I do the thing I’ve been calculating not to do all night.
I close the inch. Heat hits heat.
Her mouth opens under mine in shock and fury, and I take both. I brace one hand beside her head, catch her jaw with the other, thumb on the pulse at her throat. It jumps against my skin, wild and hot.
“Last chance,” I grind out. “Say no.”
“Yes.” Her eyes don’t blink. “And don’t pretend it means anything.”
“It means I heard you,” I rasp. “Say stop and I stop.”
Her throat works. “I won’t.”
The room shrank to breath and bite.
The restraint snaps.
I take her mouth like a fight, not a kiss, tongue shoving past her lips, the sharp copper cut when she nicks herself on her own teeth. She bites me. I bite back. The sound I make isn’t polite.
“Call me coward again.”
“Coward.”
The word hits me like
