Eli’s voice was in my ear—“You okay?”—and I realized my smile had thinned to something tight. “Yeah,” I lied. My throat tightened in a way that made me want to cough up the truth: that my chest wanted to split open for him and for the other thing that lived underneath that want—fear.
Malachi didn’t move. He watched, patient as a viper. The air between us hummed, taut as a wire. My skin flared where his gaze cut me. I felt naked in a way the sweater couldn’t hide. Then, impossibly, he lifted a hand and tilted his chin like a conductor calling for a single note. He spoke—so soft at first I thought I imagined it—but his voice threaded across the room straight to me: “Don’t let him kiss you tonight.”
Heat flooded the hollow of my throat, and the way he said it—possessive, hungry, absolutely
