Page 40 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“Then kiss me. Kiss me like you kissed it in that trashy hotel, like you couldn’t wait for it to rip your clothes off.”

Oh, goddess, had Julian watched them? The thought made her sick. The room had been on the fifth floor. They hadn’t always bothered to close the curtains.

“Make me believe it, and if it doesn’t lift a whisker to intervene, I’ll let it live.”

His Aspect released her fully. That made it worse, and he knew it. Because she had to choose to slide her arms around his neck. To pull his face down to hers and brush her lips to his. To close her eyes and take it further, until his hand fisted in her shirt and his body stiffened with a response she didn’t want.

And then he shoved her off him, like she was somehow degraded, and wiped his mouth. His eyes glittered with something that might have been rage or lust or both. “Find the repository. Call me with its location by tomorrow evening.”

He turned and walked out of the courtyard. She stood there, frozen, as he climbed into his car and drove away. Then her whole body started to shake, like a leaf in the wind, and wouldn’t stop. Jensen whined low in his throat. He pressed up against her, but his warmth couldn’t cut through the chill in her bones.

“It’s fine,” she managed. “Everything’s fine.”

She swiped her keys from the table, dropping them twice before she got a firm hold. The courtyard didn’t have an exterior exit, so she walked back through the cafe. It was filled with cheerful knitters who all went silent as she walked through. That was when she realized she was crying.

She was almost to the door when Ella’s disappointed voice said, “I thought you had more sense, girl.”

She glanced over her shoulder, hands fisting at her sides. “Oh, fuck you.”

Meredith was in her car doing ninety, going anywhere but home, before it occurred to her that she’d told the Queen of Death to go fuck herself.