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He spoke her name like an incantation. It made the warm ache between her legs sharpen and grow until she was more ache than girl.

Gideon continued, moving against her. Deeper, harder, insistent.

She was losing control.

“Gideon …”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.No.” A laugh escaped her. “Please don’t stop.”

Her arms tightened. The hand cupping her breast fell away as his arm curled around her waist, pulling her into him, focusing completely on this task. When she arched against him one last time, something broke. The blood roared in her ears. The world beyond them disappeared.

Lost in the shattering, she called out his name.

He sighed.

“Rune.”

She clung to him, waiting for the world to settle back into place. Wondering if it would forever be off its orbit now.

He kissed her shoulder, her throat.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered when they stopped, staring up at him.

“Didn’t know …?”

“That it would be like that.”

He pushed himself onto his forearms, brow furrowing as he searched her face. As if she’d just told him he hadn’t satisfied her.

“Like what?”

Rune smiled, tenderly cupping his face.

“Powerful,” she whispered, kissing the crease between his brows away. “Like two souls fusing into one.”

Like a kind of magic.

“Oh,” he said, and grinned.

Grinned.

Rune had never seen Gideon Sharpe grin in her whole life. Were there other ways to make him light up like that?

She wanted to find out.

IT WAS ONLY LATER,after Gideon fell asleep with Rune cocooned in his arms, that she lay awake, her whole body buzzing with a frightening realization.

I’m in love with him.

Instead of getting Gideon Sharpe out of her system tonight, Rune had gone and gotten herself addicted.

The hunted had fallen for the hunter.

FORTY-NINEGIDEON

GIDEON WOKE TO THEsound of the floorboards creaking. He opened his eyes, letting his sight adjust to the darkness, and saw Rune’s silhouette picking up her underclothes from the floor.