what felt like a hundred years, he paused, then said roughly, “Breathe.”
“Sure thing,” she wheezed.
He pulled her against his side, supporting her body until the vise around her lungs eased. Feeling light-headed, she didn’t bother to try to straighten. If he wanted to keep her sitting upright, let him.
He gently prodded her ribs. “Can you take any more?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t stop this much fun for the world.”
He snorted. “Now who’s full of bullshit? Let me know when you’re ready.”
Turning toward him, she knotted one fist in his shirt and tucked her face into his neck. “Ready.”
“You’re killing me,” he muttered.
The edge of his jaw came down on the top of her head, and he wrapped his arms around her. Then the torture began again. She endured until he finally fell silent.
“That’s it, I’m done.” He sounded hoarse. “Jesus Christ.”
Neither of them moved for a long time. She leaned against him. His arms remained locked around her. Finally she pushed at his chest, his arms loosened, and she straightened. When she met his gaze, she felt taken aback. He looked almost as if he hated her.
“What’s my phone number?”
After their exchanges, the number was etched indelibly in her mind. She recited it.
“Fine. I’ll be here sometime after work tomorrow. I don’t know when.” He stood. “Don’t call unless it’s an emergency.”
Anger stirred. It had taken him a while, but the bastard Josiah had finally put in an appearance. “You think I’m going to call to discuss the stock market or the weather?” she snapped. “Thanks for the healing spells, but don’t fucking patronize me.”
“Right.” A muscle bunched in his jaw. He walked out.
She stayed where she was. A moment later, the back door opened and shut, and the big house resettled around his absence.
The air felt strange and cold, and the basement had turned creepy again, but she could take a deep breath without pain. Pushing to her feet, she walked into the bathroom to inspect her reflection and torso.
She touched her cheekbone. It had not been twenty-four hours since Austin’s attack, but the swelling had completely disappeared, and what remained of the bruises looked a good two weeks old. She could now hide the rest under makeup and pass for normal.
Damn it. She wanted to call Josiah.
Just to mess with him, she told herself. She would die before she admitted she wanted him to turn around and come back. Her skin still remembered the pressure from how he had held her.
She unboxed the phone and plugged it in so it could charge, just in case an emergency did arise. Then she brushed her teeth, crawled into bed, and slept like the dead for eighteen hours.
* * *
After the energy in their last spat, Josiah knew the safe house would have to be burning down around Molly’s ears before she dialed his number. Then he thought of the fiery outrage burning in her gaze.
Scratch that. She’d probably let the house burn.
Just as well. He needed a serious break from that woman. In fact, it would do him good to go a month without thinking about her. Then he might be able to yank himself back on track and stay there.
If only he could tear out the traitorous part of his brain that would not stop focusing on how beautiful she looked no matter how wrecked she was or how badly she was dressed.
On the nuances that shifted in her intelligent gaze like ripples over a deep, sky-blue lake. On how she took the agony from the healing spells without making so much as a goddamn peep—and he had known strong men who had cried under that kind of pain—or how the need to kiss her properly had begun to pulse in his blood like a fever.
He felt infected with her. It eroded the purity of purpose that had driven him through so many decades. Other thoughts crowded in, like wondering what it would be like to sleep late, tangled in the bedsheets with her long body resting against his. Or how luminous she would look if she were truly happy.
Maybe he hadn’t liked the man he had seen when he had taken a good, hard look at himself. He had turned single-minded like a shark intent on the most important meal of its life. So what? Who fucking cared?
When he and his coven finally destroyed their quarry, they would be doing the world a goddamn service. Then he could go sleep on a beach in the Maldives for a year and