"You're so small," he mutters against my throat, his tusks scraping lightly against my pulse point. "So soft. I could break you without even trying."
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do." I tug his hair, forcing him to look at me. "You grabbed a burning metal tray with your bare hands to keep me safe, Lanek. You're not going to hurt me."
Something fierce and possessive flares in his eyes. "You're right. I won't." His hand flexes on my thigh, grip tightening. "But I'm also not going to be gentle."
"Good."
He makes a sound that's almost a snarl and kisses me hard enough to bruise, his entire body pressing me into the wall. Ifeel all of him, the overwhelming physicality of his presence, the shocking heat of his skin through the smoke-damaged suit. My head spins with the sheer intensity of it, the way he's surrounding me completely, consuming all my air and space and rational thought.
His hand slides from my thigh to my hip, then higher, fingers splaying across my ribs, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast through the flour-dusted fabric of my dress. I arch into the touch, shameless and desperate, and he groans like I'm killing him.
"We need to stop," he rasps, even as his hand moves higher, palm cupping me through the vintage cotton. "Your kitchen is a disaster. You're in shock. This is?—"
"The best decision I've made all week."
"Quinn—"
"Stop trying to talk me out of this." I roll my hips against him deliberately, and his breath stutters. "Unless you actually don't want?—"
He cuts me off with another kiss, this one almost violent in its intensity. His hand tightens on my breast, thumb circling with just enough pressure to make me gasp into his mouth, and the rumbling purr in his chest drops into a register I can feel in my bones.
"I want," he growls against my lips. "I want so badly I can barely think straight. But you deserve better than being pressed against a wall in your destroyed kitchen because you're high on adrenaline and fear."
"What if I don't want better right now? What if I just want you?"
His forehead drops to my shoulder, his breathing harsh and uneven. "You're going to regret this."
"Then let me regret it." I slide my hands under his ruined jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, my palms flattening against the overheated skin beneath his shirt. "Let me have this. Please."
Thepleasebreaks him.
He shoves the jacket off completely, letting it drop to the flour-dusted floor, and then both hands are on me, gripping my hips and lifting me higher against the wall. I lock my ankles behind his back, my skirt bunched around me, and the full, overwhelming reality of his size finally registers.
He's enormous.
Not just tall, not just broad, but fundamentally, structurally massive in a way that makes every logical part of my brain scream that this is physically impossible. His hands span my entire waist. His shoulders are wider than my arm span. The ridge of him pressed against me through our clothes is proportional to the rest of him, thick and insistent and utterly terrifying.
I should be scared.
I'm not scared.
"Lanek," I breathe, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
"I know." His voice is wrecked, barely recognizable. "I know, little baker. We'll make it work. I promise we'll make it work."
"How—"
"Carefully." He kisses my throat, teeth scraping gently. "Slowly. I'll take care of you."
"I don't want slow."
"You need slow."
CHAPTER 8
