His eyes drop to my mouth. "If I touch you," he says softly, "I won't stop where I should."
"That," my breath hitches, "sounds like a threat."
"It is."
"You don't scare me," I lie.
He laughs. Dark. Almost pitying. "You should be terrified."
"Try me." I stand on my toes until my lips are one wrong move away from his. The space between us is a livewire of tension and heat, and my body is already soaring.
"You don't know what you're asking for," he says.
"You have two options." I let my voice drop to a husk of a whisper, egging him on, putting him on edge, seeing if I can break through that wall of his. "Let me go. Or prove that you see me."
A single beat where his expression goes flat.
Then he grabs my jaw and kisses me like he wants to erase my pulse.
No hesitation. Just teeth, heat, and rage.
My back hits the wall again, harder this time, and his mouth ruins me. I don't just let him. I grab his shirt and pull. Welcoming it. Fueling it. Devouring him back.
A hand fists into my hair, dragging, not guiding. His other palm flattens against the wall beside my head like he's keeping himself from destroying something.
I bite his lip.
He growls into my mouth.
Actually growls.
"You provoke me on purpose," he rasps against my lips, his breath shaking for the first time I've ever heard.
"So do something about it."
He catches my wrist and pins it above my head. His thigh shoves between my legs so fast I gasp, my knees screaming collapse. He notices. Smiles. All feral, all sin.
He drags my body into full contact, mouth opening over mine in a deeper, darker kiss. One hand locked in my hair, controlling the angle. The other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise.
He kisses like he's been starving for years.
And God, I kiss him back like I want to ruin us both.
Heat collides. I'm pressed so tight against him I can't inhale without breathing him in.
His mouth leaves mine and drags down my throat, teeth and tongue and the scrape of his beard against sensitive skin, and I tilt my head back, giving him everything.
Then, in one brutal motion, my nightgown is shoved up over my ribs, and his mouth is on the curve of my shoulder. Hot. Unforgiving. Teeth scraping where he somehow already knows I'm sensitive.
Before I can gasp, my bra is gone.
Not unhooked.
Torn. The sound is obscene, fabric surrendering to force.
"Fuck," I whisper. Why do I like that so much?
The second his mouth closes over my nipple, my head hits the wall and I let out a sound that should embarrass me for the rest of my life. Filthy. Uncontrolled. He grins against my skin like that sound is a trophy he plans to mount on his wall.
