couple guys from the table behind us. I touched her shoulder and nodded at the door.
“Is he leaving?” she demanded.
“So am I. It’s a good thing.”
“Yay!” she mouthed and held up crossed fingers in a show of support, and I headed toward the ladies room.
The corridor was dark, the shadows heavy and smoke made for a choking fog. A hand came out of the pitch and grabbed my arm.
My fist shot out and I found myself slammed against the wall with my hands behind my back. I was about to raise my knee when I realized it was Jason who held me.
“What are you doing, Brynn?” His breath smelled of Guinness, but he wasn’t drunk.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “You keep grabbing me like I belong to you. I don’t.” But I made no move to free myself. I didn’t want to, it felt too good. The way his knee fit between my thighs, his broad chest against my breasts, and the solid weight of him pinning me against the wall.
He leaned closer. “You used to. And I belonged to you.”
I couldn’t breathe, but it wasn’t like when I’d thought I was dying, it was something else. His body burned, scalded wherever it touched me. I wanted to burn more. Hotter. Longer. I wanted him to incinerate me.
“Come home with me, Brynn.” Jason’s voice wrapped around me and burrowed into secret places.
My mouth was suddenly dry as I imagined doing just that. Really surrendering to him, not an act, not what I thought he wanted to see toward any end but pleasure. He was hard against my thigh and it sent a punch of desire through me.
Fuck, but no wonder people did such things to feel this. It was almost as good as killing.
I was wet for him, imagining him drilling into me, holding me just like this—so hard, so strong, so alpha .
Yes, part of me cried. If I’d worn the miniskirt, he could have been—no. I couldn’t do this. I had to—
He crushed his lips to mine and I couldn’t think, I could only feel. Jason’s mouth was as hard as marble, but it was hot, too and it transmuted my blood to lava boiling through my veins. He tasted of Guinness and salt, but of something else, too. Something cold and hot at the same time.
“Don’t go with him,” he murmured against my lips.
Him . Richard was waiting for me. I turned my face away from Jason. “I have to.”
“Why, because Jenna set you up with him? She won’t care.” He brushed his lips against mine again, one hand slid up my side and to my breast. “Tell him you changed your mind.” His lips moved to my throat.
My heartbeat pulsed through my entire body and centered wherever he touched me. I didn’t want it to end, but I had a man to kill.
“Jason, I have to. It’s what I was born for.” It was the closest I could come to a confession. If he knew Helreggin, then he would know what I had to do.
He released me abruptly and I was suddenly cold. I would do anything to have his hands on me again. Anything but what he needed me to do.
“You were born to fu—”
“You don’t understand.” I interrupted him and sighed.
“You’re right, I don’t.” He walked away from me.
I didn’t have time to think about what had just happened, because Richard was waiting for me. I pushed my way through the crowd and out the door to see Richard leaning against the wall of the next building,