A Deal With the Devil by Louisa George Page A

crossed him was. “Right now, I’d like to keep my job.”
    “You have it.” He nodded. “I keep asking questions and you block me at every turn. Why? What are you hiding? What are you afraid of?”
    You. Me. This. The strength and power of this attraction, falling too hard for the very wrong man. “I’m not looking for any kind of … thing with you. I don’t want to get involved with anyone right now.”
    “That makes two of us. Doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun, though.” His lips twitched as he curled his finger into a lock of her hair. The suspicion from before had dissipated a little—or he was suppressing it. Or playing her. She didn’t know which would be worse. “All work and no play …”
    “I can’t play.” Not with you . Not ever.
    “In that case, I will take what I do with you very seriously indeed.” His words were like a whisper over her skin. “You have my promise.”
    “I don’t want it.” She did want it. But she couldn’t want it. Reality was blurring dangerously with a fantasy of being in his arms. The heat from his hand set a fire raging in her belly that spread through her, warping boundaries, twisting her sensibility. As she looked at him she was aware of her breathing stuttering, quickening. Of the pull towards him, which seemed insurmountable, utterly overwhelming. Hopeless. Exciting. Her peripheral senses shut down, cocooning just him and her in a world of take now , or leave and don’t look back .
    She could not leave.
    Her fingers went to his mouth, she traced once more across his lower lip. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to press herself against him and have his scent on her skin, his lips on hers. She wanted him. And she let herself believe, just for a while, that she could wrap herself in this moment, with him, and nothing dangerous could ever reach them.
    Then her fingers touched his scar and she remembered his reaction to it the other day. Why the hell she had the sudden need to ask him this now she couldn’t fathom. She wondered if this was a line she wasn’t ever meant to cross. Whether talking to him about something so deeply personal would push him further behind those barriers he put up.
    But she crossed the line anyway—because there was so much about this man that she needed to know, wanted to know. And none of that curiosity was fuelled by revenge, or her job, or a newspaper angle. It was something else entirely, something that scared her. “The other day you weren’t entirely honest about this, were you? There’s more?”
    “It’s nothing.” He turned away but she pulled him to face her. It was something, she thought, something tragic and painful, she could see it in his eyes. Something that held him back on a personal level. Something that gave him that dark edge.
    “I don’t believe you. Your mouth says one thing and yet your eyes say something altogether different.”
    His body tensed. “For God’s sake, Kate. Really? You want to talk about this now?” He reached for her hair, wound his fingers into her curls and stepped closer. So close she could feel his heart thunder against his chest. “Because there’s a whole world of things I’d rather be doing …”
    He wanted to kiss her. That much was obvious. He wanted her and that gave her wings. And a little courage. “Call me old-fashioned, Rey, but I do like to know something about the person I’m spending time with.”
    His eyes darted to the floor as he pulled his hand from her hair, reached for his glass, downed the contents. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”
    “Yes. It does.” Putting her hand on his shoulders she turned him to face her. She took his hand in hers, felt the shiver of electricity fire between them. This was real. “I’m listening. I want to know about you.”
    “I’m sure you’ll find all you need to know on the Internet.” He lifted her hands from him, moved away from her and closed his eyes. Those strong fine fingers touched the