He stood up. “You should probably get back to your room and let Nick know what’s happening. We’ll need his help. Oh, and of course, don’t let any of them in, okay? Don’t open the door to anyone but me or the brothers or Tera.”

If his voice changed slightly when saying Nick’s name, she didn’t comment on it. But she did have one more question.

“Greyson.”

He was almost at the door. “Yes?”

“So—the ritual. The other night, when you said you thought it would protect me, you weren’t—I mean, that wasn’t just because of . . . us.”

His hand rested on the doorknob; his eyes studied the floor. “No. Not entirely.”

“Oh.” Not that it made a difference, except to increase the pain levels in her chest. But she was glad she knew.

He still waited by the door. Her steps faltered as she crossed the room. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you later, then. I’ll call you after I’ve talked to Nick. Unless you want him to call.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

The door opened; she stood for a minute, not even bothering to keep her eyes from greedily taking him in, studying him, trying to burn his face deeper into her memory than it already was. He wasn’t looking at her anyway. “Okay. Bye, then.”

He nodded. “Bye.”

She’d just stepped fully into the hallway when his hand closed over her arm and yanked her back into the room, against the solid heat of his body. The door slammed shut behind her.

“You didn’t really think I’d just let you walk away, did you?” His voice was low and urgent; his breath was hot on her skin; and before she could formulate an answer, his lips were on hers.

Chapter 26

Her entire body went up in flames. Not literal ones, not like the ones already blazing near the ceiling and around the room. Not the ones flaring in her mind as the first rush of energy invaded her. But deeper ones, hotter ones, flames tinged with ice-blue edges of pain and sorrow.

She gave them back to him when his tongue slipped into her mouth, sending more sparks dancing through her veins, sharp hot bolts of pleasure and need racing down her stomach to pool between her legs and make her muscles tight.

For a second she thought she should stop this, push him away. It wasn’t healthy. It wouldn’t change anything. It would only make it harder.

But she couldn’t. Not just because one hand had grasped her bottom and the other tangled in her hair, pulling her tighter to him. Not because kissing him made her feel alive again, safe again, for the first time since the horrible scene the day before. But because she didn’t want to. She wanted him. She loved him. How could she say no to this, when she’d already said no to everything else, and that would haunt her until the day she died?

Instead she wrapped her leg around him, yanked his shirt up from his waistband, and shoved her hands beneath. This time the feel of his bare skin, of the spikes of his spine, didn’t make her cry. She was too far gone to cry. She was already crying, somewhere deep inside herself, and she suspected—was terrified—that she would never be able to stop.

He kissed her harder, almost hard enough to hurt. His fingers left her hair to touch her face, tracing for a second the curve of her cheekbone before sliding down her throat and farther down again to cup her breast through the thin jersey of her dress.

She gasped. Her head fell back; he dipped down to kiss her throat, nibbling it, muttering things she couldn’t quite hear. Things she was almost afraid to hear.

His skin beneath her palms was hot and covered with goosebumps. She couldn’t decide which sounded more appealing, to run her hands over it and feel every inch of him or to dig her nails in, rip off his shirt, tug him to the floor because she didn’t want to wait. His power simmered in her blood, and she was about to boil over.

Instead she shifted position as best she could, sought his mouth again, and pushed it back to him.

He gasped. “Meg. Shit, Meg.”

Her feet left the floor. Her legs wrapped around his waist. They fell against the wall, cool against her back. It did nothing to soothe the fever in her veins or to calm the frenzied desperation of her thoughts.

His erection pressed against her; she didn’t know what the sound that escaped her lips was called, and she didn’t care. What she did care about was that in this position she couldn’t reach the buttons of his shirt, and in her dizzied state she couldn’t figure out how to get the damned thing off him. It was a crisp white barrier between her and what she wanted; she tugged at it, tried to pull it up over his head. Finally she gave up and dug her fingers into his hair, forcing him to kiss her harder still, until she tasted blood.

A rush of power came with it, even stronger. Somewhere she realized it was his. No time to think about it. No time to worry about it, because his hand was on her thigh, and it was not hesitant. It barely paused on the top of her stocking before continuing on, sliding beneath her bottom and forward to focus unerringly on the spot where she wanted it the most.

That one touch, coupled with her wild emotions and the power overloading her, was enough. Too much. She clutched at him as her back arched and her body shuddered, barely hearing her own voice or the low, thick sound of satisfaction he made in the back of his throat.

He swung her away from the wall, crossed the room in a few long strides, and opened the bedroom door. His mouth left hers; she felt him look up.

Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud sat there, overflowing the small chairs that had been in the dressing area and at the corner desk. Their eyes were wide.

She probably should have cared that they were there, that her skirt was over her waist so her black silk panties were visible, that they’d probably heard her, and that they knew exactly what was going on. She didn’t. That would have required too much energy, and she needed it all for him.

Greyson’s voice was so close to a growl it was barely recognizable. “Get out.”

The brothers moved fast when they wanted to. Or, in this instance, when ordered to; Megan had little doubt that they would have been happy to stay and watch. Not out of some voyeuristic need but because they wanted to make sure everything worked out okay.

Which it wouldn’t. And which she couldn’t care about just then either.

They raced out of the room. Greyson’s lips met hers again before the door had closed.

Another shock. More flames, racing around the ceiling as if someone had sprayed the walls with gasoline. Flames tearing through her body as if she was made of gunpowder. She gasped, said his name. Said it again as he laid her on the bed, pushed up her dress.

She sat up, shifted position to kneel. Finally she had access to his buttons. Finally she could open his shirt, peel it back off his shoulders while their kiss continued, hard and hot. They broke off while he slipped her dress over her head and she did the same for his T-shirt, then found each other again as she tugged at his belt, working the buckle with fingers that felt swollen.

“My arms are like the twisted thorn,” he murmured, quoting Yeats, breaking the last word off with a sharp gasp when she pulled down his zipper and reached inside, finding him swollen and slick. She curled her hand around him, stroked him, bathed in the hot orange light of the raging fire around them.

Her bra slid down her shoulders. His hands roamed over her breasts, over her ribs. Her skin leaped where he touched her; she almost lost her balance trying to lean forward, to push herself into his palms. Instead she fell against his chest, his bare skin tantalizingly hot and intensely gratifying. She kissed it, scraped her teeth over it. Curled her body down to kiss his stomach, down farther to take him into her mouth.