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Ugh…do men talk like this? But… “I’ll sleep on it. Another round?”
She nods and hands me a twenty. It’s Brooklyn, old school. People prefer cash. I weave my way to the bar and as I go, I know it’s just fear. And if I don’t do anything about it, if I sit him down and say we can’t do anything, then it will all be okay. Right?
Right?
It’s late for me when I roll the half block home. I’ve put Suzanna in a car service, and I’m ready to curl up in bed. My mind is soft and I almost have a buzz from the handful of drinks.
Someone is leaning against my door and my stomach somersaults as my heart tattoos against my ribs.
Magnus steals my breath. He’s so beautiful.
And maybe that’s the problem. He’s beautiful and nice with a sick gran and he’s someone I could develop real feelings for. If he wasn’t quite so much of a cypher.
I stop.
Where the hell did that come from?
A cypher?
But it fits.
I don’t really know him or much about him, only he’s a fantasy man. He’s polite and sweet and lovely and I don’t know what dwells under all that surface stuff.
He’s the perfect man. He really is.
And he likes me and—
“You know, Zoey, I couldn’t get you out of my head all evening.”
He’s dressed in black from his boots to his jeans to his sweater and he’s utterly devastating. And maybe it’s because I’m just the right—or is that the wrong—side of tipsy, but he seems different somehow.
The shadows and light from the buildings and the street lamp throw his cheekbones into sharp relief, and there’s an air of sardonicity about him that makes my heart beat even faster, my blood heat.
“I had a thing—”
“You didn’t see your gran?”
“She went to bed early and I had to attend something, and you were in my fucking head.” He stays leaning against the door and taps his temple with one long-fingered hand. “And I kept thinking I shouldn’t like you. Zoey Smith is way too sweet. She eats a lot of sugar and I’m…I shouldn’t be here.”
“But you are.”
Now he straightens and comes to me. “I am. Because you’re in my head, Zoey. You’re sweet and taste like stolen moments and hot sex.”
I can’t move. Never in my life has anyone said anything like this to me. I’m rooted down to the spot on the cracked pavement, and not even the swish of cars or the honks of horns or people shouting and laughing can penetrate the spell he’s weaved.
This is no cypher.
This is Magnus.
And I want him.
Desperately.
It’s like he reads my mind. He slides his hands through my hair and kisses me. Not like before. This is a hard kiss. This is sex. It’s naked, hot, erotic, and I’m not thinking. I hit the door, his body crowding me and the word yes is the only one in my head.
I kiss him back like this is life itself and he’s devouring me.
He tastes my throat in ravishing bites that make me ache down into my core. That sweet aching need that presses against me and I need him in me. I release the hold I have on him and fumble in my bag, but he takes my keys from my shaking fingers and jams them into the lock, kissing me all the while.
