Page 50 of Seduce Me in Shadow

And Sydney is the first person I’ve confided in. Sharing my sorrow with her is dangerous, but it feels so good to unburden.

She throws her arms around me, as if she knows exactly how much it hurt to lose friends like Walt, who everyone called T-Rex because he was huge and had such lumbering footsteps. Or Brian, the prankster with the weird tattoos. Damn hard to believe that he’s gone missing under mysterious circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” Sydney murmurs. “I never meant to bring up something painful.”

For a brief moment in her arms, the hurt of the past and the worries about tomorrow are silent. I’m desperate to stay in this peaceful moment, but I can’t avoid reality. I need to leave before I do something stupid.

“I won’t ask if that satisfies your curiosity, since I know better. But I should get going.” I’m unable to resist filtering my fingers through her soft hair one last time. I drop my hand away with regret.

“One last thing.” Sydney grabs my wrist. “Kiss me. We never got to that last night.”

Her plea is so tempting, and I crave her mouth, but the increasing sweats, sex drive, and tingles tell me that I’m likely to be a wizard soon, and I’ll have the “gift” of being able to sense my mate by taste. If I give Sydney what she’s asking for, if I openmy burgeoning magical senses to her, I worry I’ll speak the Call, caution be damned.

If I lost her, it would devastate me and leave me vulnerable to the kind of lunacy that could kill me.

Besides, magickind is fast becoming a dangerous place—one in which Sydney doesn’t belong. She’ll be safer if she stays away from me. And if she stops writing stories likely to catch Mathias’s notice.

So unless I want to risk tying Sydney to me forever, kissing her is forbidden. And mating aside, I have no intention of staying, so kissing her would be more cruel, not less.

I put a hand over my mouth. “Not before I’ve brushed my teeth. You’ll thank me later.”

She frowns. “You say the right things, but I get the feeling that once you walk out the door, we’ll never be this close again.”

I try like hell to keep my expression neutral, but the distress on her face tells me I’ve failed Subterfuge 101.

“It’s…um, a complicated time in my life, with my brother, my parents, and assorted other issues. If it weren’t for all that, everything between us would be different. I would choose you, Sydney, and I would never let you go.”

I force my mouth shut.Stop. There. Now.The canned response I should have given her about being interested and taking it one day at a time? Not in my vocabulary. What on earth possessed me to be so honest?

Despite not lying—or perhaps because of it—she clutches the sheet tight against her breasts and looks ready to cry. “Are you leaving because I won’t give up my source? Had you hoped to shag it out of me?”

Regret slices me to the bone. “No, you’re right. Mixing business and pleasure isn’t wise.”

“Then go. We’ll forget last night ever happened.”

Impossible.

Her face is a kick to the heart. I’m heartily sick of playing this wretched game. Why the fuck did Bram drag me into his problems? “Sydney, later, if my life becomes less complicated…”

She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “Don’t say anything you don’t mean.”

I nod. I won’t spew reassurances I can’t give her.

Reluctantly, I turn and leave her bedroom with a last glance over my shoulder at her pale curves barely concealed in the white sheet, surrounded by a halo of that fiery hair. I struggle for the fortitude to leave, knowing my chances of ever holding her again are slim.

But I force myself to put one foot in front of the other and disappear down her hall.

Halfway to the door, I hear her murmur, “We both know there’s no ‘later’ for us.”

The truth is like a brutal uppercut to my abdomen. I brace myself against the wall and, fists clenched, try to catch my breath. It takes everything inside me not to return to her.

Damn it all! I stupidly thought I could leave here with my heart intact, but I’m at least twelve hours too late.

Chapter

Twenty-Four

Sydney

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