside smelling like sex, Sarah’s going to claw your eyes out.”
“She’s human.”
“And a magically enhanced corpse,” I added. “She’ll know. And if she doesn’t right away, Minka might pull those thoughts right out of your head.”
I paused. “Plus, I deserve better, don’t I?”
Ethan thumped his forehead against my neck. “I hate it when you’re logical.”
“Yes, well, it doesn’t happen often.”
“Our issues aren’t resolved, either,” I said quietly. “I’m not sure they ever will be, and I won’t lose my heart to a man who doesn’t accept me as I am.”
“And Cernunnos does?”
The name was a bucket of cold water. “He understands more of me than I do,” I admitted. “Even that I’m lying here tangled in another man’s arms.”
Ethan gently extricated himself and sat on the edge of the bed. “I feel like we’re in a massive spiderweb, and neither of us knows how to get out of it.”
“We kill the spider and hope someone comes along to untangle us from the silk.”
“You have people who will save you,” Ethan said softly as he padded over to the sofa bed and reached for his shoes. “They’ll leave me there to rot.”
Empathy filled me. “They wouldn’t.”
He snorted. “We both know they would.”
I shook my head. “Then I’ll save you.”
He glanced up, his eyes softening. “I won’t know you in a few moments, Moira, but if you’ve ever doubted the way I feel about you, I want you to know I think you’re the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen, and every time I see you, my heart stops. I’m a hardheaded asshole sometimes, I freely admit, but if there was anyone who could ever change me, it’d be you.”
The vines started sliding away from the ceiling, the shhhhh noise roaring in my ears.
We both turned to look up. Ethan’s expression sobered. “There has never been another woman who made me ache for the things I never imagined I could have until you came along.”
Vines slithered down the walls, the first hint of light sending a glow over our faces.
His gaze turned impossibly sad. “I feel it,” he whispered. “Pieces of you slipping away from me.”
My throat tightened. “Ethan—”
He held up a hand. “I will never forget you, Moira. If I don’t make it out of this, remember that. I want you to be happy, even if—”
His brow furrowed. Ethan blinked and straightened. “What the hell?”
He glanced down at the sofa bed. “How long was I out?”
Grief punched me in the solar plexus. Smiling took an extreme effort. “A few hours. How do you feel?”
He stretched. “Oddly enough, I feel far more rested than I should.”
His attention snapped to the window. “Sarah’s here.”
