Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,304

demanded as I rounded the couch and put the coffee table between us, my heart jack-hammering like crazy.

He shot toward me and raked his thumb up my cheekbone. “I’m saying I fucked up everything. And it’s not getting unfucked any time soon. But I also can’t stay away from you any longer.”

“You don’t get to just decide you want me again and expect us to pick up where we left off.” A snarl left my lips as I shoved him in the chest and he pushed back against me, grabbing my hips and yanking me closer.

“I know,” he said on a furious breath. “I wish there was a future where I could offer you everything you deserve, but there isn’t. That life doesn’t exist for me. Fate closed the door on it, but some part of me is still foolishly scratching at it trying to find a way back in.”

“Lance you’re so fucking stupid,” I snapped and his brows pulled together like he damn well knew that, but I didn’t think he even understood it in the way I meant. I knotted my fingers in his hair, leaning up and staring him in the eyes. “You’re the best man I know, the best, fucking stupidest, most frustrating man I know. Whether you’re a professor, a convict, a fugitive, a power shamed Fae or all of the above, there isn’t one thing you could be that wouldn’t make me want you. But I just can’t trust you.”

“You still want me?” he asked like that was all he’d heard.

I wanted to fight and claw and scream to get through to him, but I just stood there trapped in the gaze of the man who’d captured my heart so completely that it barely even felt like it belonged to me anymore. It had never healed when he’d left. And now he was asking me to surrender for some finite amount of time, and the worst thing was that my heart wanted it too.

I pushed away all of the doubt and fear inside me over us and just took one sweet moment for myself, surrendering to this love and letting it consume me like fire. The second I pulled him closer, he groaned in desperation and my heart beat like powerful wings as his mouth fell against mine. I knew nothing was fixed between us, that it possibly couldn’t ever be, but I’d craved him for so long and I couldn’t think. I wanted it to be us again. Just one more time.

His tongue moved with mine and I felt the stars colliding somewhere above us as he put his hands on me, raking them up my back with a growl of need. His fingers dragged between my shoulder blades and I moaned, shivering all over from his firm and demanding touches. Phoenix fire sparked from my flesh and I couldn’t control it as he grasped my hips and the heat of his chest moulded against my body.

I didn’t dare break our kiss as he lifted me so I wrapped my legs around his waist. Little fires blazed in my periphery and his hand shot out to douse them with water before the whole place went up in flames. He sped across the room, knocking over a lamp as he crushed me to the wall and the wallpaper went up in blaze. He broke the kiss and slammed his hand to the wall, sending ice spilling up and away from us, coating the whole room and turning it into a shimmering winter wonderland.

“Oh shit,” I breathed, looking at the mess we’d made of Gabriel’s home.

“You can burn the house to the ground if you want, beautiful, I’ll happily rebuild it brick by brick when you’re done with me.” He captured my chin, yanking me back to look at him and my breathing faltered as I fell into the endless depths of his eyes. The truth sat on my tongue, weighing it down as heavily as lead. That I’d never be done with him. I loved him too completely. In every minute of every hour, right down to the space between seconds.

This was a terrible idea with a million repercussions that I’d have to face tomorrow. But weren’t all the best ideas that kind?

I gripped the back of his neck, drawing him toward me, my palm sliding down to his chest to feel the furious, desperate beating of his heart.

The whole world came crashing down around us, the roof shattering above and I cast an