Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
My poor shirt doesn’t stand a chance. It tears nearly in half. Cold air rushes over my skin as Donovan lifts his head and looks up at me. His lips part as he takes me in. His breath hitches.
Seeing him on his knees like this breaks something inside me. Possibly, my ability to form coherent thoughts. “I stand corrected,” I babble. “You, um, could teach garment-rending to authors of bodice rippers everywhere. I’ll be sure to alert the Sinsters, in case they want to invite you to do a demo at their next book club.” Or coven meeting. Whatever. Jesus, what is happening here?
I don’t think Donovan has heard a word I’ve said. His eyes are fixed on the expanse of skin that my torn shirt has revealed. And then, as if drawn by a magnetic force, he edges closer and presses his lips to my belly. He does it again and again, his dark hair brushing over my skin and sending shivers through me.
“Donovan—” I try, but he shakes his head.
“Let me have this,” he mutters against my skin. “Just this. Unless you don’t want?—”
But I do. I do want, so much my body aches with it. He’s right—things never have to go further than this, right here, do they? What happens in the ice maze can stay in the ice maze. And so I knot my fingers in his silky hair, urging him on.
His breath stutters, his big hands moving to grip my hips, his lips tracing their way upward, to the valley between my breasts. I’m lost in him, in his heated praise— so beautiful, goddamn perfect— and the groans that rumble from his chest. Desire slides through my veins, and I whimper, wanting him to touch me like this everywhere, wanting more. I’m not cold anymore; I’m burning up, his kisses leaving a trail of fire in their wake. Only when the wet heat of his mouth ghosts over the blue lace of my bra and my fingers tighten in his hair do I realize one very important, terrible thing: I’ve let go of the wall.
But nothing’s closing in on us. Nothing’s crushing us. Because…holy shit.
All around us, the ice walls are melting, the maze crumbling to nothingness. The heat I feel isn’t just because of him…it’s real.
“Donovan,” I whisper, tugging at the strands of his hair.
“Hmmm?” He flicks his tongue against my nipple through the flimsy barrier of the lace, then nips at me with his teeth, and I buck against him. I can’t help it, and from his vise grip on my hips, he likes it…a lot. But oh God, we have to stop.
I tug again, harder, and his head comes up. His eyes are glassy, the pupils blown wide, color burning high on his cheekbones. “What is it?” he manages.
He looks destroyed, and I’m sure I do, too. How can this be such a terrible thing, when it feels so right?
But that’s a problem for another time. Because?—
“Look,” I say, raising a shaking hand.
He turns his head, and I hear his shocked intake of breath. Together, we watch the last of the walls disintegrate. And beyond them, for just an instant, we see a door—the way out.
But then it disappears, obscured by plumes of red and gold that spring from the floor, flickering and crackling and burning with so much heat, it singes me where I stand.
We’re trapped in a ring of flame.
Donovan gets up, turning in a slow circle. I turn with him, watching as the water from the ice walls flows downhill, disappearing into a grate in the floor. It swirls around our feet, a welcome contrast to the conflagration.
I don’t understand. How in the world did my touch melt an entire ice maze? That couldn’t have been the point of the exercise, could it? We were supposed to complete the maze, not thaw the entire thing before we barely got started. Did it malfunction somehow? Did I accidentally press some kind of recessed button? Or did Donovan kneel on something?—
I can’t think about Donovan kneeling, not now. I focus instead on our surroundings. With the maze evaporated, we’re standing alone in a high-ceilinged room, no more than a hundred feet from freedom. The door is right behind that wall of fire, but there’s absolutely nothing we can do to reach it. There are no additional instructions, no mysterious codes. Just us and Mission Freaking Impossible. We’re screwed…and not in the good way.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Donovan mutters, looking anywhere but at me. The heat between us seems to have evaporated in direct proportion to the appearance of those damn flames. And even though I know I shouldn’t, I would do anything to get it back again.
Instead, I make a joke—my go-to when I have no idea what else to do. “Is this a good time for my Johnny Cash impersonation?” I say, my voice shaky. It’s the best I can manage, given that I can still feel the scrape of his stubble and the insistent pressure of his mouth against my skin. God, what were we doing? What did we almost do?
Donovan glares at me, his dark hair mussed from my hands, his eyes impassive, his jaw set in that familiar stubborn line. When I met him, I thought that expression meant he didn’t feel strong emotions. That he was indifferent to everything and everyone around him. But now, I’m beginning to think he feels way too much and spends most of his time trying to hide it.
“Excuse me?” he says, folding his arms across his chest.
“You know. Because of the burning ring of fire.” I gesture at the circle of flames.
Something moves beneath the surface of his impenetrable expression—amusement, maybe. And then it cracks, dissolving completely. His eyes blaze down at me, and too late, I remember the rest of the lyrics to that song—about how two people fell for each other, right into that damn burning ring, and their desire consumed them. “Donovan, I didn’t mean?—”
But he doesn’t let me finish. “Ah, fuck it,” he bites out. And then he cups my face in one hand, tangles the other in my hair, and lowers his lips to mine.
If I thought our kiss against the office door was passionate, it has nothing on this one. Donovan devours me, licking at the seam of my lips until I let him in and then, when I do, slipping his tongue inside to duel with mine. It’s a battle, like everything else between us, and I give as good as I get, nipping at his lower lip as he pulls back to skate his teeth over my throat. His mouth closes on my collarbone, licking and sucking as he pushes what remains of my shirt off my shoulders. It falls to the floor, but I hardly notice. I’m too busy digging my nails into his back as he lowers me to the floor, levering himself over me. My breasts swell beneath the lace confines of my bra, hungry for his touch, and I moan in response, shimmying against him.
The flames roar around us, growing higher by the moment as he growls into my mouth, sliding a hand beneath me, moving me how he wants me. “This is fucking torture,” he rasps. “You’re killing me, and I just—I can’t?—”
Beneath us, the floor trembles, as if preparing to eject us through another trapdoor. Maybe that’s how we’re meant to escape the flames. Well, if that’s the case, I’m happy to go just like this. Besides, maybe it’s my imagination, since Donovan doesn’t say a word about it. He just hisses through his teeth as my fingers push up his shirt, desperate to feel him against me skin-to-skin. To see the rest of that tantalizing swirl of ink. To know every bit of him, even—especially—the parts he keeps hidden from the world.
“You can’t what?” I gasp, slipping the top button free.
He pulls back, enough to see my face. And then, never breaking eye contact, he presses into me, circling his hips in a way that has me spiraling higher and higher, the ache inside me building. Beneath me, the ground shakes. Above me, Donovan does the same. The expression on his face, in those deep blue eyes…it’s pleasure, so acute it’s almost pain. Other than my shirt, we’re fully clothed—but then why do I feel like I’m naked before him?
“No matter what I do,” he says, tracing my face, my throat, my breasts, “I can’t stop wanting you. Christ, what have you done to me?”
His last words echo, an accusation that shudders through my bones. Reality comes crashing over me, like a bucket of icy water from the melted walls.
I can’t stop wanting him, either. But I have to. Because if he’s as addicted to me as I am to him, if he craves my touch the same way, then there’s no way what happens now will end here. If we do this—if I let him inside me in every way—then there will be no turning back.
Wanting me like this will kill him.
I draw a deep breath, bracing myself to say the inevitable. Hating myself, because finding ourselves in this position again is my fault, just as much as his.
It’s not what I’ve done, I want to tell him. It’s what I’m doing. What I’m fated to do.
But I never get a chance to, because, like it’s been waiting for this perfectly imperfect moment, a premonition hits.