It felt the same as the night we’d banged all that mandy, except I had no desire to be out of my head right now, or ever again. I had no desire to be anything but present in a moment where Viktor looked at me like he was right now.
He doesn’t feel like that.
That voice again. I clenched my jaw.
Viktor’s smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
Nothing that I wanted to tell him.
I looked away.
He forced my gaze back to him. “We can leave if you want to go home.”
“I don’t want that.”
“What do you want?”
I wanted to know that he wasn’t biding his time to give me the slip. That he wasn’t eyeballing every baggie being passed around the club and wishing he was neck deep in that instead of dancing with me.
Not fair. He’s an addict cos some cunt forced it on him.
“Asher.” Viktor breathed my name against my lips. “Stay with me.”
My eyes had screwed shut. I wrenched them open and he was right there, hands on my face, his heart hammering against mine. His gaze so distraught it almost brought me to my knees.
“Please?”
“Please what?” I brought my forehead to his, sinking into him. Forever fucking lost in him. “What doyouwant, Vik? What do you need?”
For a long moment, there was nothing but the lights and the heat of the club cocooning us. The heady thrum of the bass synching my pulse to his.
Then he kissed me.
[ 15 ]
VIKTOR
Kissing Ranger was as magical the second time as it had been the first. But his reaction was a world away. Back then, he’d slid into kissing me back with a slow meander, smiling against my lips.
Now, he growled, hauling me against him, gifting me every inch of his lean body. Hishardbody, before he seemed to check himself and back off, leaving me with only his mouth.
It burned that he somehow knew I needed him to do that—that heknewthe first time we’d kissed, that ease, thatfreedom, had been an inconstant thing for me.
You shouldn’t kiss him. He’s not someone you can run away from, not anymore.
But I did kiss him, over and over, until I had backed him against a nearby wall—something I had found myself doing whatever mood I was in.
Something heletme do.
I was an assassin. A soldier. A mercenary with rivers ofblood on my hands. But Ranger was as untamed as my heart. And he was tough. If we fought tonight, he would win. Because I would die before I hurt him.
I would die if I stopped kissing him.
If he stopped kissing me.
He likes to be touched.
My hands remembered this before I did, grazing his painted skin, his abdomen, his ribs.
