I’ve got you.
She looks up at me then, eyes fearful but trusting. Her fingers curl into my jacket, and I let my steady heartbeat become her anchor. I’ve never seen someone so fierce yet vulnerable—it makes me want to be worthy of that trust.
To be steady. Safe.
I want to make it clear she’s mine to protect.
Our breath fogs the windows, creating a barrier between us and the predators outside.
“Hey,” I whisper, searching her face in the limo’s dim interior. Red shadows slice across her cheekbones. Her mouth parts, barely, and something inside me breaks. “Are you alright? Are you safe?”
“Yeah.” She swallows hard. Her touch ghosts over my pecs. “God. That was—I can’t believe—I can’t believe I just did that. Did you see how I dodged that photographer?”
“I saw that.”
She laughs. “That is going to be everywhere tomorrow. Me standing my ground? I feel invincible.”
I smile. “Because you are.”
“I want—this is going to sound crazy, and it’s probably the adrenaline talking, but I want to finish what we started back there.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Tell me again.” My voice comes out desperate.
“I want—” Her breath hitches. “I need you. All of you, Dante.”
“Reese—”
“Just us. Please. You and me.”
She punctuates each word with an open-mouthed kiss along my jaw, and when she finally reaches my lips, everything else falls away. She tastes like liquor and bad decisions. My hands find her hair, her waist, desperate to memorize every curve of her. The way she melts against me only makes me harder, hungrier, more desperate.
“I’ve ached to savor you,” I growl against her neck, my fingers digging possessively into her spine. Each touch is a claim, a mark of ownership. “Patiently waited through the torture of being so close to you.
“Really?” she challenges, pulling back with swollen lips and eyes dark with need.
“Watching you train day after day, those sweats hugging your ass, your pretty tits in your sweatshirt.”
“Roll up the partition,” she moans between kisses. A growl rumbles in my chest as I reach for the button, unwilling to break contact for a second.
My mind short-circuits at the realization—I’m about to fucktheReese Sinclair. I haven’t just wanted this for weeks; I’ve had a craving for her in the back of my mind for years. And I haven’t just wanted. I’ve needed, craved, burned for. And now she’s here, beneath my hands, surrendering to me, and I’m going to make damn sure she never forgets what it’s like to be with Dante Hastings.
“You’ve turned me into someone I don’t recognize,” I pant. “Made me so obsessed with you since I had that first taste of your lips.”
She gasps, arching against me, seeking more.
“I can’t think straight when you’re near me,” I say. The words feel inadequate against the weight of what I’m trying to convey. “Can’t think about anything but you.”
My mouth crashes against hers with barely restrained violence. The streetlights flicker across her face.
“Me too,” she moans.
“You drive me out of my mind, Reese. Then you go and put my ring around your pearls.” I suck in my teeth.
She touches it with a deliberate slowness.
