Page 22 of Glimmer and Burn (Unity #1)

“What do we do?” Miranda asked, alarm clear in her face.

There were no windows or other doors that he could see.

They could hide, but even those options were limited.

Under the desk, maybe, but both of them would never fit.

He could tell her to hide beneath the desk while he faced Graves alone, but they'd use up all their time arguing about it.

As he ticked through options, his mind plucked one out of the many. It was better than doing nothing.

Twisting so that he faced her, Devin closed the distance between them.

He guided Miranda back, forcing her legs against the front of the desk.

“What are you doing?” Her unsteady tone caught him by surprise. He had expected her to strike him or plant her stance so she wouldn’t budge, not to easily cave while her eyes flitted over him like a rabbit caught in a snare.

“Hopefully, saving us from suspicion,” he said, and he reached out for her cheek, but hesitated and pulled away. He saw no better way to disguise their true reason for being there, but kissing her was the last thing he wanted and the only thing on his mind since they started this.

Miranda’s eyes widened, her alarm shifting to near panic.

“There has to be another way.” She started to fidget, her shoulders heaving with each quick inhale.

Devin had prided himself that all these years of questionable morals, he’d never kissed a woman against her will. “Do you have a better idea, cause you’ve seconds to find it.”

If dancing with her had shaken his senses, kissing her might do irreparable damage. Every muscle clenched.

There were footsteps outside the door. It would open any moment.

“Decide, Miranda, because time is up.” He set his hands on either side of her on the desk, forcing her back even further, intruding on her space but never quite breaching it. Let them both be damned, he wasn’t going to steal a kiss from her. If he kissed her, it would be because she wanted it, too.

She swallowed and looked at his lips, her body squirmed, and he let out an unintended breath between his teeth. He was standing too close to her and her dress was too damned big not to feel every swish and sweep of her skirts like a caress.

He took a calm breath in and out. It was his intention to remain a gentleman, or as much as he could given that he was suggesting they imply their purpose in that study was for him to fuck her on the desk.

Another calm breath. He needed to cool his blood, fill his mind with thoughts of dead puppies so he could keep from pouncing on her if she ever decided to initiate a kiss. Miranda was an innocent, as far as he could tell, and he wasn’t about to kiss her fully erect and high on desire.

Not like this. Not here, where it was merely a ruse to cover what was about to become a very dangerous situation.

That meant keeping the experience as chaste as possible, for her sake.

He did not like victory so unjustly won and did not savor this.

He did, however, want to know what her lips might feel like, even if it was brief.

The door handle moved. The lock only bought them a few extra seconds, minutes if whoever was there didn’t have a key.

He closed his eyes, not proud of what he was about to do, but it was probably the only way the stubborn minx would cave. He dipped his face toward her, whispering just out of her reach, “Afraid you’ll enjoy it?”

Her jaw tensed and her eyes locked on him with focused fury.

He knew what he was doing by goading her, but he’d miscalculated how much that fire in her green eyes excited him.

When her fist curled around his collar and she yanked, there was no amount of meditation that would cool the inferno in his veins.

At first, the crash of her mouth was harsh and rigid. She held his jacket in a fist and he froze as reality upended around him. It was more a show of force than a kiss, which he expected in part because everything with Miranda was a show of force. A battle. A fight.

But shit, he’d not planned on liking the brutality of her mouth. Excited by her yanking him down, body full of fire. Despite his honorable intentions he was raging hard and drunk with desire.

The door handle moved again, probably fitting the key in the lock, and she dived into the charade, parting her lips in frantic, passionate gasps. And… what the fuck was happening?

Devin had many faults. Vanity was up there.

He knew he was handsome and desirable. Knew what women liked and had bedded enough of them that a kiss was merely a means to more enticing ends, a teaser that he’d often enjoyed, but rarely did more than get things moving.

But nothing compared to kissing Miranda.

He’d had whole nights of passion that weren’t anywhere near as satisfying and arousing as Miranda’s desperate, probing tongue against his teeth.

Or her hands twisting into his neat lapels.

Or, fuck, the strength of her dragging him closer, backward, on top of her as easily as she tossed the guards on their asses.

He braced an arm on the desk to keep his balance.

Perhaps the door had opened, he couldn’t hear anything above the roar of his pulse and her faint, almost delicate sighs of pleasure.

He was fumbling—he, Devin Drake, whispered about in certain circles as the generous and unselfish lover—and he couldn’t keep up with the onslaught of her passion.

He expected chaste, maybe anger. Assumed she would become rigid with disgust.

In his wildest imagination, he had never anticipated Miranda Wilde to eat him alive .

Enthusiastically. No part of her was rigid or disgusted.

She was liquid, melding against him. And he should have used his free hand to touch her, to find all the spots that made her breath hitch, to savor the chance to feel the soft, olive skin beneath his fingers without the risk of her attacking him for it. But he was pure reaction.

There was a resounding click of the lock just as she dragged her legs up his thighs and arched into him at an angle that would have finished him if they weren’t fully clothed.

He groaned audibly into her mouth. The devil himself could have walked in that door and Devin would have told him to fuck off.

But it wasn’t the devil. It was much worse.

“Well, well,” A voice grated from the doorway, breaking the moment and Miranda’s hold on him.

Miranda pushed him as she righted herself and he fell backward a few steps, his body heated and frozen at the same time. A riot of emotions kept him from acting on the dueling impulses to scoop up Miranda again and snap Graves’s neck.

Graves stood with two guards next to him, his attire immaculate in ebony with gold embroidered designs. His eyes skipped over Devin and landed on Miranda.

“Miss Wilde,” he said with venom laced in the words, “Imagine my surprise to find you , in such a state. And in my private office, no less. What a very curious predicament we find ourselves.” Graves’s cold gaze finally landed on Devin. “You look familiar, have we met?”

Miranda had seconds to size up the situation. While her face was still flushed and her lips still tingled. Devin stood in the center of the study, head angled with a singular focus. He was going to kill Graves right there.

She threw herself between them, slamming into Devin’s chest and stealing his attention for a moment. His anger was palpable. The fury lingered like cold fire in the luminous blue of his eyes and he breathed with his entire body, but his mouth closed and he didn’t push her out of the way.

Graves’s glare, however, narrowed to pinpoint focus on her.

Her fingers trembled, but she was able to bury them in the many folds of her skirts.

It took all her strength to keep tears from springing to her eyes, but she refused to let him see her fear.

She stepped away from Devin, but remained close enough to see him should he lunge.

“Miss Wilde,” Graves said, controlled. “I admit I am quite shocked to find you in such a state. I thought you were beyond these sorts of temptations, if memory serves.”

Devin’s head spun to her, meeting her eyes with a wild sort of terror as if asking what Graves meant. She didn’t flinch. She wouldn’t. She coiled all her fear and trauma inward until all that remained was an emotionless mask. Hopefully it would be enough.

“I…” she started, but her tongue—which mere seconds ago had tasted Devin’s mouth, a thought that sent blood to her cheeks—felt dry and stuck. She’d felt realms of sensations she’d never known were possible and now fear threatened to break her apart.

She continued, “Yes, I think I may have imbibed too much and…got carried away.” She met Graves’s eyes with a hard glare.

She did not want to provoke him. Not in his domain with guards ready to do his bidding.

But she couldn’t resist holding up her chin with an air of defiance.

Her message clear. She had just not wanted him .

Graves’s styled hair had stark streaks of grey threading through the ebony and eyes that were luminous gold that offset the cold tones in his skin.

The impression of him was a well composed noble fae, but that is not what made him threatening.

He did not intimidate with his looks. It was his calm evil coupled with power that made him terrifying.

Miranda swallowed. “I didn’t know this room was private.”

Graves’s look was droll as he glanced down at the still unconscious guards.

Miranda shrugged. “I was too preoccupied to notice your drunken guards. It seems you should hire more trustworthy staff.” Her quip lingered in the air, filling the space to near suffocating. She wished she had paid more attention when her mother had babbled about choosing her words carefully.