Forty-Eight. Rune

FORTY-EIGHTRUNE

RUNE HAD WORKED ITall out in her head on the way up the stairs.

She was the Crimson Moth. The girl who secretly saved witches from the purge. To keep saving them, she needed a permanent source of intel. And Gideon Sharpe was that source.

She needed him.

It had nothing to do with the way he growled her name against her throat. Or the way he worshipped her with every stroke of his hands. Or the fact that he thought she was most beautiful when she was a huge mess.

Rune needed to give in to this deadly attraction because it was the best way to make her worst enemy believe, with no more doubts, that she wasn’t a witch. That she had nothing to hide.

Tonight, she would put Gideon’s suspicions to death forever.

Tonight, she would win this game once and for all.

These are the things she told herself as Gideon carried her into his apartment. She had to. Because if she didn’t, a deeper truth would come roaring to the surface. A truth that asked: What if?

What ifshe wasn’t a witch and he wasn’t a witch hunter?

What ifthis didn’t have to be pretend?

Inside, he set her down and shut the door behind them. In the momentary absence of him, Rune took in her surroundings. Pale light from the streetlamps spilled through the windows, silhouetting the spare furnishings. Rune had the strangest urge to turn on the lights and commit every shelf, floorboard, and piece of furniture to memory. As if every object might tell her a secret about him. Rune wanted to know them all.

Gideon’s hand found hers. He tugged her through a door and into the room beyond. When Rune sighted the dark outline of a bed and realized where they were, her stomach tightened. She felt like she always did before a heist: equal parts nervous and excited.

He kissed down her throat, his fingers working the clasp at the top of her riding jacket. “Promise you’ll tell me if you change your mind …”

Arching her throat, she buried her hands in his hair. “I won’t change my mind.”

“But if you do …”

“Gideon.” Close to his ear, Rune whispered: “Less talking.”

He smiled against her skin.

His hands made quick work of her buttons, and her jacket loosened. Peeling it off her, he dropped it on the floor. Rune wore only a bralette underneath, the white lace illuminated by the pale light from the street.

At the sight of it, Gideon made a rough sound in his throat. Her whole body shivered in response. Rune tugged the hem of his shirt out from where it tucked into his trousers and slid her palms underneath, skidding up his warm, solid chest.

He worked at the button of her leather riding leggings as he kissed the hollow of her throat, the line of her collarbone, the skin through the lace of her bralette. Pulling her deeper under his spell.

When her leggings were loose enough, his hand dipped beneath the line of her underwear, sliding warm fingers between her thighs.

A tiny sound escaped Rune, who trembled beneath his caresses.

Gideon didn’t stop. Her fingers curled into her palms at the pleasure he was stoking. Her breathing turned uneven. She looped her arms around his neck and pressed her face against his shirt, unable to think. No longer caring how dangerous he was. How bad for her.

“Take off your shirt,” she said. “I want to see you.”

He immediately obliged, eager to please.

“Anything else you’d like me to …”

Grabbing the bottom hem of her bralette, Rune tugged it over her head and dropped it on the floor.

He sucked in a breath. “Rune.”

She took his hands and pressed them to her skin, guiding him to the places she most wanted to be touched. His palms moved over her, exploring every inch of her. Cupping her soft curves. Stroking her bare skin.

She relished the roughness and warmth of his hands.

Rune pushed down her leggings next, and her underwear with them, kicking herself free. At the sight of her, Gideon’s breath shuddered out of him. She dragged the tip of her nose carefully across his jaw as she undid the buttons of his uniform trousers. A moment later, they too dropped to the floor.

“Can we move to the bed?” she asked.

“We can do anything you want.”

Cupping her neck, Gideon kissed her, walking her backward. Rune sighed against his lips, letting him lead her there.

Her bare calves hit the wood of the bed frame behind her. Drawing back the covers, she sat down and drew him in after her. He straddled her legs as he bent to kiss her. Rune lost herself in the sensation of his mouth on the bare skin of her stomach, the scrape of his teeth on her hip bone, the roughness of his cheeks as he kissed between her thighs.

Rune had never known this kind of hunger. He was drowning her in it. Drowning her with his mouth and his hands and the growl of her name deep in his throat. Bringing her to the cusp of a world she’d never dreamed existed.

Before thrusting her over the edge, Gideon came back up.

“Wait, no,” said Rune, breathless. “Why are you stopping?”

“Oh, I’m not stopping.” He lowered himself gently on top of her, nuzzling her cheek. “I was just warming you up.”

Oh.

He moved against her.

Oh.

Her legs tightened around him like a snare.

“Unless you’d prefer me down there …”

“No,” she said, as his hands moved over her again, fingers stroking, warming. She liked him up here. The heat of his skin on hers. The delicious, heavy weight of him.

“Are you all right?” He sounded almost breathless.

She nodded, feeling her temperature rise. Her skin flushed as sweat gathered on her hairline. “Yes,” she breathed.

He kept going.

“Your heart is racing …”

She nodded. She knew. Looping her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer. She pressed her mouth to the scar on his chest, tasting him.

He spoke her name like an incantation. It made the warm ache between her legs sharpen and grow until she was more ache than girl.

Gideon continued, moving against her. Deeper, harder, insistent.

She was losing control.

“Gideon …”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No. No.” A laugh escaped her. “Please don’t stop.”

Her arms tightened. The hand cupping her breast fell away as his arm curled around her waist, pulling her into him, focusing completely on this task. When she arched against him one last time, something broke. The blood roared in her ears. The world beyond them disappeared.

Lost in the shattering, she called out his name.

He sighed.

“Rune.”

She clung to him, waiting for the world to settle back into place. Wondering if it would forever be off its orbit now.

He kissed her shoulder, her throat.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered when they stopped, staring up at him.

“Didn’t know …?”

“That it would be like that.”

He pushed himself onto his forearms, brow furrowing as he searched her face. As if she’d just told him he hadn’t satisfied her.

“Like what?”

Rune smiled, tenderly cupping his face.

“Powerful,” she whispered, kissing the crease between his brows away. “Like two souls fusing into one.”

Like a kind of magic.

“Oh,” he said, and grinned.

Grinned.

Rune had never seen Gideon Sharpe grin in her whole life. Were there other ways to make him light up like that?

She wanted to find out.

---

IT WAS ONLY LATER,after Gideon fell asleep with Rune cocooned in his arms, that she lay awake, her whole body buzzing with a frightening realization.

I’m in love with him.

Instead of getting Gideon Sharpe out of her system tonight, Rune had gone and gotten herself addicted.

The hunted had fallen for the hunter.