Shadowfever (Fever #5)

by Karen Marie Moning

“Barrons,” I shouted to be heard over the roars and grunts as bodies imploded with an unyielding barrier, “we’ve got a serious problem!” “Same page, Mac. Same bloody word.”

What are you doing, Mac?” he said softly—Barrons at his most alert

and dangerous. My laughter died and tears sprang to my eyes. He was in my head. I saw little point in hiding anything. He could take a good look around and see the truth for himself. “I didn’t get the spell.” My voice broke. I’d failed him. I hated myself for that. He’d never failed me. “I know.” My gaze flicked to his face, bewildered. “You … know?” “I knew it was a lie the moment you said it.” I searched his eyes. “But you looked happy! You smiled. I saw things in your eyes!” “I was happy. I knew why you’d lied.” His dark gaze was ancient, inhuman, and uncharacteristically gentle. Because you love me. I drew in a ragged breath. “Let’s get out of here, Mac. There’s nothing for you down here.”

Barrons held out his hand. “Don’t leave me, Rainbow Girl.” Rainbow Girl. Was that who I was? It seemed so long ago. I smiled faintly. “Remember the skirt I wore to Mallucé’s the night you told me to dress Goth?” “It’s upstairs in your closet. Never throw it away. It looked like a wet dream on you.” I took his hand.

He looked at me and I shivered. I never get enough of

him. Never will. He lives. I breathe. I want. Him. Always. Fire to my ice. Ice to my fever. Later we would go to bed, and when he rose over me, dark and vast and eternal, I’d know joy. Who knew? Much later we might fly a couple of Hunters to the moon.

The good guys and bad guys aren’t as easy to tell apart as I used to think they were. You can’t look at someone with your eyes and take their measure. You have to look with the heart.

Here I am, his dark gaze said. Don’t expect me to make the first move. I’ve been making it since the day you sashayed your manicured, deluded little self in here. You did not. You treated me like— A woman I wanted to fuck. You aren’t my type. It pissed me off. Get over yourself—you aren’t my type, either! I’m your only type. Admit it. You admit it. I wanted to send Fiona home, drag you behind a bookcase and grow your fancy pink ass up in a hurry. Mark you. Fuck you till you figured out you belonged to me. How shocked pink Mac would have been! How horrified. How turned upside down. How … turned on. All that wasted time. We could have been fighting and having sex and getting inside each other’s skin. Women don’t belong to men. Bullshit. Fine. Then you belong to me, Barrons.

He laughed and lay back on the floor and folded arms his behind his head. I wasn’t fooled. I could feel the violence in him, too. We were like two great boulders, crashing into each other, chipping away, seeing if the other might crack.

I finally had Jericho Barrons exactly where I wanted him. Rock hard, ready, and between my thighs.

I’ve never known a man as beautiful as Barrons. I’ve never been with anyone as sexual and uninhibited. Sex is Jericho Barrons’ religion. He worships, he defiles. He fucks with the single-minded devotion of a dying man in search of God. He leaves no part of a woman untouched. When he’s inside me, the world ceases to exist. On the floor, on the counter, on the Chesterfield, across a chair, in his study over the desk, it was as if we were the only two people alive. Nothing mattered. The world could have ended and neither of us would have given a damn as long as the bookstore remained standing around us and we could continue fucking.