Page 98 of Vicious Temptation

I move anyway, but I barely take two steps before his arm hooks around my waist and yanks me back against him. I drive my elbow behind me, catching part of his ribs, but he holds on as I twist and fight to get free.

“Remi, enough.”

“Fuck you.”

Planting my foot, I use his weight against him, throwing us both off balance. We crash onto the hardwood together, and the impact knocks the air from my lungs.

I immediately try to roll away, but Thiago recovers faster.

He catches both my wrists now and pins them beside my head before I can get enough leverage to throw him off. His body settles over mine as we fight to catch our breaths, neither of us willing to look away.

Any other man would’ve caught a bullet long before we ever got here. But Thiago doesn’t scare me, and that’s precisely the fucking problem. I know what it feels like when someone is trying to hurt me. This isn’t that. This is something far more dangerous.

It’s foreplay.

And if the look in his eyes is anything to go by, he knows exactly what this has become, too.

“You’re fucking heavy,” I hiss, arching my back in a useless attempt to throw him off.

The problem is that I’m not trying nearly as hard as I could. His gaze drifts down my body before slowly returning to my face.

“Why are you so stubborn?” he asks, his mouth brushing my ear. “I’m done, Remi.”

“Done?”

“Yeah.” His voice drops. “Done being nice.”

Heat rushes through me at the threat in those words, which only pisses me off even more.

“Are you now?”

He nods as his nose trails along the side of my throat, and my eyes close despite every reason they shouldn’t.

“Você é uma fera,” he murmurs against my skin.

A beast. A wild thing.

And coming from him, it sounds nothing like an insult.

I take a moment to steady my breathing before trusting myself to speak.

“What do you want from me?”

His lips graze mine, barely there, and the inhale that leaves him sounds almost tortured.

Some ridiculous part of my brain chooses this exact moment to be grateful I never touched the coffee Matteo made me. I guess coffee breath is where I draw the line while pinned beneath a man I was trying to punch thirty seconds ago.

His entire body stiffens as if he’s fighting for control just as much as I am. But instead of destroying the last fragile shred of restraint between us, he shifts his weight and flips me onto my stomach.

“What the fuck?”

My cheek meets the floor as he pulls my wrists behind my back. I twist beneath him, but cold metal locks around one wrist before I can wrench myself free.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

The second cuff clicks into place. After everything I went through last night, being handcuffed again sends my temper straight through the fucking roof.

“Thiago,” I warn, struggling against his grip, “if you keep these on me, I will slit your throat at the first chance I get.”