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“Don’t say it,” Graeson whispered.

The inside of her cheek was raw, and she let it loose. Unclenching her jaw, she dropped her shoulders, trying to release the tension permeating her bones. “It’ll never be enough.”

His hands wrapped around each of her wrists, gentle and loose yet present. When Graeson spoke, his words were barely above a whisper. “Why can’t this be enough?”

Kallie sighed and looked away. “This could never work.”

“See? Does my reason even matter when your reason not to trumps that? You want power; you crave it. You feel as though you cannot live without it.” Graeson tugged on her hand. “Look at me.”

Kallie gritted her teeth, but she refused to look at him. She kept her gaze on the wall beside him.

Graeson tugged again. “Lookat me, Kalisandre.”

Kallie’s gaze snapped to him like a rubber band that had been stretched out too far and then was released.

“Why areyouhere?” Graeson asked.

“Because it is my duty to protect—” Kallie began but shut her mouth as Graeson spun them around. Kallie’s back hit the cement wall, not enough to cause any actual pain, but enough to force the air out of her lungs from the shock.

“Why are youhere,” Graeson repeated, his words sharpening, eyes glowing, grip tightening.

Kallie dropped her gaze to her wrist. Graeson, having noticed where her gaze had gone, uncurled his fingers.

“Because it is where I am meant to be,” she said at last.

His fist smacked against the wall a foot away from her head.

He hung his head, black strands of hair falling in front of his face. “You cannot mean that!”

Graeson was standing so close that when she inhaled, her chest rose and brushed against his. In the small space between them, the air was hot.

He was too close.

Yet, not close enough, a small part of her whispered in the back of her mind.

In her peripheral, his arm flexed, the veins pulsing as he clenched and unclenched his fist that was still pressed against the wall.

Without thinking, Kallie’s hand rose. Her fingers wrapped around his bicep. The muscle tensed at her touch, and his head lifted. Her attention dropped to his lips. Even months after, Kallie could recall the taste of butter on his lips from that first night in Pontia and the sweet taste of spring from the second time.

But how would they taste now? she wondered.

One kiss wouldn’t hurt. One last taste.

“Didn’t I tell you what would happen if you did that again?” Graeson asked, his voice hoarser, darker, lower than before. The anger from moments ago disintegrating into the air, a raw tension left behind in its place.

“Hmm?” Kallie hummed.

This was not the time to be getting distracted, yet what did she have to lose? Her morality was already gone.

Fabric shifted. The space between them vanished. His thumb scraped her bottom lip and pulled at it. The back of his finger slid across her neck, his nail scraping against her skin. His thumb lay across the center of her throat, his palm on her collarbone.

Kallie swallowed. But that slight movement of her throat only made her more aware of his skin on hers.

Heat formed in the tiny space that existed between their flesh. She tried to focus on that space rather than the points where they connected. But whenever she thought of the distance between them, Kallie only wanted to eliminate it.

Perhaps she was going at this the wrong way. Maybe to rid her mind of him once and for all, she needed to give her body what it thought it wanted. Then she would prove that it was the farthest thing from what she needed.

Her hand slipped to the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and Kallie claimed him for the last time.