Hard. Hot. Like he couldn’t help it. Like he hated himself for it.
I didn’t stop him.
I should’ve. But my mouth opened under his like it had been waiting for him. Like it remembered how he tasted, how he moved. How he’d broken me open in that workshop and rebuilt me with his hands.
He backed me into the wall, one arm braced beside my head, the other sliding around my waist. I clutched his shirt, tugging him closer, needing the contact like air. His mouth moved over mine with brutal precision—hungry, desperate, full of things we didn’t know how to say.
But then?—
“Wait.” I broke the kiss, panting.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“I’m still mad at you.”
His lips brushed my jaw. “You’re allowed.”
“And I’m not someone you can just fuck into silence.”
His body stilled against mine, but his voice—his voice was a fire set low. “I don’t want you silent.”
“Then what do you want?” I shoved lightly at his chest. Not enough to make him move. Just enough to make a point. “Because one minute you’re storming around like I don’t belong, and the next you’re showing up at my door like you can’t stay away.”
He stepped back.
“I don’t know what I want,” he admitted. “Except you. And I hate that.”
The words hit like a slap.
“Well,” I said, pushing off the wall, “that makes two of us.”
His mouth flattened. “I didn’t mean?—”
“I know what you meant,” I snapped. “You want me when it’s convenient. When no one else is looking.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is having my reputation on the line because some broody soldier with commitment issues thinks I’m a distraction.”
His eyes darkened. “You are.”
My heart slammed in my chest.
“You’re the only thing I can’t get out of my head,” he said, voice like smoke. “When I should be thinking about work. About the threat. About her?—”
He stopped short.
I blinked. “Her?”
My brain scrambled, heart skidding into my ribs like it had slammed the brakes.
Her?
Who the hell was she?
A sharp pang knifed through my chest, swift and hot, and I hated how fast my mind conjured images—some long-legged blonde with a soft voice and a family name that opened yacht club doors. Maybe someone from his past. Someone he’d never quite let go. Someone who had the right pedigree for a man like him, with a fortune at his feet and secrets in his blood. A woman who wouldn’t care if he was distant or dangerous or disappeared for days at a time without a word. One of those cold, perfect types who could wear pearls with a straight face and didn’t flinch at the mention of a burner phone.
The idea gutted me.
