the engagement…would she still be alive?” He shook his head. “Not to be with you, of course…I know now that would never have happened.” His smile was sad. “You wouldn’t have hurt Kiara like that.”
He was right. I wouldn’t have. “We can’t dwell on the past. On what we could have done. We can only live with what we have done and move forward. Kiara was a wonderful woman, and she was a part of you, but she’s gone, and you need to continue to live. I want you to know that I’ll do whatever it takes to help you with that. If that means staying away from you, then so be it.”
He looked up at me, stunned. “No. No, Fee, I don’t want that. I want us to be friends like we could have been. Like we should have been. Can we do that? Can we start again?”
His words were a rock being lifted off my chest. “Yes. Yes, I’d like that a lot.”
His gaze lingered on my face for a moment longer, and then he dropped it to the parchment. “I should get these done.”
Shit. “Of course. Yeah. I’ll see you later?”
“I’m headed back to the Underealm tomorrow,” he said. “But once this is all over. Once Lilith is safe, maybe we can…I don’t know, catch a movie?”
He sounded so awkward saying it that I couldn’t help but chuckle. “How about lunch at Lumiers instead?”
He looked relieved. “Sounds perfect.”
I left him to his work and headed off to look for Mal. I was excited to spend the day with him. I was almost at the stairs when a hand snagged my elbow, and I was yanked into the storage closet Iza used to keep her cleaning supplies. It smelled of floral disinfectant and cinnamon.
Shit.
Keon’s yellow eyes gleamed in the gloom as he pushed me up against the wall and pinned me in. He leaned in so his body was so close it might as well have been pressed against mine. His hand went to my neck, thumb on my jaw as he forced my chin up. Heat rushed from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.
“You tried to sacrifice yourself,” he said.
Oh, crap. Mal must have told him.
“Asked that thing to end you…” His voice was a lethal purr.
The kind of voice you expected a villain to have just before he shoved a dagger in your gut, and the fact it was making me wet was a testament to my obvious insanity.
I kept my breathing shallow, not wanting my breasts to swell too much and brush against his pectorals, because any more contact and I would lose control.
“I did what I had to do, and Lilith is fine because I’m fine, okay?”
His eyes narrowed. “You think I’m worried about Lilith?”
His pupils dilated, huge, dark, and hungry, and then he kissed me. I gasped into his mouth and arched into him on reflex. His tongue was long and thick, and his kiss was a punishing rasp against my sensitive mouth. He kissed me like he was licking me out, and before I could stop myself, I was hooking a leg around his waist, sliding my hands up through his long locks and gripping his horns.
He growled into my mouth, and his chest began to vibrate. I held on as his hips began to move against me, his arousal at the perfect angle to drive me crazy. Pleasure was a wave rolling through me and setting me ablaze with yearning. His hands slid over my body, expertly kneading and squeezing to send lances of desire through me.
But just as suddenly as he’d attacked me with his mouth, he released me and backed away. His chest heaved, and there was no ignoring the huge tent in his pants. His hand went to it, massaging it even as he kept his gaze fixed on my face.
My stomach flipped hard, and I took an involuntary step toward him, but he bolted, leaving me standing in the storage cupboard alone, like a creepy fool.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I didn’t need another man in my life. I had three…four if you counted Hunter, although, with Hunter, it was going to take time to build the trust that I had in my other relationships.
Uri’s face filled my vision. He was coming home soon…Home.
The guys would accept him, but Keon…I knew in my gut they wouldn’t.
Guilt twisted in my chest.
I would be honest about what had happened with Keon just