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tattoo.
    “Beautiful, beautiful girl,” he murmured, hovering over her throat. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh and she moaned.
    He drew back, his eyes making love to hers, tender, patient. “Evangeline, can I kiss you?” he asked a scant second before claiming her lips. His mouth was full and his jaw rough with five o’clock shadow. Their lips lingered in their own loving embrace, even as her arms locked behind his neck. His arms circled her waist, his palm inching beneath the fabric of her shirt, and probing the small of her back.
    “Sean,” she whispered, “I’ve never been this close to anyone.”
    He groaned. “Me neither. I’m head over heels for you, don’t you know?”
    A sob rushed up her throat, and she caught his face squarely in her palms so she could stare into his eyes. “And me for you, Sean. But I’ve never willingly given my body to anyone before you.”
    His eyes fluttered and his quick breath crossed her face. He swallowed audibly. “What happened?” His voice cracked with concern.
    The soft yet protective expression in his eyes broke open a long-festering wound within her, and the story spilled out. How her father had chosen her for his bed. The raw disgust. How he’d lied and hurt her, and degraded her soul so much that she’d used drugs every day to erase a childhood of pain.
    Confessing to Sean bound her to him and relieved the guilt she’d been feeling about Will Cochran. No internal voice could soothe her as much as Sean’s careful kisses. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her body softening at his nearness.
    “Let me tuck you into bed,” he murmured against her throat.
    She nodded with a shudder.

Runes:
Chapter Six

    Will’s foot jammed the gas pedal, and he jerked the wheel, speeding into the passing lane. At his side, Gracie clung to the safety handle. He released a humorless laugh. “What are you afraid of? We’re immortals, remember? We can’t die.”
    She glared at him, but gave an embarrassed laugh. “I forgot. But do you have to drive like we’re on a race track?”
    “Yes,” he answered grimly, his mind filling again with the vision of bending Evangeline over his arm, and plunging his tongue into her sweet mouth. And then in a renewed burst of rage, he stomped the pedal and yelled, “Evangeline’s driving me fucking mad. She won’t answer me, and when I ‘Call’ to her, she holds her head and cries. She believes she’s insane and it’s my fault, but how the hell can I show up there and whisk her away? She’ll never come with me, and I can’t force her. To top it off, she’s sleeping with a mortal.”
    This discovery had been the worst. Though his eyes had followed Evangeline the entire time he’d dated her sister, he’d never seen her with a man. Now, he burned with jealousy every minute of the day, knowing her tender body was loved by the mortal man more often than Will cared to know.
    Given time, he knew he could persuade her to answer his ‘Call’. He had dreams of landing in Chicago and finding her glowing face waiting for him. Of dropping his luggage, and yanking her into his arms.
    Nowhere in his dream did he see the dark, muscular man who never left her side. Sean Livingston. He suppressed another groan as he thought of her pale limbs stretched beneath that man’s body, and the tattoo that belonged exclusively to Will given over to Sean’s kisses.
    Will rifled through his coat pocket for the pack of cigarettes he’d begun smoking again. As a college student he’d been a smoker, but had abandoned it when he woke one morning behind the science building, battered after being run over by a bus, but alive. He remembered crossing the street, preoccupied with lighting a cigarette, and reading a book. He'd heard the blare of horns bearing down on him. Shaken, he’d quit cold turkey.
    It had taken years to discover his immortal state. Being into extreme sports had taught him that in addition to surviving the wheels of a bus, he could