We kissed like we fought, with everything we had, holding nothing back. Every sweep of his tongue was a challenge I met eagerly. Every nip of teeth was a dare. When I sucked lightly on his bottom lip, his whole body shuddered, and the power of it, of affecting him like this, was heavier than wine.
We couldn’t stop. Couldn’t pull away. Every time one of us tried to break for air, the other would chase their mouth back, desperate for another taste, another second of this perfect madness.
The car took a sharp turn, and we broke apart, breathing hard.
“Why?” I whispered, my lips still tingling. “Why did you keep it from me? Who were you engaged to?”
His whole body tensed. “Dakota, I …”
The car stopped. Harsh hospital lights flooded through the windows.
“We’re here, Mr. Pierce,” the driver announced.
Axel’s jaw clenched, that vulnerable moment evaporating like smoke. He shifted me carefully as the door opened, people already approaching with a wheelchair.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, gentle but final. “Later, Sunshine. Let’s get you treated. Make sure you’re really okay.”
But as they wheeled me through those automatic doors, his expression already shuttering closed, I wondered if later would ever come. Or if I’d just lost my only chance to understand the mystery that was Axel Pierce.
The man who’d just kissed me like I was the only thing keeping him alive.
44
PSA: SOME CONFESSIONS REQUIRE KISSING TO PROCESS PROPERLY. #EMERGENCYPROTOCOL
DAKOTA
The penthouse looked like a crime scene.
Blood streaked across marble. Shattered glass glittering by the dining table. The ghost of Mathew’s fury still hanging in the air like smoke.
And Axel, standing in the middle of it all, looking like he wanted to tear the place apart with his bare hands.
“You shouldn’t have gone outside.” His voice could’ve frozen hell.
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Oh, we’re doing this now?” I kicked off my heels with more force than necessary, ignoring the throb in my freshly stitched head. “After you kissed me senseless in the back of that car? After you told me I’m all that matters? Now you want to scold me like I’m a child?”
“You could have been killed.”
“By a punch? Blake said?—”
“I don’t give a damn what Blake said.” He spun toward me, and the raw fury in his eyes made me step back. “Do you have any idea what seeing you covered in blood did to me?”
“Maybe if you’d told me about your secret fiancée, I wouldn’t have needed to storm out for air.”
Something dangerous flashed across his face. “You want to know about her? Fine.”
He started pacing. Not the casual kind. The caged-predator kind that made my skin prickle with awareness.
“Her name was Cassandra. We worked together.” He ran a hand through his already-disheveled hair. “And the only reason I ever touched her was because I couldn’t stop thinking aboutyou.”
My heart stuttered. “What?”
“You heard me.” He stopped pacing, pinning me with that steel gaze that always made my knees weak. “Everything I’ve done for years has been about not thinking about you. Not wanting you. Not having feelings for you.”
