Page 65 of Fuse

What the hell?

The mystery’s too thick for me to even pretend at being his Sherlock. I tell him exactly that by jerking his face up with both hands.

“Oh, my God.”

His gaze is a full spectrum again, blasting me with so many intense shades. The hurricane grays of his irises. The cobalt lightning rods erupting out of them, delivered to the edges of his eyes on strands of blinding silver, where they collide with strands of crimson rage. The kind of anger he only reserves for one person alone—only she’s not here right now.

Or is she?

Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

I plummet my hands to his chest. Push vehemently up from him.

“Oh, shit!”

I’m impaled deeper on him, though for the first time since we’ve been lovers, he grimaces in tangible pain about the fact. “Emma.” The whimper has taken over all of his tone now, but in place of his beautiful baritone, his agony delivers him to me again. The clear connection of our spirits. The bright ignition of our souls. The dazzling bond of every fuse between us, slamming the air like headlights blaring in a moonless night. It’s so overwhelming, my eyes sting and my throat convulses.

Just before he grits his teeth and bites out, “Get off me, baby. Right now.”

My eyes sting worse. I blink hard. “Excuse the hell out of—”

“Goddamnit, Emma!” he cuts in. “There’s no time. I can’t block her totally out for much longer.”

“Shit.” The reiteration comes with a new deluge of tears. I swing my head in wide but useless back-and-forths. “No. No. No!”

“Emmalina.” Though he’s back to channeling his inner wolf, the effort clearly costs him in resilience. “We don’t have time, baby. Listen to me.” When I pull back a little, he looks like I’ve given him water in the desert…and I hate it. My body has been hardwired by the universe to mesh with his, but his grip on my thighs conveys a defined message. He’s holding back. “Damn it, Velvet. Can’t you see? This is what she wants me to do. Why she chose now, when you and I were alone, to wake me back up.”

He could have told me Faline decided to blow up the rest of LA and gutted me less. Everything he’s said is a perfect string back to what Wade and Fershan have already posited…and though I confront that reality in the torment of his eyes, I state it aloud anyway. “Because Kane did put something into you.” As soon as the harsh angles of his face confirm that, I fight the yearning to bury my fist in one of the bedside monitors. “Something awful,” I rasp. “Her…her evil. Oh, God. It is a damn virus…and she woke you up, commanding you to fuck me…so you’d give me the electric flu as well.”

The grim validation on his face becomes the horrific motivation for me to slide all the way free from him. The second we’re apart, his cock springs up like an ignited flare, blue veins straining at the flesh, stretching him to the point that the shaft visibly jerks, his lips part on a rough groan, and thick drops of his stunning, glowing essence gush out of the slit at his erect tip.

“Holy…shit.” I facepalm myself, wishing I could toss off the motion as melodrama…but this situation is really that eye-poppingly insane. “H-How could you…did you…hold back?” His stunning cock is still dripping with those heavy, glistening drops—none of which are inside me.

“With me, all the code gives her is control,” he utters back through clenched teeth. “But if it gets inside you—”

“I’m dead.” I state it because I have to. Because I have no choice but to accept it. We were ready to screw each other like a couple of Grand Theft Auto horndogs, but Reece fought off Faline’s sadistic control and his raging libido, not spilling even one cell of himself inside me.

Unbelievable.

This man, identified for so many years because of the prowess of his penis, just saved my life because of his abstinence.

“Well, damn.” I pull in a shaky breath. Let it out on a wobbly sigh. “You do love me.” To depths that astound and move me as never before.

“Yeah, little Bunny.” His gaze glitters with matching intensity. “I do.” While he skates his touch up my arm, his tone descends into a concentrated growl. “And you love me too.”

“Yeah, you big ox.” I declare it through lingering tears. “I really do.”

“Good.” He curls his fingertips around the back of my elbow. “That’s…really good.”

My heartbeat clutches…and not in a mushy I’m-sixteen-again way. “Why?” I draw it out with open suspicion, not encouraged when he sets his mouth into a determined line.

“Because I’m going to ask you to prove it.”

“How?”

“No,” he amends. “I’m going to order you to.”

“How?”