Pyromancist (Seven Forbidden Arts 1)

She couldn’t look away from his silver eyes. They shone with a feverish light, as if cold flames were burning inside him. “No.”

The tense set of his body didn’t ease. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Still, you shouldn’t have let me take it that far. I’m a bastard at best. Don’t you know that by now?”

She squeezed the hairdryer so hard her fingers ached. “I told you I got carried away. Can we just please move on?”

“From this?” His gaze hardened. “Never.”

She wanted to ask what that was supposed to mean, but he was already stalking from the room. Her shoulders sagged. She regarded her reflection in the mirror. She looked pale and haggard. Her body was drowning in his clothes. She needed hers. She didn’t want a damn thing from him. Sighing, she switched on the hairdryer and dried her hair.

When she stepped out a short while later, he stood with his back to the window. A bare overhead light cast a hollow shine with long shadows over the space where the lamp hadn’t reached earlier. The room was circular with bare walls. A bed and nightstand were pushed against one side. A dresser, desk, and chair stood on the opposite end. The furniture seemed old, but the mattress appeared new.

“It’s not very nice, but it’s clean,” he said.

She looked up to catch him studying her with an unnervingly perceptive gaze. An awkward silence stretched as they stood facing each other on opposite sides of the room.

When she couldn’t stand the tension any longer, she said, “I need my clothes.” Wearing his felt too personal.

His voice was flat. “They’ll be dry soon.”

“My backpack,” she said, suddenly remembering she’d left it in the house where they’d been attacked.

“Maya’s got it.”

“Thoroughly searched, no doubt.”

“Of course.”

The thought that Maya had gone through her things maddened her. She resented the invasion of her privacy.

He shrugged before adding with the same, emotionless tone, “As were you.”

Her stomach flipped. She hoped to God Joss hadn’t body-searched her when she’d been passed out. She wouldn’t forgive him crossing that line. They might’ve fucked in the field, but she’d been present and willing. Being drugged and unconscious wasn’t the same.

“Don’t worry.” He dragged his cold eyes over her. “Maya patted you down in the van.”

He did want her to worry. He was toying with her. That was his strategy, to keep her uncomfortable and on edge. If he was hoping he’d break her, he had another think coming. She wasn’t going to stick around like a sitting duck playing bait to draw out her grandfather.

He pointed at the bed. “Sit.”

“Why?”

His eyes tightened. “You’re still my hostage or do you need a reminder?”

Glaring at him, she walked to the bed.

He waited until she was balanced on the edge before he walked over and crouched down in front of her. After rolling up the sweatpants, he inspected her knees and feet. “I don’t have a first aid kit here, but I’ll treat those later.”

“It’s nothing.”

He rolled down the pants and straightened to stare down at her with steel-gray eyes. “It’s not nothing. It happened last night. That makes those injuries my responsibility.”

“They’re hardly injuries.”

“Stay.”

The command made her back snap straight. She wasn’t a pet he could command to fetch and roll over. If he noticed her irritation, he didn’t acknowledge it. He simply disappeared into the bathroom with the confidence of a jailor who knew his prisoner would stay. It wasn’t as if she had a choice.

He returned with disinfectant. “This is the best I can do for now.”

Guilt ate at her conscience as she watched him pour some disinfectant on a cotton swab. When he dabbed a cut with the swab, she asked, “Is Maya your girlfriend?”

He stilled. “If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t have had sex with you.”

At least that was one guilt less to carry.

“What made you think that?” he asked, continuing with his task.

“What people said.”

“You shouldn’t listen to what people say.”

“Don’t patronize me.” She hissed at the sting. “I’m not a child any longer.”

“Don’t I know that,” he mumbled.

She pulled her leg from his touch. “I’m sorry you’re so freaked out about having sex with me, but can we just let it go?”

“No.” His tone was brusque. “It may not be important to you, but I take sex very seriously.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t important— You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Clenching his jaw, he straightened and threw the swab in the trashcan. He took a shopping bag from the chair and held it out at her. “Make the bed.”

She stared at the bag. “You want me to make the bed?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why?”

Another one of those cat-and-mouse smiles played on his lips. “I don’t want you to lie on a bare mattress.”

“What if I refuse?”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” When she didn’t say anything, he grinned. “Thought so.”