then he captured her mouth with his own and took.
Plundered.
Savored.
He kissed her as though he were conquering her, and God help her, she loved it.
Reveled in it.
She plundered his mouth right back. Took his head in her hands and pulled him deeper into the kiss. Wrapped a leg around his thighs and yanked his body to her, so that there was no space between them, no air, no room for thought or regret or razor-sharp memories of past pain to intrude.
There was only Edge and Meara and this kiss—this passion—that was blazing like wildfire between them. Why hadn’t she known, why hadn’t she—
“Meara?”
The sound of Ryan’s voice snapped Meara out of the sensual haze into which she’d willingly plunged, and she pulled away from Edge and his deep, drugging kisses.
“What?” His gaze was unfocused, and he stared into her eyes and then down at her mouth. “More.”
She put a hand on his chest. “No.”
He ignored her and bent his head to her again. “But—”
“I said no,” she shouted, and she threw her hands into the air—hurled her power at him—and levitated him a good six feet off the ground, where she pinned him to the wall with the sheer force of her rage-fueled magic.
“Did you think my only power was to become invisible? To live my life unseen, like so many other nameless, faceless women who have to skulk in the shadows to avoid the attentions of men like you?”
“Men like me? Meara,” he said, his voice a husky croak. “I’m sorry. No, I never thought anything of the sort. I’ve wanted you for so long, and I—but you kissed me back, and I thought—”
“Yes. I did. But then I said no.”
Ryan entered the room then, or maybe she’d already been there, witness to Meara’s extraordinary lapse of judgment. She looked at Meara and then up at Edge, still hanging against the wall, and then she nodded, as if she saw this sort of thing every day.
“No means no, dude,” she told Edge. Then she shifted her attention to Meara. “Also, where’s Bane? He and I need to have a little chat about locking me in for my own good.”
From the look in the human’s eyes, Meara had an idea it wouldn’t be a comfortable chat for her brother. But then again, she’d warned him.
“Maybe let the nice computer guy down now,” Ryan ventured. “We could have pie and talk about how men are pigs.”
Abruptly, Meara started laughing. She’d always been able to see the ridiculousness in a situation, even when the joke was on her. She released her power, and Edge gracefully dropped to the ground and landed lightly on his feet, which was annoying.
She’d much rather he’d fallen on his ass.
“If you’d just bend your knees, touch one hand to the ground, and stick the other one straight out in the air behind you, you’d have a great superhero pose,” Ryan told Edge, who stared at her as if she were an alien species from another planet.
Meara shook her head. “There are no heroes here. So. You said something about pie?”
When they left the room, she could still feel Edge’s gaze burning into the back of her neck.
“I wish you could teach me that trick,” Ryan said, starting down the stairs. “There’s this new guy at work, Doctor Douchehead, who could really use a lesson just like that.”
Meara shook her head. “That’s a very unfortunate name. Perhaps he’s suffered enough.”
Ryan started laughing and explained about the name, but Meara tuned her out. Her lips still throbbed with Edge’s kiss, and she had to fight herself to keep from going back and finishing what they’d started.
If he’ll ever kiss you again, after what you did to him.
That was the trick, though, wasn’t it? Finding a man who could celebrate you for your strength instead of rejoicing in your weakness. She didn’t want a man who was strong enough to protect her—she wanted one who was strong enough to stand with her while she protected herself.
While they protected each other.
But if she hadn’t found that in three centuries, what made her think she might now?
Chapter Thirty-One
“You don’t have a brother, do you?”
Ryan blinked. “No. Only child. Why?”
Meara sighed. “No reason. Okay. Enough of this. We’re going out.”
“We are? I don’t have anything to wear,” Ryan said, scrambling for a reason why she didn’t want to go out on the town with the supermodel vampire standing next to her. She was used to being ignored in bars, standing next to