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By the time I cleared the last obstructing person to the small space he occupied, my heart hammered at a painful speed. Still, I held my chin high, never breaking eye contact. That would be a sign of weakness. Not tonight.
His voice scraped on that gravelly level. “What exactly do you think you are doing, Genevieve?”
His eyes dropped to my breasts, exposed more than usual in this top. The effect was palpable. He might as well have grabbed my blouse and stripped them bare.
“What do you mean?” I tried to act casual, though it sounded like a frog was caught in my throat. “I’m meeting you here for demon-defense training. That was the plan, right?”
“You know precisely what I mean.”
A rough hand wrapped around my nape, hauling me closer.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” I snapped with a little bite. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”
“With pleasure.”
His other hand gripped my hip, and he pressed me back into the shadowed corner behind him. His thigh pushed between my own. I tried desperately not to moan, barely succeeding. He kept his chest from touching mine, as if that barrier was too dangerous to cross. The whole while, the angry beat and words of “Sober” pounded into me.
I glared up at him, willing myself not to melt.
“Dangerous girl, aren’t you, Genevieve?” He stroked his thumb under my top and along the skin at my waist. “Let me explain to you very clearly what I mean. Dressing in this fashion with a body like yours gives off a certain signal to men, which I could care less about. What I do care about is the signal you’re sending to me, for it is quite clear thisisfor me.”
His hand rose higher under my shirt, wrapping my waist, thumb grazing my ribs.
I pressed my hands to his rock-hard chest. “Stop it. You have no claims on me, Jude.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.” Emotion made my voice quiver. “I won’t be the other woman to your girlfriend, Kat. I’ll never be second to anyone.”
His expression shifted. A ghost of wicked humor crossed his face, then was gone.
“There is nothing, has never been, and never will be anything between Kat and me but a history of expelling demons to the underworld.”
“But, well then…why did you regret last night…what we did in my bedroom?”
“I have no regrets in my life but one. Maybe two. Last night was far from a regret and far less than what I wanted to do.”
I sucked in a breath.
“I don’t understand,” I struggled to say, wedged in by the heat and muscle of him hazing my senses, his thumb still coasting gently over bare skin. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
“Untainted hands, heart and body. Do you remember me telling you about that?”
I drunkenly nodded as his thigh brushed between my legs again.
“When I see you like this, touch you, I’m quite willing to go to hell for a taste and drag you down with me. Both our souls be damned. I’m restraining myself not for any gallant reason. Burning awhile in hell is a small price to pay to quench the burning I have for you. But”—he leaned closer, lips brushing my ear— “what I won’t allow is any possible opportunity for that filthy fuck Danté to get his hands on you. You aremine, Genevieve. And I will have you. Do you understand my meaning now?”
I think I stopped breathing halfway through his speech. I couldn’t move. I should’ve been more shaken by the callous way he tossed our souls aside, but then his hand wrapped my nape and fisted in my hair, forcing me to look up into his feral gaze.
“I left last night because I was on the verge of losing control and fucking you senseless.”
I couldn’t speak. But it seemed he still had plenty to say.
“I had to know what was possible, what I could do to you without putting you in danger.”
“What?” I whispered, barely audible over the music. Had he like researched or asked someone how far we could go sexually or something?
“Do you understand?” he asked, voice husky, warm breath close to my lips.
