slightest bit to the left and our mouths would be lined up. He wasn’t letting me go or putting distance between us, and he knew the rules. Maybe he was thinking the same thing I was?
What harm could a kiss bring?
Just one?
I turned my head. Zayne’s lips grazed the line of my cheek, coming within an inch of the corner of my mouth. Every nerve in my body seemed to fire at once, and something heavier, spicier, invaded my senses, slipping from that warm ball of light in my chest.
Zayne.
He was the thick heaviness in my chest, next to my heart, and it was mixing with the same feeling that had settled low in my stomach.
God, it really was coming from him. He was feeling what I was feeling. There was something between us, more than just a bond between Protector and Trueborn, and whatever it was made me feel hot and dizzy, like I’d been sitting in the sun all day.
I didn’t see him move, but I didn’t flinch when his fingers brushed my cheek, his thumb on my jaw. He tilted my head back even farther. Anticipation danced along my skin. In that moment, I wanted a kiss as badly as I needed the air I breathed. Every part of me was in agreement. I wanted to feel his lips against mine once again. I wanted to taste his breath on the tip of my tongue. I wanted so very much.
There was a wicked little voice in the back of my head that dared me to provoke the frustration and need I felt swirling inside him, to push the line between us as far as I could.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” Zayne’s voice sounded like it was full of gravel.
“Back off, then.”
He didn’t back off.
And I didn’t stop thinking about how kissing him felt like lightning or how it felt to be in his embrace, skin against skin. My muscles turned to liquid in a way that was as pleasant as it was painful.
Zayne’s forehead dropped to mine and I felt his chest expand with his next ragged breath. “Behave.”
The corners of my lips tugged up. “I’m trying to.”
“You’re not trying hard enough.”
My eyes drifted shut as my hips arched off the wall and then my breath hitched when his other hand curved around one hip. “You’re not trying, either.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m not trying, and I should be. We should be smarter than this.”
“Being smart is overrated,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “We’re supposed to be patrolling. Hunting the Harbinger. Not this.”
This.
Whatever this was.
“Agreed,” I admitted. “But you started this. Not me.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You cannot put this on me,” I argued. “Not when you’re the one holding me. This is your fault.”
“I can feel you.” His voice was just a whisper but it stretched my nerves tight. “The heat. The want. I can feel you. I find it hard to resist.”
My mouth dried. “And I can feel you. Did you think about that? Because I find it hard to resist.”
“Okay.” His warm breath made another pass over my lips. “How about we’re mutually at fault.”
“More like sixty percent your fault and forty percent mine but whatever.”
His chuckle was a rasping, seductive sound. “We need to get our heads in the game.”
We did.
And what Zayne had said a few seconds ago was right. Not the mutually at fault thing, but about us not being smart. We had no idea what the consequences would be if we were to be together, but I knew it couldn’t be anything warm and fuzzy. The rule had been created by the archangels, the highest order and most powerful of all angelic beings. They even oversaw the Alphas, who were responsible for communicating with the Wardens.
Not only were archangels notoriously strict and old school, they were often of the Old Testament variety, meaning they operated by an eye for an eye, literally. God only knew what kind of penalty they would whip up, having eons of experience behind them when it came to doling out punishment like it was candy and every night was Halloween.
Fear spiked, leaving my skin chilled, and it wasn’t for my own well-being. Considering how archangels often overdid things when it came to the punishment-fits-the-crime deal, they could hurt Zayne.
They could even kill him.
As fear turned my blood to slush, I thought of my father, of how unaffected he’d been by how Misha had turned out and by his demise. My heart tripped over itself. I doubted he’d step