Of all the questions she could have asked him … why had that one come out of her mouth?
His mouth quirked. “Yes.” He reached for her ribs, cupping them with strong hands. “Do you still think I’m a brute?”
“Def—”
His mouth brushed the corner of her jaw, sending a rush of sensation across her skin and making her breath hitch. It wasn’t a kiss, exactly. More of a caress. He moved lower, pressing his lips to a more sensitive place on her neck.
Rune’s pulse skipped. She closed her eyes.
Gideon moved lower still, to the base of her throat. Kissing now. Tasting her. When his teeth grazed her collarbone, Rune inhaled sharply, fisting her hands. The soft insistence of his mouth was a dangerous undercurrent, threatening to drag her downward.
His kisses continued, increasing in urgency, trailing over her skin. Was this real, or were they still pretending? She pushed her hands into his hair, cradling his head, silently telling him not to stop.
Should she invite him in?
Invite him up?
If she could get away for a few minutes, she could cast Truth Teller, and this time she would draw the spellmark on something useful.
Rune tried to keep her wits intact as his hands slid into her hair. As he pressed her against the door. She felt magnetized. Unable to resist the pull of him.
Focus, she told herself.
There was one rule she didn’t break in the games she played with her suitors. She might invite them back to her bedroom to coax out information, but she never brought them into her bed. It was a line she didn’t cross.
Would that line hold with Gideon?
As he kissed along her jaw, the words tumbled out of her. “Do you want to come inside?”
“I …”
Rune glanced up, her body humming. His eyes were ink-dark and ravenous. This was happening. She was going to open the door and they were …
Gideon stepped back.
Cold air rushed into the space between them.
“Perhaps another night,” he said.
Wait … what?
Rune straightened, trying to recover from her shock.
“It’s getting late. I should go home.”
“Right. Of course.” The sting of rejection made Rune glance away. “I’ll have one of the servants fetch your horse.”
He shook his head. “There’s no need. I know where your stable is. I can fetch my own horse.”
She was about to insist—she would be a poor hostess otherwise—when he interrupted, catching her hand.
“Rune.” His thumb brushed across her knuckles. “I would like to come in, but I promised to go slow with you.” Lifting her hand, he kissed the sensitive part of her wrist, making her shiver. “And if I step through that door tonight, I’m afraid I won’t keep my word.”
A wild feeling swept through Rune. She didn’t want him to keep his word. She wanted him to take her upstairs. This instant.
“Good night, Miss Winters.”
Turning away, he headed for the stables. Rune watched him disappear around the side of the house. Shakily, with her back to the wall, she sank to the terrace stones.
She could still taste him on her lips. Still feel the ghost of his hands on her ribs.
He doesn’t actually want you.
Her skin tingled everywhere he’d touched her.
You’re falling for his tricks.
Gideon was winning at this game. Because what they’d done tonight, Rune wanted to do again—for reasons that had nothing to do with rescuing witches.
“I loathe him,” she told the shadows in the garden, trying to remember all the reasons this was true.
But her voice trembled as she said it.
THIRTY-FOUR
GIDEON
GIDEON STOOD BEFORE THE floor-to-ceiling window of his office listening to Harrow relay her most recent findings.
“The ship we found that casting mark on?” said Harrow. “An hour before it set sail, there was last-minute cargo brought on board: two barrels of wine delivered by an aristo.”
Beyond the window, the scarlet sun set over the capital. The Ministry of Public Safety perched on a hill in the center of the capital, giving a view to the harbor.
Gideon wasn’t admiring the view. He was using his reflection in the glass to adjust his new suit jacket while he listened to Harrow’s report.
“Unfortunately, the man’s hood concealed his face,” Harrow continued. “And there was no moon that night. So the dockhands couldn’t identify him.”
“How do they know he was an aristo?” asked Gideon, doing up his cuff links.
The jacket was a gift from Rune, and had arrived less than an hour ago. To replace the one I ruined, said her accompanying note. He’d turned the note over, looking for the rest, but there was nothing more.