“Rohan?”

Ro shook his head sharply as if to clear it, cupping my cheek with his hand. “Can I…?”

He brushed his lips over mine, and pulled back, his questioning eyes locking onto me.

My chest felt heart attack victim tight. I should have said no. One of us had to be the grown up and initiate the relationship talk before we gave in to our chemistry.

As much as I knew that intellectually, my body wasn’t prepared to agree. My treacherous fingers gripped the front of his shirt like a baby with a security blanket.

Rohan’s nostrils flared at the contact; his tongue darted into the corner of his mouth. He covered my fingers with his. The touch was pulsing, crackling, like an invisible current flowed between us, leveling our jagged edges, burning those immutable hurts and loosening the tangle of thorns we’d become for one electric second.

I nodded. Barely even a movement.

Ro’s mouth crashed down on mine. I moaned because everything had gone dark and hot, his kiss fizzing through me. He sucked on my lower lip and my head fell back against the wall, hitting a framed print.

I twisted sideways so we didn’t knock it down. Nope, not a print. It was one of Maya’s platinum albums. Two minutes in my idol’s house and I was pawing at her son and destroying personal property.

I squirmed in his grasp. “We can’t do this.”

Ro kissed down my throat and my good intentions turned into me grabbing him by the belt to press his body flush against mine.

“We can,” he murmured. “We really, really can.”

“Your mom will be home soon and me mauling her kid is not the first impression I want to make.”

“I’m mauling you. But hey, if you want a turn just let me know and we can switch it up.”

I waved a hand at the walls. “I can’t behave badly in your mom’s house surrounded by her platinum records.”

“How about surrounded by awkward family photos?” He sucked on my ear and my knees buckled. Ro braced his arm across my back, holding me close. “Because if that does it for you, we’ve got a shitload in the TV room.”

Yes, obviously, I’d be checking those out, but that wasn’t the point. The fear of meeting Maya while grinding up on her precious son gave me the power to step away.

That and the fact that while sex had never been our problem, I didn’t want it to be our solution.

“Stop.”

Rohan stepped back. He dragged in a breath, his lips swollen, his eyes glazed. He ran a thumb over his lower lip.

“We need to talk.” I placed my hand on his chest to keep him at arm’s length.

Ro shot me a look of pure sorrow. “I know.”

There was a brief pause during which neither of us moved.

“I want us,” he said, his voice full of misery, “but I don’t know what that means or how to get it.”

I didn’t visibly flinch, but a gut punch to the soul didn’t have a physical impact. “I’ll call Pierre on my way back to the airport. Tell him to put someone else on the Randall case.”

I stepped past Rohan, desperate to grab my suitcases and bolt, but he caught my arm.

“Don’t leave. Please.”

Words I’d longed to hear that now left a hollow ache in my chest. “I’m sorry for how I made you feel, but I’m not sorry for making the deal and getting your magic back. And I don’t know how to make you forgive me.”

“I have a problem with forgiveness. I get that.” He released me, but I didn’t move. “Can we take things one day at a time? Try being together like a normal couple?”

I gave him a wry smile. “While enticing a demon to come after us and throwing our relationship into the spotlight for paparazzi and fans to rip apart?”

He screwed up his face. “Normal for us? We’re not going to figure this out apart.”

“True.”

“So you’ll stay?” His eyes darted across my face.

If we couldn’t figure this out, losing Rohan would be as horrible as losing my tap dreams. I could cut and run and I’d hurt like hell and drown it out in hot guys in bars like I had before, but if I did that, I’d end up in an even worse place than where I started. And I’d never feel like this again: like everything was impossibly full of potential, like I could gamble and win it all. All I had to do was risk it.

I willed down the hot, tight panic urging me to flee. “I’ll stay.”

“Can I kiss you again?”

I stepped in close to him and tilted my face up to his. “Yes.”

Rohan tasted like fennel seeds and home, his kiss rushing out to fill every inch of me. We tried to keep it sweet and light, but Ro and I weren’t made for sunshine and honey. Our desire was tinged with shadow and dark cherry.

He gripped my hips, pulling me up onto my toes. Our tongues tangled and voltage thrummed through my lips under the onslaught of his kiss. My stomach dropped into my toes; it was that first plunge of a coaster, that long, fast slide of black ice.

Glorious free fall.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, tangling my fingers in his hair and–

A door slammed.

I flinched and tried to get down, but Ro clutched my ass, causing me to rub against his hard-on with every step as he walked us down the hallway, and really, how was a girl supposed to resist?

More importantly, why ever would she want to?

“Gardener’s van,” he said. “You’ll know when Mom’s here because she clomps up the front stairs. Also, she’s out of town. I sent her and Dad away for a few days.”

I rocked my hips, a slow grind. “You didn’t think to lead with that?”

“Seeing you kind of scattered my thoughts.”

It was a miracle we didn’t break our necks up the stairs, making out like teenagers, our clothes flying and shoes kicked off. There was a precarious moment when we hit the top step and Ro’s pants got tangled in his knees, sending us crashing into the bannister.

We careened off it, bouncing into Ro’s doorjamb. He laughed, sideways walking us through a doorway, and tossed me on a twin bed.

I snickered. “This is your old room.”

It was plastered in superhero posters, except for the place of pride over the bed, which was dominated by a poster of a young Morrissey from The Smiths, prince of emo.

“Wow. It’s everything I’d hoped for.”

He spread his arms wide. “I have no secrets from you, baby. No shame.”

I tracked the sheet music sitting on the bedside table, a pencil thrown over the top but I couldn’t make out any actual lyrics.

He flipped the pages over, with a mock-stern shake of his head. Rohan’s creative process didn’t allow for other people seeing his work before it was finished.

“That and you want to get laid on your Batman blanket.” I kept my voice light and teasing, like I wouldn’t have given my right arm to know what that song was about.

“Fuck, yes.” He climbed onto the bed.

“In that case.” I crooked a finger at him and he fell on top of me, both of us laughing.

Suddenly, I winced and jerked sideways.

“Lilith?” he whispered.

“You caught my hair.” I moved his arm.

He rolled off me and onto his side, propping himself on his elbow. “We can wait. For however long it takes to get her out of you.”

I gave him a sad smile. “You look at me and you see her. You wonder–”

“No.” His denial was swift and fierce. “When I said that to you on the phone the other night?” He rolled onto his back. “What if the reason she’s trapped in you was because I did something wrong? Because my magic wasn’t strong enough or good enough or I fucked up plain and simple?” His voice cracked with anguish. “And you had to pay the price?”

Oh, Snowflake.

I jabbed a finger in his chest hard enough to make him wince. “That guilt you’ve obviously been torturing yourself with?” I snapped my fingers. “Lose it. It’s not your fault.”

He hesitantly raised his head to look at me. “But–”

“No. It sucks that it happened, but we’ll figure it out.”

Now would be a good time for full disclosure about my potential demise and black magic borrowing. It would be a very emotional conversation, with lots of tears. In other words, a real mood killer.

“Sex isn’t going to wake her.” I reached for the waistband of his boxers, but he stilled my hand.

“Really.” His voice was hard. Almost as hard as his rigid shoulders.

I replayed the past ten seconds. Oh. Was he freaking kidding me? I widened my eyes theatrically. “I have a confession to make. I’ve been with someone. The things he does.” I whistled. “Buzzes, vibrates. He can go for hours.”

Rohan ducked his head. “I didn’t actually think you’d hooked up with anyone else.”

“Yeah, you did, dummy. But I didn’t.” I swallowed. “Did you?”

“No.” He unclenched my fists. “You’ve ruined me for all other women.”

“Good.” I gazed up at him through half-lowered lids. “Then where were we?”

His tender smile curled filthily and my pulse spiked up. “Turn off your brain.”

I jutted out my chin. “Why? Because you’re so amazing I don’t need to fantasize?”

He pressed his hands to his heart. “She actually listens when I speak.”

“Shut up and fuck me on your Batman blanket, Snowflake.”

He put his hands together in prayer formation looking heavenward and mouthing, “Thank you.”

Then he jumped me. My bra was slingshot and left dangling off a guitar.

Ro broke our kiss long enough to roll me over onto my belly, both of us naked, his hand playing with my clit. I pressed my ass against his erection, rubbing shamelessly against him as his lips against my throat kept time with his busy fingers. His teeth rasped against my spine as he covered me in all his naked glory. And I do mean glory.

Rohan played my body like a favorite instrument: quickening the tempo on my clit to elicit a moan, scraping his teeth against my skin to pull it hot and tight, rolling his hips slowly to leave me gasping and clutching at the blankets.

My blood fizzed under my skin. I squirmed, bending one leg to run my instep along his calf. “Ro. Please. I need to taste you.”

“Since you asked so nicely.” He rolled away from me, my body going cold at the sudden lack of contact. He stretched out on his back, one hand propped behind his head. With the other, he motioned at his erect cock. “Have at it.”

I sawed my teeth over my bottom lip. I didn’t want polite and bantery. I wanted him to lose his precious control, break down the walls still between us until the idea of being without me was unthinkable.

“Make me.”

Ro’s breath hitched, with a growl he tangled his fist in my hair, pushing me down his body.

I sucked his cock into my mouth, moaning at the musky, salty, utterly male taste of him. My magic hummed through my lips, vibrating up through his erection.

“Fuuuuck.” He shuddered, his ass bucking off the bed. His fingers tightened on my locks and his eyes were two slits of gold under a dusky sweep of lashes.

My hair fell forward blanketing out the world, my entire existence reduced to the taste and feel of him. I scraped my nails along his inner thighs, licking down his cock to suck his balls into my mouth. I needed to be overwhelmed by him.

It was the only way to convince myself this was real.

He let go of my hair and I glanced up at him. The boy looked wrecked: pupils blown out, hands fisting the blanket, his mouth half-open, swearing under his breath, and canting his hips so I could take more of him.

“Stop,” he groaned. “I have to fuck you. Now.”

I gave one last saucy suck, before sliding off his dick. “That can be arranged.”

“Can it?” He rolled me over, pinning my hands over my head.

“You got me where you want me, baby. Now what are you gonna do with me?”

“I can’t hold back. This might be rough. That okay?” His voice was strained.

I cocked my head. “How rough?” Ro laughed, low and wicked, and I arched up under him. All the yeses to rough. A furious ache built up from Cuntessa, pulsing upward, muscles tightening in its wake. “Bring it.”

He slid inside me and I sighed. I’d been scared I’d never experience that glorious sensation of Ro filling me again.

“Yes,” he murmured. He teased Cuntessa with the pad of his thumb in small circles.

The room was silent except for the slap of skin on skin, our involuntary gasps, and our forceful exhales. It wasn’t tender, it wasn’t sweet, and it wasn’t enough.

I dug my nails into his ass, pulling him against me. “Harder.”

Ro stood up, tugging my legs up into a ninety-degree angle and fucked me into the mattress. Hips snapping, he launched into this dirty patter about how every part of me felt on him. Around him. His voice wound me tighter and hotter and his musk and iron scent put me into a heady trance.

Delicious sparks of pleasure sparkled from Cuntessa all the way into my toes. With every sense, I drank him in, half-blind with lust, my eyes unfocused. I was writhing, the Batman blanket bunching up around me more and more with each thrust and the bed scraping the ground in rhythmic pounding.

My orgasm hit me with the force of a freight train. Blinding white light filled my vision and sparks crackled off my skin.

It set Ro off with a hoarse groan, his teeth gritted.

He collapsed on the bed beside me. “Lilith show up?”

“I told you, sex wouldn’t wake her.”

“Yeah, but that was using your piddly toy.” He flexed his biceps, kissing each one in turn. “I’m all man.”

“How do you live with yourself?”

He swatted my butt and I laughed, sticking my tongue out at him.

Much as I was mostly certain all this business with Lilith would be resolved successfully, if I was going to die, at least I could get fucked seven ways to Sunday in the good sense before I bit it. Round two, I was coming for you, but first, a small business matter to attend to.

I rolled off the bed.

“Come back.”

Grabbing my phone, I flopped back down beside him, snuggling into the crook of his arm. “Selfie time.”

I angled the camera to snap us from the shoulders up since I was too comfy cuddled up naked to bother getting dressed.

“We look like we’ve been having sex,” he said.

“Exactly. The perfect photo to launch Operation Unbearable Girlfriend.” I laughed. “Unbearable Girlfriend Hell. Code word: UGH.”

Ro grudgingly played along until I added stupid hashtags like “#Blessed” and “#UGot2LuvIt” at which point he tried to choke himself.

“It’s for the mission,” I said. “You know how humble I usually am.”

He started tickling me and I shrieked, getting tangled up in the covers as I tried to get away. I could have stayed there with him the rest of the day, joking, cuddling, fooling around, and crossing my fingers that we were building the foundation of normal, but his Brotherhood phone rang. Our idyll was over.