I laugh once, breathless and shaky.
Then he is on me.
Not grabbing.
Asking with his whole body.
His hands frame my face, careful around the bruise, and his forehead drops to mine. “Tell me no.”
I grip his cut. “Touch me because you want me. Not because you’re scared.”
His eyes close.
When they open, they are almost black.
“I want you every second I’m breathing.”
“Then prove it.”
His mouth hits mine.
There is nothing gentle about the kiss except the way he lets me choose it. I push into him, and he gives. I pull at his cut, and he shrugs it off. Leather hits the floor. My hands are on his shirt, his belt, his skin, and he is cursing against my mouth like I’m the only prayer he knows how to ruin.
He lifts me onto the desk, scattering papers, a phone, two pens, and one offended bird toy.
Disco screams, “No!”
“Agreed,” I gasp when Diablo’s mouth moves to my neck. “The paperwork had it coming.”
His laugh is dark against my skin.
Then his hand slides under my dress, and I stop laughing. His fingers find me already wet, and the sound he makes against my throat is almost angry, like my body admitting it wants him is another fight he intends to win carefully.
The world narrows to his mouth, his fingers, the rough scrape of his beard along my throat, the heat of his body between my thighs. He touches me like he is starving, but he keeps checking my face. That should cool the heat. It doesn’t. It makes it worse, because every pause is proof he could take and choosesto ask. Keeps waiting for the flinch. Keeps making sure the fire is mine too.
It is.
God help me, it is.
“Diablo,” I breathe.
He groans like his name in my mouth hurts. “Again.”
“Demanding.”
“Desperate.”
That word opens something in me.
Not president. Not the man Carmen thought she was owed.
Desperate.
Mine.
I pull him closer, wrap my legs around his hips, and kiss him until the fear shaking inside me turns into heat. He drags my dress higher, and I tear at his belt with shaking hands. My nails scrape over his stomach. He catches my wrist, kisses the inside of it, then puts my hand right back on his buckle like he knows I need to be the one undoing him.
“Condom,” I whisper.
