Free My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel

cast a yellowish glow on everything. She could see him just fine. He was standing, naked, with his arms crossed over a chest you could use for an anatomy lesson. “I feel safe and snug. There’s an unknown number of crazed magehelds out there who think my heart is their target for the night, and you’re just going to take care of them. Pardon me if I don’t get much comfort from that.”
    He made a noise low in his throat that sounded an awful lot like a growl and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “Quit arguing and listen up, why don’t you?”
    “Fine.” She glared at him. “I’m listening.”
    “I can take care of them when they get here.” He touched her cheek with the tip of a finger. “Seriously, Alexandrine. I can and will. You can trust me about that much. But since I can’t feel magehelds, it’d be nice to have some advance warning.” He waited a minute. “Stay close and tell me when you feel them coming, and we’ll be just fine.”
    Tension curled in her, choking her. “How am I supposed to know something like that? I mean, what if it doesn’t work? My magic. It doesn’t always, you know.”
    Xia shrugged. “I don’t know what you mages feel.” There was enough light for her to see his muscled chest and the quite noticeable bulge of his biceps, not that she was staring, and below his belly button, she noted he had an innie, a narrow dark line of hair descended south, and… No. Not looking. “You knew to get the hell away from the door before it blew.”
    “I’m not reliable that way.”
    He rolled his eyes. “All I’m asking is that you tell me when you feel the urge to book it out of here.”
    “Believe me,” she said. “I feel the urge right now.”
    He tensed, and it wasn’t just your average tension but a state that telegraphed his readiness to engage and fight. For her. She got another chill. This was the real deal, she thought, him flipping from standard pain in the ass to combat-ready in a blink. This just couldn’t be happening. “For real?”
    “No,” she said. Great. He was all business, and she was jerking him around. “I’m sorry.” She about choked on the words, but, damn, she owed them to him. “That was juvenile of me.” She stared at her feet. “I know this is serious. That was stupid. I shouldn’t have made light of it.”
    He was silent long enough to make her uncomfortable. At last he said, “I still need to proof this place. You on board with that?”
    “Proof my apartment.” She shook her head. “What does that mean, exactly?”
    “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
    He didn’t say that like he thought she was stupid. “No, actually, I don’t.”
    He didn’t answer right away. “Okay,” he said at last. “Proofing means I make a place or a room less prone to getting broken into by a mage or a mageheld. Using magic. There’s not time to make it much more than difficult for them to get in, but the sooner I get it done, the safer we’ll be.” He strode toward her, his knife gripped in one hand. She stared at his knife. Was the blade actually glowing? “Relax,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not going to off you.”
    “I didn’t think you were.”
    “Then I’m losing my touch.” He was near enough now that pretty much nothing was lost to shadow. Oh, my Lord, the man is gorgeous . Flat-out gorgeously made. He put down his knife and crouched by his gym bag. She managed to look away instead of staring. He rummaged around inside until he extracted a pair of sweats. “Listen,” he said while he stuck one leg, then the other into his sweats. “By now, Rasmus, or whoever the hell sent those magehelds, knows someone is here protecting you, since his boys didn’t come back.” He checked the tie at his waist and didn’t do anything to it. “Next time, he’s going to send someone who can get the job done for him. More than one.” He bent for his knife. “We need to be prepared, witch, because when those