Sherunstoward me.
I don’t have time to react before she launches herself into my hold, wrapping herself around me so hard it almost knocks the breath from my lungs. Her legs lock around my waist and her arms vine around my neck like she’s terrified I might disappear.
Something inside me completely fucking unravels. “Pfeiffer?—”
She kisses me and there’s a certain kind of madness to it. I kiss her back, hard. We inhale each other’s breath as our teeth clash.
My back hits the wall while I catch her properly against me, gripping beneath her thighs while her mouth moves against mine with frantic heat.
Christ.
My brain short-circuits.
This woman just watched me kill someone without hesitation, just for touching her, and she’s kissing me like I’m the most precious person in the world. She’s aware that I brutally murdered someone close to her and that I fucking reveled in it. And she doesn’t care.
A dark, disbelieving laugh escapes me into her mouth, because what the fuck is wrong with us?
I kiss her back harder, unable not to, weeks of restraint snapping clean apart. Her fingers burrow into my hair while I devour the soft sounds leaving her throat.
Who the fuck am I fooling? Pfeiffer McAllister has always beenmine.
That thought explodes through me like a scourge of violence.
When I finally drag my mouth from hers, both of us breathing hard, I stare at her in disbelief.
“Perché non hai paura di me?” I rasp, breathless.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers, licking over her ripe lips.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
Her eyes widen and she stares at me like I’m speaking German, not Italian, and definitely not English.
“I just killed him for touching you.”
“I know,” she replies, her brows pinching together.
“He was dead before he hit the damn floor.”
“Yes,” she says slowly. “I know.”
Why isn’t she trying to get away from me?
“You understand what this means, don’t you?” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not normal, Pfeiffer. Not around you.”
A tiny, shaky smile touches her lips.
“I know that too.”
Fuck me.
Something dangerously close to emotion climbs up my throat. I tighten my grip beneath her thighs instinctively, needing her closer somehow even though she’s already wrapped completely around me. My palms are burning through the cotton of her dress—smarting to feel her skin.
Her forehead presses against mine.
“He put his hand between my legs,” she whispers.
The rage simmering in my belly flares again. If that dead bastard somehow came back to life right now, I’d kill him again—slower this time.