Page 57 of Paramour of Sin

“For an incubus, you’re being pretty damn dense,” I snapped. With his weight gone, I slipped off the bed in an effort to put some space between us. His touch was lethal. Both literally and figuratively.

But I needed my wits about me to process everything he’d just said.

“Fuck, Guinevere. What the hell did I do?” Zane called after me as I started toward the bathroom.

I paused in the doorway and whirled on him. “You just told me Lord Zebulon forbade you from touching me.”

He sat up in the middle of my bed, the covers hanging low on his hips. Confusion knitted his brow. “Yeah. What’s the problem?”

I snatched my robe off the hook on the bathroom door and shrugged it on. I felt too… exposed. Too naked. And I was about to feel even more so.

“I told you how I felt… and you… you let me think it was because of my age. You called menaïveand achild.” The words hurt to say, the pain I thought I no longer felt returning with a vengeance. Because I wasn’t over it. I was nowhere near over it. And I’d been lying to myself every time I claimed to be.

He’d destroyed me.

Made me feel like an immature little demon.

Had sent me home with my broken heart in my hands.

All because Lord Zebulon said he couldn’ttouchme?

“Technically true,” he said, drawing my attention back to him. “Compared to my age and experience, you are young and naïve.”

“Really?” His arrogance astounded me. I tied the sash tight on my robe and then planted my hands on my hips. “You hurt me, Zane. On purpose. Because someone told you I was a toy who couldn’t be touched. Anaïve, little toy.” And I’d stupidly let him play with me like one last night.

Ugh.

Zane sighed and shoved the covers aside to crawl from bed. He stood facing me, like he wasn’t sure whether to come to me or stay ten feet away. The latter was definitely smarter.

“He never called you a toy, Guinevere.”

“No, just a girl.”

“No, a sexy as fuck succubus he wanted for himself. So he protected you instead. From himself. From me. From a whole hell of a lot of demons, too, I’m sure.”

My eyebrows flew upward. “What? Are you saying there are more demons on the do not touch list?”

“What?” He shook his head. “No, I mean, he’s been protecting you, Guinevere. Just like I’ve been protecting you. We care about you.”

“Yeah, enough to have conversations about who I can and can’t love, apparently. And you cared so much that you then made me feel like achildafter confessing my feelings for you, becauseLord Zebulon told you not to touch me.”

Zane threw up his hands. “He’s our lord, Guinevere. What the hell did you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Tell me the truth?” I offered.

He laughed, but there wasn’t any humor to the sound. “When you say things like that, it proves how naïve you really are.”

My fury morphed to a raging hurricane. “You do not get to play all night in my bed and proceed to insult my age,” I seethed. “Get. Out.”

He took a step forward, reaching for me with one hand. “Don’t be like that, love. We’ve both wanted this for years… and now we can have it.”

“Wanted, past tense,” I snapped, stepping backward and into the bathroom to be out of his reach. “Good word choice, Zane. Because I no longer want it.”

He stared at me. “Then what was last night?”

I considered him a moment, then said the only thing I could. “Closure.”

His body went rigid. “What?”