I pull back. Just an inch. A breath.
I need to reset. Regain control. To stop spiraling into the eye of the storm she’s become.
But she stares at me. Wild-eyed. Cheeks flushed. Lashes spiked with seawater.
The trembling in her limbs has stilled. Her lips, once tinged with blue, are now a lush, damning red.
“Is that what you wanted?” I add steel to my voice. Force detachment into every syllable.
“Yes.” Her hands glide to the back of my neck, the drag of her nails awakening goose bumps along my nape. “But it’s not enough.”
My pulse slams.
“I want more,” she whispers.
I fist her hair tighter. A warning. A punishment.
“I feel nothing, Isla,” I grit out.
She flinches but doesn’t retreat.
Shereadsme. Not just with her eyes but her fucking soul.
I glare through it. Force myself to withstand it.
I feelnothing.Ihave tofeel nothing.
“I don’t care,” she finally admits, inching closer, reclaiming the space I carved between us.
Her lashes flutter closed. Her breath ghosts across my mouth.
But she just waits there. Poised at the precipice. Driving me straight into hell.
“Please,” she murmurs.
It’s one word.
A whisper.
A goddamn weapon.
And I fucking succumb.
This time the kiss isn’t cruel. It’s catastrophic. A savage strike of retaliation meant to put her in her place.
I devour her mouth as if we’re at war. As if breaking her open fast enough will allow me to find the part of her that still hates me.
Yet instead of wilting, she moans.
Soft. Willing.
Alive.
Her nails scour my neck as she shifts in my lap. A slow, merciless grind that lights my nerves on fire.
I clamp a hand to her thigh, my fingers digging into the silk of her stockings in a silent command to stop.
She doesn’t.
