Flamebound A Lone Star Witch No(54)

As he does, we talk of silly things. Travis’s new haircut. A new cookie I want to try out. The traffic jams that rain always brings to Austin.

Before I know it, I’ve eaten the entire muffin and half of the pasta salad—all from Declan’s hand. When he goes to feed me yet another bite, I moan in protest. “I can’t,” I tell him. “You’ve stuffed me.”

“Good.” He looks me over. “Your color’s better.”

“I think that has more to do with you than the food.” His eyes go impossibly darker and I grab his hand, pulling it to my heart. “Thank you.”

My gratitude is for a lot more than the minutes he spent feeding me, and he knows it. I might not agree with everything he does, I might be scared of the parts of him he keeps hidden beneath his oh-so-calm surface, but I know he’s got my best interest at heart. No matter what he’s doing, no matter how he’s doing it, I know that what he really wants is to protect me.

“You’re welcome.” Another long, steady look. “What did Nate want?”

Knowing what it cost him to ask that, I answer immediately. Hold nothing back. “I had another dream about Shelby.”

He stiffens. “Oh yeah? Did you find out anything else?”

“She’s close. When she looks out the small window in her room, she’s got a view of the Frost Bank Building.”

“What kind of view?” he asks, suddenly alert.

I pull back, wary of where his line of questioning is going. “Why are you so interested?”

“A little girl’s been stolen from her parents, is being tortured by goddess only knows who. And you think I shouldn’t be interested in finding her?” He’s stiffened up again, his voice as cool and remote as it was when he walked out of my bathroom last night.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I think you did. But it’s fine. I’m used to it.”

The words are a slap in the face, as is the way he lifts me gently off him and settles me on my desk chair. “I should probably go. I have a number of things I still have to get done today.”

“You didn’t eat.”

“I’ll get something at home.”

My stomach tightens uneasily. I hate the tension that stretches between us, the stilted conversation that’s polite but not much more. Again, I’m assaulted by the knowledge that my inability to trust him completely is ripping us apart. But how can I trust him when the shadows around him grow darker with each day that passes? When he admits with no compunction that he’s already set things in motion to kill one man? That he plans to kill more?

Then again, how can I not trust him when he’s proven, over and over again, that he’ll do anything for me?

When Declan leans down to brush an impersonal kiss across my cheek—the same cheek that Nate kissed just a little while ago—I turn my head so that his lips connect with mine instead.

I wrap my arms around his neck, pull him closer. Then I suck his lower lip between my teeth, nipping gently at it.

At that first soft bite, it’s as though a dam bursts inside him.

His hands go to my hair, twist and tug until my head is at the angle he wants it. His mouth opens against mine, his tongue delving in to stroke, to taste, to plunder. It’s an old-fashioned word, one I never thought I’d use in reference to a kiss, but it fits perfectly. Declan plunders me, takes everything I have to give, then looks for more. Demands more.

Which is completely fine with me. My own hands find their way into the cool, ebony silk of his hair. My tongue meets his in an intimate caress. My body, my bruised and aching body, arches against him in a desperate plea for his touch.

He doesn’t take the hint. Instead, he pulls away, stumbles back a step or two like he doesn’t trust himself not to touch me. His lips are swollen, his eyes hazy with desire, his hands shaking with his self-imposed restraint.

“Why are you stopping?” I demand, my own body trembling with need for him.

“Do you want this?”

I stare at him incredulously. “Doesn’t it feel like I do?” I take his hand, press it to my breast. He groans as his thumb strokes over my hard nipple, once. Twice.

“Declan, please.” I need him, need to prove to myself that the connection between us is still there.

But he stops, his palm resting directly over my heart. I know he can feel it thundering beneath his touch.

Declan closes his eyes, makes a sound that’s a cross between desire and devastating pain. I reach for him, run my hands over his washboard stomach and narrow hips. Revel in the hitch of his breath, in the fine trembling he can’t control.

And still he doesn’t take me.