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Without a word, he took my face in his hands, his calloused fingertips rough on my skin. He paused for a delicious, agonizing second to savor my surrender before his lips crushed into mine, coaxing and dominant as he claimed me. My body curved, softening against his hardness, as I parted my lips to offer more. His tongue swept over mine, licking across the roof of my mouth and along my teeth. Each stroke stoked the smoldering need in my blood toward combustion until my fingers dug into his shoulders to keep me from falling.
I knew then that, bargain or not, I would never be fully free of him.
We broke apart, panting. Lach rested his sweat-slicked forehead against mine and fingered a strand of my hair. “It’s you. There’s something about you that makes me feel…calm.” It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the tattoos. “I don’t deserve that peace. Not tonight.”
He didn’t let me go, and I didn’t move away.
“You can have it anyway,” I said softly. “It’s mine to give.” I wondered for a moment how much else I might give this prince. If I might give him everything.
His eyes held mine. “I killed them.”
A test.
Not for him. For me.
“I know.” That much blood. I swallowed that truth, letting it settle into that long-buried place—and still I didn’t let him go.
A reckoning.
His thumb swept over my swollen lips, a battle waging in his green eyes. “I’m the bad guy, princess.”
I stroked a hand along the side of his face. He turned into the touch, nuzzling into my palm. “I don’t believe that.”
His dark laugh rippled through every nerve in my body. “I tricked you out of your soul, your freedom, and I may never let you go. You shouldn’t need more proof, but here I am, wearing other men’s blood.” He gripped my chin and lifted my face to his. “I will ruin you before this is over.”
I didn’t struggle in his grasp. I just held his stare. Because I didn’t want to run from Lachlan Gage anymore. Not while he was looking right into my very soul—to the loneliness and loss, to the mistakes and fear, to all the wounds and secrets I carried.
And he didn’t look away.
An awakening.
So I looked back and saw him—the darkness and the grief, the arrogance and the brokenness, all of the beautiful and damned pieces of him. I saw the blood on his hands, the blood that would be on mine—maybe already was. My soul was on the line, and I didn’t care. Not when the touch of his skin seared me to the bone. Not when I only felt alive kissing him.
Because if ruin was the price of having him, let him destroy me.
“Then ruin me,” I breathed.
His eyes sparked, the words snapping his control. One moment, I was daring him; the next, he had me against the wall. My legs coiled around his waist, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my hips as he pinned me against it. I gasped when his teeth nipped the corner of my mouth, and he chuckled before his tongue invaded. Savage. Brutal. I yielded to that kiss as his hips rolled against mine, pressing the hard length of him over the wet heat there.
I reached between us to find his belt, but he pushed me harder to the wall, capturing my hands. He drew back, his lips brushing over mine. “We need to stop.”
“We do,” I agreed, tugging his lower lip between my teeth until he was kissing me again.
His arm snaked up my back, and his hand curled around the nape of my neck. Then he spun me toward the sink and set me carefully on the edge of the counter.
“We can’t let this go too far,” he ground out, planting kisses along my jawline.
My hands were free now, and he didn’t stop me when I reached for his buckle a second time. “Agreed.”
He cursed as I slid my hand down the front of his pants and wrapped my fingers around his cock. Something clenched in my core as I stroked that considerable length, savoring him being at my mercy.
He slipped a hand under my robe and found my breast. The rough pad of his thumb circled my nipple until it peaked and throbbed. “It’s late. Maybe it’s time for bed.”
I dragged my hand to his tip and did the same. “Yours or mine?”
He cursed again as I continued stroking him, pushing my robe past my shoulders to dip his head lower—
A sharp rap on the door startled us apart.