Page 52 of Freedom’s Inferno

Her eyes flicked up, sharp and bright. “You give yourself too much credit. I was surviving just fine before you decided to kick my door in.”

“Sure,” I said, lazy and amused. “You were having a regular spa day, soaking in your little crime scene like you were at the damn Ritz, completely unaware that Damian Costa was hunting for your head…”

Her jaw clenched. “You’re an ass.”

“And yet here you are,” I said, leaning closer. “Sharing a bed with me.”

She scoffed, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “You really think you’re irresistible, don’t you?”

I grinned. “I think you’re terrible at hiding when you’re tempted.”

Her laugh came low, breathy, disbelieving. “That sounds like projection,” she said, mocking my voice and my words from the evening before.

I couldn’t help but laugh at how she imitated me, her face scrunching up, fists on her hips.

The air between us thickened.

Her hand moved as if to push the hair from her face, but it stalled halfway, lingering. Her eyes dropped to my mouth before darting away again. The silence that followed was taut enough to snap.

“Say it,” I murmured.

"Say what?”

“That you want to kiss me.”

She gave a small, defiant shake of her head. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said, voice rougher now. “I think I would.”

She looked at me then, really looked, and I swear the world narrowed to that single moment: her breath catching, my heartbeat picking up, the space between us charged like the air before a storm.

I don’t know who moved first. Maybe we both gave in to something that had been simmering for far too long.

Nothing about the kiss was gentle. Every unsaid thing between us poured into one reckless collision. Kissing her wasn’t a decision so much as gravity.

Her fingers curled at the back of my neck, pulling me closer until everything else dissolved into skin and heat and the faint rasp of her sigh against my mouth. The kiss stole breath instead of giving it.

Her lips parted, her breath hot against mine, and I swore I could taste every argument we’d ever had, every fragile truce. The kiss deepened, unhurried but intent, her body melting against mine in a way that felt inevitable.

I nipped at her bottom lip, dragging it between my teeth with a low groan. Her lips parted and I took the opening, my tongue sliding inside to tangle with hers. I wanted to devour her.

I rolled, instinct taking over, the mattress giving beneath us as I shifted on top of her. My weight pressed her into the sheets, her body arching to meet mine. My hand slid down her waist, following the line of her hip.

I wasn’t thinking, only feeling: the pulse in my throat, the ache in my chest, the way she trembled when I touched her. I slid my palm along her thigh, tracing the smooth line of it beneath the sheets.

Her breath caught, her legs falling open.

My fingertips grazed the inside of her leg, warm and silken, then I found it. A ridge of raised flesh, small and out of place. She tensed beneath my touch, and my hand stilled, my body going rigid.

“What’s this?” I peeled back the sheets, my thumb brushing over the skin before my eyes caught up with what I was feeling.

A small puckered scar in the crease of her thigh, shallow and specific, shaped like the letter D.

Nausea rolled through my stomach.“What the hell is this?”

She froze. Then, her gaze found mine. She didn’t flinch or retreat. Instead, her eyes held a hollow kind of boldness.

“A gift,” she said, voice calm and cruel in its clarity. “From your good pal, Dickie.”