Her throat snapped closed.
He lifted a handful to his face. “You smell like a meadow,” he murmured, inhaling her exotic scent. How many times had he dreamed of touching her just like this? Her skin was silky and smooth like a petal.
She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Her knees had jellied, and she stood staring into pools of turquoise swirling with gold.
Ever so slowly he inched closer until his lips skimmed the surface of hers. Trembling, her bones dissolved, her eyes clouded fluttering close, and her head fell back in utter surrender. She wanted him, like she wanted to dance.
Then his mouth was on hers and every willing thought died. Stunned at first, she felt the heat in her belly, a hot gush. A wild swirl of lights blazed behind her heavy eyes. Circling her arms around his neck, she swayed against him and demanded more.
Oh. God. Yes. She wanted this. Just him.
On a whimper of pleasure, she slid her hands into his hair. He deepened the kiss with a tangle of taste uniquely hers, and she felt the dangerous strength in his body. But she was afraid, not of him only of the crazy emotions and needs he enticed inside her.
Then she erupted. Her mouth went wild underneath his, and the kiss went from sweet to starving.
Holy hell. She stripped him of the control he desperately needed. What made him think one kiss would be enough? Or that it would be simple and sweet. This was strong, reckless, and left him stunned.
It took every ounce of control but reluctantly he pulled away, ending the kiss far too soon. He knew he was teetering on dangerous ground, and for her safety he had to stop while he still could. “I’ve wanted to do that since the first day I saw you.” He kept her close, unable to let her go.
She looked up at him, flushed and wide-eyed. “What took you so long?”
His laugh was like sunshine, bright and warm. The kind you couldn’t help but return. “I didn’t want to scare you away.”
She snorted. “Please. If I hadn’t made a move, I’d probably still be waiting for you to talk to me. And this…was so much better than talking.” When had she become a little hussy? Had she really just say that? There was something about Travis that made her throw caution to the wind.
He cocked a brow in amusement. “Really. Is that what you think?”
Before she knew his intent, she was on the ground in screaming laughter. His fingers tickled her sides bringing happy tears to her eyes.
“Stop,” she sobbed between giggles. “I relent.”
As soon as his arms let her go, she darted quickly over the ice out of his reach. Her bubbling squealed was like music, and he watched appreciatively as she skirted over the ice.
He was guy after all.
Staring at his illuminated face across the span of the pond, Emma was amazed she didn’t fall flat on her face. She was still drifting in a daze from his kisses. And washed in that daze she didn’t recognize the sound at first. It was the sudden change in Travis’s face that alarmed her. Gone was the lightness. It was replaced by stark terror and an eerie golden light.
By the time she realized the ice was cracking under her feet, she was falling into an abyss of needle stabbing water. Opening her mouth to scream, the sound was filled with gushing sloshy water, burning her throat and lungs with its sharp coldness.
She knew she only had minutes before her body would shut down, and she would be lost to the darkness. Thousands of needles pricked everywhere over her skin. A million times worse than she ever could have imagined.
Thrashing, her body quickly started to sink. It was impossible for Travis to make it to where she was without him falling in and her descending out of his reach.
Travis. Her thoughts reeled around him, and the kiss she had waited so long for. It had been worth the wait.
Worth her life?
She was going to die.
She was going to die on the single most blissful day of her short-lived life.
Chapter 10
Looking above her, a halo of light surrounded the spot she had collapsed into the frozen tundra. The beating of her heart slowed in her ears, and she closed her eyes. There was nothing but blackness below her.
Nothing but her death.
Travis could not believe what his eyes saw. It had to be a joke. A cruel joke.
He heard the unmistakable sound of ice splitting, and the ground fell out under him. “No!” he thunder as he watched Emma submerge into the ghastly cold waters.
This couldn’t be happening. Not to his Emma. He had brought her here. Put her in danger. The laugh was on him. To think he spent all his time worried about hellhounds, lower-demons, and every other hellish thing out there that might hurt her, and in the end it was him.
How would he be able to forgive himself if she…died? He choked up at just the thought.
Never before had he been so glad for his superhuman abilities. Without them she would surely die…and that was inconceivable.