Blood of Zeus (Blood of Zeus #1) - Meredith Wild Page 0,63

of it. The desk. The fire in your eyes. Hell, Kara…”

I blink. Hard. So much for belying the emotion from my gaze. It’s a hot, prickling invasion behind my eyes now. Through my whole head. Shit. Shit. He knows. He can’t know. This is too crazy, too risky… So much more than I bargained for.

“I think you’ve been reading too much Dante, Maximus.” I attempt a little laugh. Massive fail. I sound more like a teakettle on half heat. “You’re seeing things you want to see.”

“And there’s that. You, here in this seminar. Demanding to stay with a fascination for the material that rivals my own, which is saying a lot.”

I close my eyes with a soft sigh. The moment I do, visions from our last night together assault me. Did I expect anything else? Why do I not even want to change the answers? How did I let myself fall so deep into so many feelings for this man?

“Tell me who you really are.”

I raise my head up as soon as his soft demand breaches the air. Then I’m battling a fresh hit of confusion, frustration, fury, sorrow.

Would I tell him if I could? If I wasn’t bound to three generations of this secret?

“I’ve told you more than I’ve ever told anyone. Now it feels like you’re punishing me for it.”

He lets go of a sigh and whips off his glasses to pinch the place where they bridged his nose.

“I’m not trying to punish you, Kara. I’m…fucking frustrated. By everything. You storm into my life and turn everything upside down just by being you. You claim we’re both different than everyone else, which basically makes us the same—but the reality is that you’re not like me. You can’t hide behind a curtain of ignorance. You have the answers. You just won’t let anyone in. And I’m—” He runs a hand through his tangled hair, fisting it briefly before letting go with another pained exhale. “I’m falling for you, so hard. Like, straight out of a plane without a parachute hard. Honestly, sometimes it feels exactly like that. And all I keep thinking is if I don’t have all of you…”

Something raw and vulnerable passes across his features, like maybe he’s feeling it right now. That surrender. All the fear that goes along with that kind of jump.

He closes the space between us, tugging me gently to his chest. The tension inside me gives way to his towering warmth and thorough embrace. The security of his arms around me again feels like heaven. They feel like home. The incredible dichotomy of those two words together—heaven, home—delivers another hit of unexpected sadness as he tips my chin, guiding my gaze into his.

“I want all your secrets, Kara… All the little pieces of you no one ever sees, every wild dream and ugly truth. If I’m not the man who can earn all of it, nothing’s going to feel right for me ever again. Because as crazy as you’re making me right now, I don’t want to go back to before. I’ll take the free fall. Any damn day. But I need you to be real with me…”

And just like that, he’s unraveling my defenses with the new certainty that I’m not alone in this. He’s asking me to jump with him. And I want to, but…

“There’s so much to explain.” My whisper is jittery, frightened. Not because of what he’s opening up in me, but because I’m terrified he’ll change his mind and close me back up. “Things that are…difficult…to explain.”

“I’m figuring it out anyway. Come clean and save me the research.”

I smile a little, wishing it were that easy. Just blurting it out. Trusting that the second I mention I’m a demon, he won’t change the way he feels about me. That everything won’t change between us.

I bite my lower lip, then release it as he slides his touch in against my cheek and brings our faces close. “Remember when you said, ‘If I only wanted to see the best of you, I wouldn’t be here.’ What makes you think I’d feel any differently about you?”

My breath clutches in my throat—just before a door in the back of the hall slams loudly, followed by the sounds of students chatting. I step out of our embrace, heavy with relief and regret.

The frown he’s wearing seems to convey the same. “Let’s go to my office so we can talk.”

His office. No way can I step into that room again and not relive