"I'm necessary."
She exhales a shaky breath, then reaches out to place her flour-dusted hand on my chest, right over my heart. The heat of her palm seeps through my black t-shirt, branding me.
"You're hard," she murmurs, fingers curling slightly into the fabric. "Every part of you is like a wall. Muscle and scar tissue."
"I'm a blacksmith," I say. "I work with metal. I become what I work with."
"And what am I?" she asks softly. "Dough? Something you can mold?"
My control fractures.
"No." I reach out, my large hand enveloping her waist, pulling her flush against me. The contact hits like a live wire, a jolttraveling straight to my cock. "You're the fire, Tiffany. You're the heat that makes the metal yield."
Her breath hitches. I feel the softness of her breasts pressed against my chest, the curve of her hip under my hand. The size difference is obscene. I could crush her without trying, but all I want to do is wrap myself around her until the world disappears.
"Blake," she breathes. The way she says my name—like a plea, like a prayer—snaps the last thread of my restraint.
I don't ask. I don't hesitate. I dip my head and capture her mouth. Gentleness is for other men. I don't know how to be gentle, not with this. This has been building for ninety days of silent observation, ninety days of wanting what I couldn't touch. I take her mouth with a hunger that should scare her, lips crushing hers, demanding everything she has.
She stiffens for a split second, shock radiating through her frame, then melts. Her mouth opens under mine, granting me access. I groan, a guttural sound vibrating in my chest. I sweep my tongue inside, tasting the sweetness of her, the hot, wet heat of her surrender. Coffee. Sugar. Woman.
My hand at her waist slides down, gripping her ass. I lift her effortlessly, setting her onto the edge of the island. She wraps her legs around my waist instantly, pulling me into the cradle of her thighs. Friction is immediate, maddening. I’m hard as granite, the thick, throbbing ridge of my cock buried against the soaking heat of her pussy through the thin fabric of her leggings. I grind the heel of my hand directly into her engorged clit, using the rough stretch of the leggings to torture her. I apply heavy, punishing pressure in slow, wet circles, making the fabric rasp against her sensitive slit.
"Fuck," I groan against her mouth, breaking the kiss just to tilt my head and deepen it, changing the angle.
She moans, a low, throaty sound, hands sliding up my chest to lock around my neck, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck. She pulls me closer, demanding more contact.
I devour her. I kiss her like I’m drowning and she’s the only air left in the world. I bite at her lower lip, soothing the sting with my tongue, then plunder her mouth again. My hands roam over her body, memorizing the landscape I’ve only ever guessed at from a distance. The dip of her spine, the flare of her hips, the lush weight of her thighs. She feels solid and soft and real, not a fantasy on a monitor screen anymore.
"You're crazy," she gasps when I pull back to breathe, our foreheads resting against each other. Her lips look swollen, red and wet. The pupils are dilated so far the iris is just a thin ring of bruised, dark sapphire blue.
"Probably," I mutter, trailing my lips down her jawline to the sensitive spot below her ear. She shudders, a full-body tremor that rocks through me. "But you're not pulling away."
"I can't," she admits, voice trembling. "I feel safe. God help me, you're this giant, dangerous stalker, and I feel safer with you right now than I have in my entire life."
That admission hits me harder than a fist. It tears through the armor I’ve built around my soul.
"I will kill for you," I vow against the pulse beating in her neck. I press a kiss there, open-mouthed and wet, sucking the skin gently. "You understand that? If he comes up this mountain, he doesn't go back down. I am not a good man, Tiffany. I’ve donethings in the service that would make you sick. But for you? I’ll be the monster you need."
She grips my shoulders, pushing me back slightly so she can look at me. Her expression is fierce, stripped of the bakery-owner politeness. This is the woman who survived.
"I don't want a good man," she says, voice gaining strength. "I had a 'good man.' Ramon was a pillar of the community. Everyone loved him. And then he came home and broke my ribs because the roast was dry."
My vision goes red at the edges. Cold, lethal rage floods my system. I knew he hurt her—I saw the flinching, the wariness—but hearing the specifics makes me want to burn the world down.
"If he touches you again, he loses the hand," I say. The words are flat, final. A promise carved in stone.
She searches my face, looking for the lie. She won't find one. "Show me," she whispers.
"Show you what?"
"Show me I'm yours. Make me forget him."
The air leaves the room. The challenge hangs between us, thick and heavy. She doesn't know what she's asking. She’s playing with fire, and I’m covered in gasoline.
I grab her thighs, thumbs digging into the soft flesh, and pull her to the edge of the counter until she’s flush against me again. "Careful, sweetness. You ask me to claim you, I won't stop until everyone in this town knows who you belong to."
"Do it," she breathes.
