Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,79
hand over my heart.
“I’m okay. Really.” My voice cracked and I took in another steadying breath. “I was just having a moment.”
“A moment?”
“Also known as a minor panic attack.”
His brows furrowed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head rigidly and dropped my eyes. “It’s just old baggage I still need to unpack.” I tried to play it off like it was nothing, though I wasn’t sure if my face was pulling off the farce or not.
“So, unpack it,” he offered, his baritone voice filled with reassurance and comfort like he would be willing to shoulder every last one of my burden’s until kingdom come.
“I will…some other time, though.” My cheeks stung with heat as the instant replay fired off in my mind. “I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day,” I muttered, looking for a rock to bury my head under.
He laughed as he reached out and touched my thigh, gently caressing it with his fingers. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Jemma. Not with me.”
I arched my brow at him. “Really? Because I literally just ruined sex.” Dropping my head into my hands, I mumbled to myself, “Who even does that?”
He laughed again, deeper this time. “Trust me, you didn’t ruin sex. Nothing could ever ruin that,” he said, gesturing to the wrinkled sheets and mess of pillows we’d just been laying on.
Burning heat flooded my cheeks again, though this time, not from embarrassment. His eyes searched my face, moving with intent as my stomach swooped under the intensity of his gaze.
“Let me take you out tonight,” he said, something deep and gravelly riding his voice.
“Like on a date?”
“Yeah. Like on a date.”
I had to admit, that sounded really nice. And intimate. Probably not the best idea. Not that jumping in the sack with him was either, but that was beside the point. “We have that meeting tonight at Temple.”
“Then after,” he said as his phone dinged from somewhere on the floor. “I’ll even let you pick out our costumes for the Halloween dance,” he said and waggled his eyebrows.
“Really? And I can pick anything I want?”
“Anything,” he said and then rubbed his jaw. “Just don’t put me in tights.”
“Well there goes all my ideas,” I complained and threw my hands in the air.
He shook his head as he tried to hide his smile. “So, it’s a date?”
“It’s a date,” I agreed without giving myself any time to think about it. The more I thought about the things, the less time I’d spend with him and that was the opposite of what I wanted to do.
Smiling victoriously, he reached down and pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and then handed me my own clothes, which had been strung all around the room. As he busied himself reading his text message, I retrieved my own phone from my jacket pocket and checked my notifications. There was a new message from William, the Senior Magister:
Come to Temple ASAP. We have news on the Horsemen.
My back straightened. I couldn’t tell if it was good news or bad news from his vague text, though if history were any indicator of future endeavors, chances were it would be crap news as usual.
Trace cursed under his breath and my gaze snapped to his. Had he gotten the same text as me?
“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping it was unrelated. It was hard to speak openly with William when we were hiding so many pieces of information from Trace. Something I was feeling worse and worse about with each passing moment.
“Nikki wants to see me.”
Ice-cold panic clawed its bony fingers down my spine as my face lost all color.
“She says it’s important.” His jaw muscle ticked in irritation. “I’m trying to get out of it, but she’s not giving up.”
I was pretty fucking positive that I knew what she wanted to talk to him about since the last time I’d seen her she seemed hell-bent on passing that baby off on Trace.
Would she really be stupid enough to risk Trace’s memories like this? She knew damn well that the slightest stressor could cause the wall around his memories to implode. Would she actually risk his life just to tell him something she knew deep down inside was a lie in the hopes of getting him back in her life?
Of course, she would! This is psychopathic, Trace-obsessed, dark-magic-yielding Nikki we were talking about. She’d already proven time after time that her delusion knew no bounds.