Pyromancist (Seven Forbidden Arts 1)

“Shh,” he said against her ear, smelling of apple brandy and a faint scent of soap. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She stopped struggling. Her heart believed him. How could she not? To her, he was still the no-longer-boy, not-yet-man who’d saved her from Iwig.

When she relaxed marginally, he held the bottle to her lips. Goosebumps raced over her arms. Letting her drink from his bottle felt intimate. Time had had a field trip with her resolve. Years of longing had long since chiseled away her restraint where Joss was concerned.

Tilting back her head, she took a sip. The apple brandy burned down her throat and heated her stomach. She was no stranger to Calvados. It was part of the staple diet around here. The women rubbed it on the gums of babies for teething aches. But with a fifty percent alcohol content, no one drank more than a couple of shots.

“Ouch,” she said. “That’s going to hurt.” Meaning his head in the morning.

“It won’t be the worst hurt I’ve had.”

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

He dragged a hand to her waist, rubbing a thumb over the strip of naked skin above the waistband of her shorts. “Why are you?”

The calloused pad tightened her skin. A thrill ran up her spine.

His gaze sharpened. Awareness darkened his eyes. Like that day in the woods, he saw her. He saw right through her to the secrets she carried in her heart.

The bottle fell on the ground with a thump, the liquor making a sloshing sound. He fastened both hands around her waist and lifted her to straddle him. Her pulse spiked. He seemed to take in every blink of her eyelashes and every whisper of air she dragged through her lips, reading her like a book. When he smoothed his palms over her sides under her T-shirt, he carefully turned a page, and found another shiver written on it.

Satisfaction heated his gaze. For a man who was drunk, he watched her with cunning attention.

He was drunk.

“I should go,” she whispered.

He tightened his hold. “Not yet.”

Almost innocently, he flicked a thumb over her nipple. The touch was light, but it sent a jolt through her body. The tip hardened under the cotton of her bra. Heat bloomed under her skin.

“You’re jumpy,” he said in a raspy voice. “Are you frightened or excited?”

Both, but she wasn’t going to admit that. Pushing on his shoulders, she fought to get up. “I really should go.”

With one arm wrapped around her waist, he held her in place while he covered her breast with his palm. The broadness of his hand swallowed her curve. Her breath caught. Heat spread through her belly to her core. She opened her mouth on a protest, but thoughts and words vanished when he flipped up the cup of her bra, exposing her breast under the T-shirt. She could help the moan that fell from her lips as little as the perverse expectation that built in the pit of her stomach, silently begging to feel the calloused pads of his fingers on her naked skin. Just a little, then she’d pull away.

“Still want to run away?” he asked in a seductive tone.

She barely summoned the willpower to give the right answer. “Yes.”

“That’s not what your body is saying,” he said, finally giving her what she wanted by squeezing her nipple between a forefinger and thumb. “Not if this is anything to go by.”

An echoing ache throbbed between her thighs. If he still had any doubts about how aroused she was, the sharp intake of her breath when he rubbed his thigh against the seam of her shorts gave him the answer.

At the sound, his nostrils flared. He kept her grounded with his unwavering attention, holding her gaze as he stroked a palm up her thigh under the hem of her shorts. She gasped when he brushed a finger over her groin, tracing the elastic of her panties.

“I think we’re going—” She was going to say too fast, but he’d pushed away the elastic. “What are you—”

Another gasp, louder this time, strangled her words when he ran a pad over her slit. Her skin contracted under his touch, her inner muscles clenching around emptiness. Her folds turned slick.

When he discovered her deepest secret, he uttered a sound close to a growl. “You’re wet for me.”

His voice was raw and primal, another cue for her to run, but she was a rabbit and he the headlights.

Gripping her hair in a ponytail, he pulled back her head and, before she could find her bearings, pressed their mouths together. His lips were warm and soft. They tasted like caramelized brandy apples, the bitter of burned sugar mixed with the sweet. The kiss was so gentle she didn’t put up her defenses, and when his tongue stole inside her mouth it was too late. She was lost.