We’re both whacked on the right side, shattering the perfect kiss.
“Sorry!” the doofus calls over his shoulder, but he doesn’t even stop, scrambling past. “Hey, don’t leave me!”
Roland and I break apart.
I’m breathing hard, and he looks almost shaken, his face flushed, his eyes strange.
He stares at me for a good long while before he looks away, drawing a slow breath and smoothing a hand over his hair.
“Now I’m a believer,” he says.
“Come again?”
“Ghosts, Callie. We just had a visitation from Casper the un-fucking-friendly-ass spirit,” he growls.
I throw back an easy smile.
I’m also anything but relieved.
“Shall we catch up with them?” he asks, a gritty undertone in his voice that makes me tense in places I shouldn’t be thinking about.
“S-sure,” I answer shakily.
Just like at the gardens, he offers me his arm. Only, there’s so much more to taking it now.
Touching him feels totally electric.
Yep, I’m a hot mess, but I can’t resist slipping my hand into the crook of his arm.
Together, we catch up with the rest of the group, hovering at the back and ignoring the curious looks being thrown our way.
The rest of the night is a blur.
The old hotel, plus one more stop at a haunted bakery, of all things, to finish off. The little jump scares lurking to heighten the experience have zero effect.
How could they?
They’re like ladybug kisses after what just went down.
Nothing can make my heart hitch more than the man at my side.
I can’t be attracted to Roland. I can’t.
I’ve said that mantra so many times it sounds more hollow every time I say it again. Especially when there’s no denying what this feeling is.
Wanda’s scowling, judgmental face fills my head.
I hate that she might’ve been right. That I might be like the other moonstruck employees she mentioned with a brutal crush on the bossman.
I don’t want to be another reckless new hire.
I want him with an ache so deep it’s like a sickness, weakening my bones.
And I know what happens if I tempt fate.
I’ll be discarded like the rest of them.
Exiled.
Probably the fate I’d deserve.
Wanda gave me fair warning in her own coded terms, didn’t she?
I’m starting to see why she’s trying to protect him.
God, after this trip, I understand more than ever what it is about him that inspires such rabid loyalty no matter how devilish he can be.
But I think she was trying to protect me, too.
Telling me in her own smarmy way that Roland Asshat can’t do anything but leave my heart a dumpster fire.
I’m not in a good place.
Not when I’m still entertaining ridiculous thoughts.
Can rejection possibly ache more than this longing rushing through me?
Don’t, Callie.
I’m relieved when the tour ends and the duck boat lets us off where we started.
Suddenly being next to Roland is unbearable, like standing too close to a fireplace when you’re bundled up in five layers.
If you maintain the right distance, the heat feels comforting, sustaining, welcoming.
Get too close and you’ll suffer.
I’m burning, all right, as we stand on the sidewalk outside the tour office.
I breathe in the fresh, summery night air, so fragrant with Austin’s nightlife and cuisine, trying to clear my head.
“I think my fun meter’s pegged,” I say with a faint smile. “Sorry if you had anything else planned, but I think I’ll grab an Uber back to the hotel. These shoes are killing me—eee!”
Yes, that ungainly shriek came out of me.
Because without warning—abrupt and impulsive as only Roland Osprey can be—he totally ignores my small talk.
Instead of listening, instead of acting like a sane person, he catches me in those tree-trunk arms and lifts me off my not-so-achy feet.
In the blink of an eye, I’m up against the broad expanse of his chest, his scent, his masculine charm.
There’s no resisting human instinct then.
My arms fold around his neck as the ground falls away, reminding me just how tall he is.
And how very close I am to his lips from Hades again, offering redemption and ruin in the same boiling kiss.
I freeze, staring, two seconds away from cardiac arrest. Ten times the butterflies we saw in the gardens take flight, prickling my entire body.
He’s going to do it.
He’s gonna flipping do it.
He’s about to close the gap between us, take my bottom lip in his teeth, and smash me like the fragile teacup I am.
“Better?” he asks, an intimate thrum between us.
Oh, no. What?
“Yeah,” I whisper, my throat dry. “But you can’t carry me around Austin...”
“No, but I can carry you to our car and up to your room.”
Brain, meet pavement.
I wish my imagination wasn’t so lucid.
Because all I can see is Roland going full bodice ripper, hurling me onto the huge bed like some dark knight with fuck-hot hair, laying me down, his hands mauling every inch of my body.
Maybe it’s written on my face.
Or maybe his mind just went to the same filthy place.