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The way they flicked between me and the back door of the car.
Anticipation burned through his being.
I didn’t want to concede to the honesty of it.
The way I could feel his own spirit dragging through the space, desperate for the same thing as me.
Maci’s joy.
Guarding myself from the potency, I forced myself to move, and I rounded the backside of the car so I could unbuckle Maci from her seat just as Mom pushed the button to pop the trunk.
“It’s about time, Auntie. Ifoughtyou forgot all about me,” she said with her adorable lisp and one of those unending grins.
With quivering hands, I fumbled to release her buckles. “I would never forget about you, Maci. Never.”
“That’s really good because I would never forget about you because you are the best auntie I ever got.”
“You’d better not,” I told her with a tap of her nose, trying to keep it light and not devolve into hysteria.
Still, when I pulled her out into my arms, there was nothing I could do but hold her close as I inhaled a staggered breath.
Then I froze when I felt the presence encroach from behind.
Obliterating.
Decimating.
A shockwave of intensity that slicked across my skin.
A wave of disorder.
A tremble of thatthingthat had pulled between us since the moment I’d met him. Thatthingthat I had to eradicate.
There was no chance in hell I would survive staying under his roof for four weeks while he made me feel this way.
Toiling in contradiction.
Stewing in a conflict that boiled in the darkest corners of my being.
The disgust up against the attraction that had sunk the sharpest claws deep into my psyche.
“Mornin’,” Kane rumbled.
The rough scrape of his voice skated over me like the skimming of his hands.
God.
This was a nightmare.
Maci squirmed, urging me to set her onto her feet. “Good mornin’, Mr. Kane! I didn’t even know that I got to come stay at your house, but when I woke up, my auntie said that we get to, and Ifinkyou had a super good idea because I don’t got my old house anymore.”
My hands darted out to the roof of the car to support myself, and Maci wiggled around my legs to get to him.
I felt him stall, a stir of potency as he processed what she said, before I could feel the shift, sense that he was kneeling in front of her. “I think it’s a good idea, too. I think you’re going to like it here a whole lot.”
“I definitely like your house a whole lot! Ifinkit’s a princess castle.”
A low chuckle rolled out of him. “Well, I guess it is now since you’ll be staying here.”