Ryodan broke the kiss and pushed me away so abruptly that I stumbled backward over the chair behind me and nearly went down. My body was cold where the heat of his hands had been. My legs were shaking and I was so full of heat and need that I couldn’t even speak for a moment. I just stood there, wanting him back, touching me again, holding me, taking me apart inside and waking every cell up. What would it be like to get naked with this man, shut the world out and let go of everything, knowing he could handle all of it for me? Walk away from responsibility, let him take over, feel safe. Get to rest. Recharge. Go out into the world whole.

I regained my balance and stood, staring blankly at him. He’d opened a box inside me that I couldn’t shut. Not fast anyway. “Wait, what?” I shook my head, trying to clear my stupor. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You need to leave. Now,” he gritted.

“That’s not what you mean. Your body doesn’t remotely mean that.” I hurt from the lack of contact with his body.

“You’re a fucking virgin.”

“Oxymoron. I’m a nonfucking virgin. And there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin. I kept it for a reason.”

“Get out,” he repeated, and his silver eyes went cold and hard as ancient coins. The open, unguarded man disappeared right before my eyes and it pained me to see him go. It felt like being cut off from something sacred. Like being deemed not sacred enough to get to see it.

“Right, so now you get to be Jada?” I snapped.

“Jada had purpose. I just didn’t want you to be her all the time.”

My hands fisted at my sides. “I don’t get it. You kiss everyone else. For fuck’s sake, you kissed Jo. I’m as pretty as Jo.”

“You. Aren’t. Everyone else.” He paused, then said in a rough voice, “And you’re not pretty. Goddamn it, Dani. You’re beautiful.”

“And there’s yet one more reason why what you’re saying makes no sense,” I said angrily. He could die! “What if you die and never get to kiss me again?”

Silver eyes narrowed, glittering with anger. “That’s why you wanted to have sex with me? Because I might die sooner than Dancer and you figured you might as well fuck us in the order of who would die first?”

I bristled. “I didn’t say I wanted to fuck you. I was just kissing you. And you were kissing me back. And you were liking it.”

He stepped back and the light fell in such a way that half his face was shadowed, one side clear and easy to see, the other concealed by darkness. “Come back in three days with Dancer,” he said as tonelessly as I’d ever sounded as Jada. “We’ll save Shazam. You’ll find a world and make a home with Dancer and never return to Earth.”

“Fuck you, Ryodan,” I said, stung by his rejection, his icy remoteness, and my return to being on the other side of his infernal walls. For a few minutes I’d been in the garden. And I’d been evicted.

“Just said no to that,” he said coolly.

I whirled and kicked up into the slipstream.

Nothing happened.

I was shorted out.

Sometimes I really hate that man. At the moment, I really, really hated him.

Pretending that I’d never even tried to freeze-frame, I stalked from his office, slowly, long-legged, and sexy as hell, showing him exactly what he was never going to have. I put into sensual motion all those incredible feelings that had been awakened in my body by him and Dancer.

He’d had his chance and blown it. Rejected me.

No man gets a second chance with Dani-O.

Not even the great Ryodan.

As the door slides closed, I rest my forehead against the cool glass.

My office feels empty without her in it. The sun vanished behind clouds.

She stood there looking at me with fire in her eyes, comparing herself to Jo, unable to see they weren’t remotely the same. Yes, I’d casually fucked Jo. One doesn’t casually fuck Danielle O’Malley.

Her energy is nuclear, white-hot and pure as the new-driven snow. Passion is where she’s united, suffering no conflicts. I might be forged of hellfire but the woman-child is forged of pure energy and emotion, fierce and Valkyrie-strong.

Another man will experience her raw self-discovery, the volatile nuances of her first time.

I could have watched her talk for days. Eyes shining, face luminous, heart blazing in her face so brilliantly it had illuminated my entire office, warmed my cooling skin.

I still feel the burn of her hands on my face, in my hair, sliding down my body as our kiss took a much deeper, more savage turn.

But a storm like me isn’t what should come crashing down on the last vestige of her innocence.

She needs a slow immersion with a gentle hand that gives far more than it takes, a man who will dance her slowly, tenderly, into love. She needs something the fierce-hearted warrior never had: a normal, good experience with a normal, good man.

I’m not that man.

Fucking me would make her more like me.

Fucking him will make her more like him.

I knew the child. I know the woman. She’ll never be satisfied with a single lover. Dani craves experience, challenge, change, tempering, growth. She needs to taste it all. I understand that.

One day she’ll choose a mate. She’ll hunger to be a wolf running with a wolf of her own at her side, equals in everything, and when that time comes, she’ll need to know she’s chosen the absolute best.

I am that man.

But she has no basis for comparison.

She’ll give her virginity to Dancer. Soon. She’s on fire.

She wears my brand.

I’ll feel far too much of it. This time and every time.

Immortal though I am—if I survive the next week—the coming years might seem my most eternal yet.

I will never be her first.

But one day I’ll be her last.

DANI

I stepped out of the shower and toweled myself dry, smiling, listening to the sounds of Dancer banging around in the kitchen getting dinner ready.

There was only this moment, this night. The warmth of home, the delight of my best friend making a homemade pizza, the promise of a movie we’d pause more often than we played so we could talk about everything under the sun.

I’d made a deal with myself—no thinking tonight. No thoughts of tomorrow or Shazam or Dancer’s heart or the fate of the world. I know a truth: worrying doesn’t make tomorrow better; it only makes today worse. I wanted a single golden night before I made the hard decisions I had to confront.