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Instead, I pulled him back down to me.
He kissed me again, harder this time, all-consuming, and I gave as good as I got. My hands worked at the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel skin. When my fingers finally found bare flesh, he shuddered, his control fracturing further.
His hand slid up my thigh, pushing fabric aside, and I arched into him with a sound I didn't recognize as my own. Heat flooded through me, pooling low and insistent. I needed—god, I needed.
August tore his mouth from mine with a gasp that sounded like pain.
He pulled back, chest heaving, hands still gripping my hips like he physically couldn't let go. His hair was wild where I'd run my fingers through it, his shirt half-unbuttoned, lips swollen from kissing.
He looked undone.
“I will not.” The words were ragged, torn from somewhere deep. “I will not do this.”
My heart was still racing, my whole body thrumming with unfulfilled need. “August—”
“No.” He released me like I'd burned him, stumbling back a step. His hands shook as he dragged them through his hair. “This is—this was—”
He looked around at the chaos we'd created. Papers scattered across the floor. Books knocked from the desk. The evidence of his shattered control laid bare.
When his eyes met mine again, there was anguish there. Raw and bleeding.
“You think this changes anything?” His words came out harsh, but I heard the tremor underneath. “That this will somehow make me less of what I am?” His laugh was bitter. “I'm my father's son, Lily. I'll always be my father's son. I'm a hunter. And you're—”
He cut himself off, jaw clenching so hard I heard his teeth grind.
“What am I?” I demanded.
He looked at me then—really looked at me—and there was something like agony in his eyes.
“Everything I shouldn't want.”
The words hung between us like a confession and a condemnation.
He turned toward the door, but he only made it two steps before he stopped. His whole body went rigid, hands clenching into fists at his sides.
For a moment, I thought he'd leave.
Then he spun back.
He crossed the space between us in three strides and cupped my face in both hands, kissing me again. Hard. Fierce. Like he was trying to brand the memory of it into both of us. Seconds that rewrote everything.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine. His breath came in short, ragged bursts. His hands trembled where they held my face.
“I cannot trust myself with you,” he whispered. “Do you understand? I cannot—”
He released me and stepped back, and this time when he turned away, he didn't look back.
His hand reached for the doorframe as if he needed it to stay upright. Then he was gone, leaving me on his desk with my clothes in disarray, my lips swollen, and the ghost of his touch still burning on my skin.
The books we'd knocked to the floor lay scattered like casualties.
And in the loom of fate, a thread pulled taut—then snapped.
CHAPTER 31
AUGUST
Dawn found me in town. Each step away from the house should have cleared my head, but instead, her words followed me into the morning—quiet, steady, cutting through the frost.
