Page 54

As we came down, a sultry hush enveloped us, stirring with the heave of our breaths. Disoriented by the aftershocks of orgasm, my body deliciously crushed by the weight of his, I rested my gaze on his sweat-slicked face, half-mast eyes, and satisfied smile.

“You’re so exquisite and fierce. Raw perfection.” He looked me dead in the eyes, and I knew he meant it. It was there in the gentle stroke of his finger over my bruised cheek and in the worshiping kiss of his fang-less mouth. He was there, my doctor, the guardian of my body, the man I fell in love with.

“So are you.” But with those words, reality settled in. “Don’t leave. We’ll work this out.”

He pushed himself up, his lips flattened into an expression of resignation. He yanked my jeans into place with determination, tugging and pulling as he shoved them up my hips.

He adjusted his own pants, his face blanking, and his tone hollow. “I have to go after Aiman.”

I zipped and buttoned my jeans, my heart rate jumping back to hysteria. “He’ll kill you.”

He knelt between my legs and pulled me to him, chest-to-chest, my body mirroring his. “I can sense him. Not now but earlier tonight.”

Did that mean Michio could sense me? Because the connection I’d just felt during sex had gone beyond physical. Of course, we’d always connected on a deeper level, but this time left me profoundly shaken.

He brushed the hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “I can’t explain it, but I…” He closed his eyes, opened them. “I have to go to him.” His head snapped up, his gaze narrowing on the ladder on the backside of the roof. “They’re coming.”

Jesse and Roark? I focused, listening, hearing nothing. How did Michio hear them? Some weird spidey sense? I moved to put some distance between us, but he grabbed my hips and held me in place.

My palm rested on his face, my thumb moving over his soft upper lip. No fangs. “Let me talk to them first. I’ll explain—”

Footsteps landed on the roof, then Jesse’s arrow was there, bow stretched, the sharp point touching Michio’s temple. From the other side, Roark’s sword appeared beneath Michio’s chin, pressing against his throat. Both Jesse and Roark were still naked above the waist, a reminder that they’d stripped their shirts in their urgency to stanch Michio’s gunshot wound.

Given the stiffness of his scruffy, blond jawline and the give-me-a-reason-to-throw-down creases around his eyes, Roark wanted to finish this with his fists. "Let her go, Doc."

I caught Michio’s eyes, silently begging him to release his grip on my hips, but my words were for Jesse and Roark. “You don’t need the weapons. If he was a threat, he would’ve attacked you before you made it to the roof. But you can see, he’s here, on his knees, making himself vulnerable.”

Calm and composed, Michio held my gaze. “I’m a possessive man, Evie.” His hands tightened, fingers digging into my waist. “But I trust them with your life. Enough to leave you with them, to do whatever makes you happy.”

There was unspoken meaning there. A willingness to compromise, to share me with them. Which really meant jack shit, considering he meant to leave me with a celibate priest and spirit walker bound by a vision.

My hands curled into fists. “Don’t you dare leave.”

“What’s he talking about?” Jesse said, his eyes tapering into slits.

Michio turned his head toward Jesse, as much as the nocked arrow would allow. “I owe you my life. Both of you.” He glanced at Roark and back at Jesse.

Roark leaned down and clamped a hand on Michio’s shoulder. The gesture might’ve been touching if he’d lowered the sword. But it remained lethally angled at Michio’s jugular. “Ye referring to the dungeon? I den’ think Evie would’ve let us leave ye there.”

Jesse shifted his weight, confusion etching his face.

Michio looked at Jesse with something akin to compassion softening his eyes. “I owe you my gratitude and my respect. You carried the burden of Annie’s predictions quietly and alone, saved Evie’s life time and time again. And the hardest tribulation of all, you love her as deeply as Roark and I do, yet you selflessly prevent yourself from bedding her.”

My chest tightened against the truth of his words and the sadness in his tone. “Michio—”

A brush of lips warmed mine, there and gone like a breath. Like the man himself. With a whisper of displaced air, Michio vanished from the spot before me, from the roof, and several anguished heart beats later, I felt him leave the property.

I ran to the edge of the roof, willing him to appear in the dark field, to see him running back to me. But the landscape held still. Lifeless. Empty. He’d left, to go who knew where and how far, on foot, without me.