Page 59 of Inked Adonis

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Nova Pierce.”

At that, she actually smiles.

We slip into silence, watching Rufus bound through pools of lamplight. The night air carries an edge of winter, but Nova’s warmth beside me burns like a promise. Or a threat. Sometimes with her, it’s hard to tell the difference.

I check my watch. “Time to head back.”

Her smile fades, but she doesn’t argue. And as we walk home, she keeps pace beside me, close enough that our arms brush with each step. Each touch is a reminder of what she is: my prisoner, my problem, my temptation.

And if I’m not careful, she might become something far more dangerous.

20

NOVA

For a second there, I thought he was going to kiss me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper as I lead Rufus into his crate. I might be projecting, but I could swear his eyes have a certainBitch, you stole my manquality about them all of a sudden.

But I didn’t steal him. Not even close. All I did was fantasize, just the tiniest little bit.

One kiss. That’s all. What would be the harm in one kiss?

It’s just two lips meeting. Biological, you know? Surely it wouldn’t be hot. Surely it wouldn’t be long or gentle. There’s no way in hell it would be a star-melting, Earth-shattering collision of Samuil’s mouth on mine, the kind of thing that doesn’t just cross a line, but smashes it to bits and scatters those bits to the wind.

… Right?

Anyway, it didn’t happen. No kiss. Thank God.

Rufus whacks me with his tail on his way into the crate, which does not feel like an accident. It’s like he can hear my thoughts and is trying to tell me that one kiss would indeed have shattered the Earth, but more in aAnd then everybody diedkind of way.

Then he settles inside and presents me with his ass, head burrowed into the deepest, darkest corner like the dramatic bitch he is.

“You aren’t his type,” I mutter, but guilt gnaws at my insides. I reach in to scratch him, and he rewards me with a slobbery lick to my wrist. Forgiveness comes cheap when you have fur and four legs, I guess.

I close the crate and step back—only to collide with a wall of solid muscle. Sam’s chest presses against my back, his hands steadying me with a grip that sends electricity dancing across my skin.

“You okay?” he asks.

Ha. The audacity of that question. I’m so fucking far from “okay.”

I was just thinking about kissing the man who plucked me out of my life like a weed in his fucking garden. That doesn’t exactly scream “okay” or “well-adjusted” to me.

But as I turn around, I also can’t stop looking at his mouth. So what the hell do I know?

“Nova…”

My heart thrums in my chest. I’m sure he can hear it, too. I meet his eyes and panic lances straight through me. “I should go to bed.”

“It might be a little tight with Rufus already in there,” he remarks with a straight face.

A laugh escapes me, dissolving a fraction of the tension crackling between us. “I think I’ll let Rufus have the crate. I tried it out, but turns out I’m not built for kennel life.”

“Glad you got there on your own. I didn’t want to have to order another one.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Someone’s a comedian tonight.”

“Actually, I’m nothing of the sort.”

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