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Story: A Forbidden Alchemy

“And clobbered a man blind.”

He turned and found me one pace behind. His chest was an inch from my nose. “You’ll wait in your room for the doctor.”

A different woman might have given in then, their stomach shriveling as mine did. “You planning to carry me up there?” I asked. “Throw me over your shoulder?”

His eyes flashed. “You say that like it isn’texactlywhat I’d like to do.”

I swallowed. “It’s a lot of stairs, Patrick. You wouldn’t manage.”

“Careful.” He crouched until his nose was level with mine, his lips a hairsbreadth away. “That sounded an awful lot like a challenge.”

Heat washed over me, a thousand small flares sputtering beneath the skin. I narrowed my eyes. Tried to pretend like I wasn’t on fire. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“But Iwoulddare, Nina,” he breathed. “I’m just bidin’ my time. Don’t give me an excuse.”

There was an instinct to close what little distance remained. I ignored it. “You’re so confident you could get me in bed just like that?”

For a moment, he only watched my lips, and I was a heartbeat away from letting him have them, bravado be damned. My thighs pressed together, my stomach jolted with fresh thrill. He was going to kiss me, right there in the street.

But Patrick’s eyes suddenly sharpened, and he leaned back, amusement dancing across his face. “Didn’t say anythin’ about a bed, now did I?”

He left me standing there alone, my face ruddy red, the tightly spooled cord in my chest unraveling.

CHAPTER 25NINA

Colson & Sons was overflowing with patrons.

They trickled out the door and onto the street, littering the walkways. Isaiah wove between their legs, then disappeared inside, and Patrick sighed, cursing quietly at the crowd.

“You’d better pick me up now, Patrick,” I murmured as we approached. “You’ll lose me in these crowds.”

He gave me a withering glare. “What are my chances of bribing you to stay upstairs?”

“I have no need for money.”

“Or sense, apparently.”

Some of the patrons looked up as we approached. Patrick grabbed my wrist, his long, roughened fingers enveloping it and winding my arm around his. “Stay near to me,” he said low in my ear. “There’re a lot of people here who hate me, Nina. Do you understand?”

“No,” I said bluntly. “In fact, the more I see of Kenton Hill, the less I understand.”

He scrubbed at his face. “Just do this one fuckin’ thing, all right? Stay by me.”

The people stuck out in the cold parted for Patrick; a few nodded to him genially. One man called out “All right, Patty?”

They now stared at me openly, and I chose to allocate their quizzical expressions to the oddity of an unfamiliar face in town, rather than the possibility that they knew exactly who I was.

The racket within the pub was such that I’d rarely heard before. The walls were too close, the ceiling too low to bracket all these people standing shoulder to shoulder.

The same woman as before stood behind the bar, shouting, “Beer only! Beer only at meetings, you bunch of louts! I’m not pourin’ any fuckin’ whiskey with this many in a room! Mind your manners!” And so the pints were meted out by the staff at terrific speed. Everywhere I looked, glasses sailed overheard, finding tabletops and greedy hands.

Patrick cut through the crowd easily. Some patted him on the shoulder, but Patrick stopped for no one. He pulled me along at his side, and his hand gripped so tightly I almost complained.

The men watched with interest. The women looked on with disdain.

“He’s got a bird on his arm,” someone muttered, none too discreetly. “She looks right familiar, don’t she?”

“That’s the Charmer,” another said. “Caused a bloody earthquake in the market today. Didn’t you hear?”

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