"Everything with you is non-negotiable!" Harper threw her hands up. "You decide, I comply. That's the pattern. I turn around and you're there. Every time."
He growled. "It's necessary."
"It's control!" She poked him in the chest. It was like poking a steel bulkhead. "And I'm done with it. I'm done with you managing me. Just go back to your reports and let me breathe."
"I am not managing you." His voice dropped an octave, the calm veneer cracking just enough to show the steel beneath. "Yesterday a male approached you. If I hadn't been there?—"
"He was just talking!"
"He wasn't just talking." Kirr's jaw tightened. "He was testing distance. Some of these younger warriors haven’t been cleared by the mate program. They see a female walking around and they assume permission."
"And you do?" She stepped closer, fueled by adrenaline and fury. "What do I look like to you, Kirr? A job? A duty? A mistake you have to babysit until the LMP decides to deport me?"
His jaw tightened.
"Is that what you think this is?" he asked. "A job?"
"I don't know what this is!" She gestured vaguely between them. "I don't know what last night was. Panic? Adrenaline? A mistake?"
Something shifted and the air between them went heavy.
Kirr went still. Deadly still.
"A mistake," he repeated.
"It happened. That's it," she lied. Her heart pounded against her ribs. "Don't make it into a thing."
A low growl rolled through his chest.
"I'll show you mistake."
He moved and she didn't even have time to blink. One hand wrapped around her waist, the other tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. He swept her up—actually picked her up off the floor like she weighed nothing—and backed her into the granite island.
"Kirr—"
"Shut up."
His mouth crashed down on hers. Not the gentle kiss from last night. This was a claiming. It was rough and hungry and desperate. He devoured her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth with a dominance that made her knees buckle. If he hadn't been holding her up, she would have hit the floor.
Setting her on the counter, he stepped between her thighs before she could even process the movement.
Gasping, she clutched his shoulders to anchor herself. The cold stone bit into the back of her thighs, but everything else was heat. His chest was a solid wall of it against her breasts. He smelled of spice and male aggression, and god, it went straight to her head.
She should push him away. She should fight.
But she didn’t. Instead, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer.
He groaned against her lips. His hands were everywhere… gripping her hips, sliding up her ribs, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh of her waist. He was so big that he surrounded her, engulfed her.
He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers. His eyes burned and she couldn’t look away.
"Tell me," he rasped. "Tell me this is a mistake."
"Kirr..."
"Say it." He kissed her jaw, a biting nip that made her shiver. "Say it while you're wrapped around me."
She couldn't speak. Her ability to frame a thought? Gone. All she could feel was the hard length of him pressed right where she needed it. Thick and rigid. Impossible to ignore.
