I take my time getting off my seat and sauntering toward him. “How does it work?”
“Taking off my shirt? Easy, I pull it over my head and then slide the arms out.”
Someone had a clown for breakfast. I squeeze in the tiny kitchen and slouch, my back to the counter. My eyes roam his body until his shoulders tense. I bend my head, coaxing my way into his space, demanding he looks at me. When his hand stills on the knife, and his gaze holds mine in warning, I strike. “Sex, Tristan. How does it work for you? What happens after you take off your clothes, and you’re alone with a woman you’re so desperate tofuck?”
His infamous smirk reappears, as if he’s unfazed, as if he’s still in control, but the way his pupils dilate and the slight tremor in his fist he hides in his pocket tell on him. “Fucking? You want me to educate you on fucking, Mrs. Abel? I thought you were the expert. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned from you.” Heshrinks the distance between our faces, his eyes on my lips, and his tongue darts and licks his. “But I’m happy to show you how much of a good student I’ve been.”
We both know he’s read my books—every steamy scene, every passionate encounter, every dark fantasy that screams THERAPY. The thought of him studying them, learning from them...
My heart echoes over the sound of the axe splitting wood outside. Vivid images of the forbidden man, when the wolf beneath the guard dog comes to play, race in my head, but I hold my ground. “I doubt you can. For someone who doesn’t like to be touched, it must be…challenging.”
His jaw works, a muscle jumping beneath the skin, and his fingers twitch toward his hip where his gun usually sits. An unconscious tell—reaching for a weapon that isn’t there when he feels cornered. Not by physical threats, but by words that cut too close to home.
“Not if I’m in control.” There’s a roughness to his voice that hasn’t been there before. The confidence in his voice sounds forced now, like he’s reading from a script of how he thinks this scene should play out rather than letting himself feel it. “Women love that, don’t they? A man in charge.”
The kitchen feels even smaller as he uses the height difference to his advantage, looming over me with predatory intent. “Isn’t it every woman’s dream to be tied up to a strong man’s bed while he chokes and spanks and pulls her hair as he fucks her senseless every way he wants? A good girl to a very bad boy.”
Every letter is a match on gasoline, and for a moment all I can think about is rope against my skin and those capable hands putting me exactly where he wants me. But there’s somethingmechanical in the way he describes it, like he’s reciting what he thinks he should say. The fantasy he assumes I want, pulled straight from the pages of my books.
“Maybe.” I lean in, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him, but careful not to touch. “Is that what you thinkIwant?” My voice comes out huskier than intended. “Or is that whatyouneed, complete control so you never have to let anyone close enough to really touch you?”
His breath catches, and I swoop down before he recovers. “But what if she’s a little sassy, a little bratty, and decides to act on her impulses?” I swirl a hand in the tiny space between our bodies. “A touch you don’t command,” my breath collides close, too close, on his lips, “a kiss you don’t initiate.” I drag my stare from his mouth to his eyes, and I see it, the exact moment his careful facade cracks, the last inch of the tactical territory he’d die before he’d surrender falls. “Are you going to run like a scared little boy again?”
A gasp rips out of my throat as his fist chokes me. He squeezes, a warning, a promise, a surrender all at once. The counter edge digs into my lower back as he crowds me against it. Then he yanks me up and places me on top of it, my back to the wall. He’s so close I can count his eyelashes, see the ring of gold around his blown pupils, smell the raw desperation in the way he holds me, a man who’s been starving himself finally faced with a feast.
Feel the sharp tip of the kitchen knife on my chest.
“I warned you.” He spreads my legs with his weight, his body finally, finally closing that careful distance he’s maintained from day one, his cock, stiff as a rock against me. “I fucking warned you.”
When you knock on hell’s door, who do you think will open?
His thumb traces my pulse point. Can he feel how fast my heart is racing under his palm? How wet and hot my pussy is? Does he know that for all my brave words, he’s not the only one terrified of what happens next. “I won’t run. Not this time.” He slides the knife down the line between my breasts. “But you should.”
The wolf is out now. The devil. No. I thought I saw his devil that day in the shower, but this… This is what he’s promised. Hell’s doors have opened wide like he warned, and all the demons are out to play.
The knife’s path down my chest leaves fire in its wake, but it’s nothing compared to the inferno in his eyes, the throbbing of his erection against my flesh, the gushes of arousal soaking my panties. His warning should terrify me. The barely contained violence, the fear, the threat, the way he’s pinning me like prey should send me running. Instead, each thundering heartbeat under his palm screamscloser.
“Should I?” My voice comes out breathless, and I arch into the blade. “You forget, Tristan. I wrote the devil. So many devils and demons they’ve become all I know, all I crave.” My legs tighten around his hips, and his hard cock is practically digging a hole in my stomach. “I’ve been imagining what this devil tastes like for weeks.”
A growl erupts from him. His fingers tighten against my throat. One demand. That’s all it would take to shatter him completely. Just three words to unleash whatever darkness he’s been caging inside.
“Kiss me, Tristan.” My lips part, the invitation hovering between us like a lit fuse. “I know you want to.”
His answer is a chuckle so dark, almost cruel. The knife traces up my neck, gentler than the hand around my throat leaving only to fist my hair and yank my head back until my pulse strains against the blade.
“Want to?” His voice is gravel and sin. His breath fans hot across my exposed skin. “I’ve wanted to devour you since the first time I laid eyes on you.” He rolls his hips, grinding his cock against me in a slow, torturous rhythm that makes the knife quiver against my skin. “But you don’t get to make demands. Not anymore.”
The flat of the blade slides along my jaw as his teeth graze my ear—not quite a bite, just a taste of what he’s holding back. “You crossed this line. You pushed until I broke.” His grip in my hair tightens, sending sparks down my spine. “So if you want my kiss, you’re going to have to beg for it. Let me hear how badly you want to taste this devil.”
An attempt to dominate the situation, to put himself back in charge. There’s a tremor in his hands that betrays him. The knife dances against my skin. Need wars with his last grasp for control. I feel it, how close he is to coming undone.
“Beg me to kiss you, Birdie. Fucking beg me to kiss you, Reagan.”
“Please.” My body arches into the blade with the pleading whimper. “Please kiss me, Tristan. I need it. Need you.Please. I beg you.”
The knife clatters to the counter. Victory blazes in his eyes as he leans in, his lips just a breath away from mine. But before they connect, I move faster than he expects. My hand finds the knife, and in one fluid motion, I press the tip against his groin and pierce my teeth into the soft flesh of his lower lip.
His entire body goes rigid. The grip in my hair loosens as shock replaces triumph on his face.