And as he had so many times already, he had miscalculated. Badly. But that wasn’t what had seared his brain.

She had responded to his kiss. Her spectacular mouth had moved so gently and hesitantly under his it had made some long-dead thing in his chest squeeze tight.

Even now as he thought of it, his skin grew hot and his groin hardened in the first involuntary response he’d had in…

Gods, he couldn’t remember how long it had been.

Abruptly, he did a mental one-eighty. Hell, it was a good thing he had burned down the new, tentative bridge they had begun to build between them. Just as well that she ended up looking at him like he was Satan personified and the embodiment of every male asshole on the continent.

He’d already squandered far more thought, time, and effort on her than he’d ever intended. As he already knew, quite well goddammit, there was no room for nice people in his life. And there was absolutely no room for beautiful, vulnerable women no matter how intelligent they were or how promising their future looked.

Or how soft and inviting their lips looked. Felt.

As he drew close to his destination, he pulled out his phone and punched Maria’s number. When she picked up, he said, “I’m calling a coven meeting.”

Her lightly accented, low contralto sounded in his ear. “When?”

“In fifteen minutes. I’m almost there.” Gathering in person was rare, but the others had already evacuated to Maria’s safe house, and there was no time like the present. “Tell the others. We’ll have Steven FaceTime from New York.”

One thing he appreciated about Maria—she didn’t waste time on unnecessary conversation. “Okay. We’ll be ready when you get here.”

He signed off. Then, even though he had been watchful from the moment he had left the office, he drove through a series of maneuvers designed to lose a tail.

While his Audi purred along neighborhood streets, he whispered spells to prevent farseers from gaining accurate visions of his actions. It was all standard procedure that he insisted his coven employ whenever they gathered. His insistence was why they had all survived as long as they had.

He was confident he had garnered no more than the usual mundane interest from starting the new job, but he never, ever left things to chance. Sloppiness could get you killed.

Or worse. There were much worse things than death.

Finally he reached the address at the southern outskirts of the city, another country house as unprepossessing as the one outside Atlanta. He followed the gravel drive around to the back and parked beside two pickups, a Subaru Outback, and a Honda CRV.