Page 96 of In the Dark

“Nothing.” She frowned and denied any sort of weakness. Of course she did.

I growled at her hands flying over mine and shoving them away, only for me to shift my approach to grabbing the hem of the fabric. She narrowed her gaze and whispered through clenched teeth, “Don’t you dare, Callahan.”

Fuck, I knew it might set us back ten steps, but I didn’t give a damn. I started to raise her sweater, and immediately, she slid the weapon I knew she had in her sleeve and put the blade to my throat.

I froze as the edge dug into my skin. “Don’t make me slit your throat,” she murmured.

I’d left the door cracked enough, and Archer and my other security detail filtered in right away. Archer didn’t go for his gun but the other guy did.

I held up a hand. “Lower your weapon. Harm her and I kill you,” I told him. And then I stared at her. “I’m giving you the opportunity to slit my throat if you want, Viper. Go ahead. Make me bleed if you don’t trust me enough to tell me how you got hurt.”

She was breathing heavily as she dug the knife in deeper, and I winced as it cut skin. But she didn’t go any further except to say, “What’s wrong with me doesn’t concern you, Callahan.”

“Everything about you concerns me. You’re going to be my wife.”

“That’s just a performance,” she whispered, grating on my nerves.

I growled at that word now. I hated it. “Why do you fight me at every turn, Viper?” I shook my head at her and wrapped my other arm around her to pull her close. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“Can you just let it be?” she asked softly, a hint of her vulnerability showing through, but I saw fatigue on the edges of her eyes, heard it in her voice, and felt her relaxing the blade at my neck.

“Or you could give it a rest? You can try to kill me again tomorrow if you want, but I’m too tired to show much more restraint.”

“Restraint for what?” She rallied her energy and pushed the knife harder like she thought I wanted to fight her. Like she thought that was my primary goal even when I was asking what’s wrong. “Don’t hold back, and I won’t either.”

She tried to knee me in the balls, and I twisted so she jacked me in the thigh. Didn’t she know by now when to quit? Sad thing was, my cock didn’t know when to quit either. It stirred to life even when it was in constant danger of her trying to crush it.

“If I don’t hold back, Jas, I’ll be fucking you rather than fighting you to see what’s wrong.”

“What?” She froze and then blinked, confused. Slowly, she lowered her weapon. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I need to employ all my restraint not to fuck you against this wall,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “I’ve watched you in a damn tennis skirt all day, and now you’re fighting with me, which seems to trigger an automatic response in my cock at this point.”

Her jaw dropped. “You don’t … you can’t be serious.”

I hummed and tightened my hold on her waist, taking a step toward her so that my length hit her in the stomach before I thrust my cock against her. “This serious enough for you?”

She sighed. “Whatever happened to us hating each other and being enemies?” she whispered as if baffled by my attraction to her.

“Babe, I could hate-fuck you into oblivion. It’d be my damn pleasure to.”

She bit her bottom lip, a tell I knew very well at this point. “I … not until our wedding night … and the only reason we’ll do it is for—”

I dropped my head to her shoulder. “I know exactly how you taste, baby. I remember how that pussy feels. I remember how wet you get, how ravenous you sound, and how rough you like it. I’m not going to fuck you for any reason other than that on our wedding night. You get me?”

She bit her lip and frowned at me. Maybe our connection was ridiculous, and maybe we weren’t ever going to be together authentically, but I knew my attraction to her was authentic, and I wasn’t going to cop out of the arrangement.

“We’re veering into dangerous indulgences, Callahan.”

“So you’re admitting you’re careening off into hell with me too?”

She looked at the men in the room like she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit it in front of them. “It’s stupid when it’s only supposed to be for the contract.”

I didn’t care who heard it. I kept my eyes on her as I said, “And yet I won’t be sleeping with you for a contract. It’ll be because I’m fucking obsessed with you, Jasmina.”

27

Jasmina