Page 182 of King of Ruin

His breathing was uneven, his jaw tight, and his eyes... they were fixed entirely on her.

There was something almost feral in them.

Without taking his eyes off her, Xavier stepped into the elevator.

The confined space suddenly felt impossibly small.

He kept advancing until she instinctively took a step back, her heart beginning to pound as his imposing frame closed the distance between them. There was something predatory about the way he watched her—like a man who had finally found what he had been hunting—and the elevator doors slid shut behind him, sealing them inside together.

"Xavier..." she whispered, her voice barely steady. "What are you doing here?"

She never got to finish.

His hand shot to the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair as he pulled her sharply against him.

Before Elise could even gasp his mouth crashed onto hers.

The kiss was nothing like the one they had shared ever before.

There was fear in it. Jealousy. Desperation. Possessiveness.

It was rough enough to steal every thought from her mind.

His lips claimed hers over and over, his tongue sweeping insistently across her mouth before slipping between her lips to find hers. He kissed her as though he couldn't get enough, sucking gently on her tongue before releasing it, only to capture it again a heartbeat later. Again and again, he kissed her with growing hunger, his breaths turning ragged as every taste of her only seemed to make him crave more.

Elise's fingers instinctively curled against his shirt as her heartbeat spiraled out of control. The intensity of the kiss left her dizzy, every breath stolen before she could fully take it. She tried to pull back for air, but Xavier wouldn't let her. His hand remained firmly cradling the back of her head while the other wrapped around her waist, holding her flush against him as he deepened the kiss once more, his desperation pouring into every movement of his mouth.

The softdingof the elevator echoed through the silence.

The doors slid open.

Only then did Xavier finally tear his lips away from hers.

Both of them were breathing hard.

Elise was still struggling to catch her breath when Xavier finally tore his mouth away from hers. He rested his forehead briefly against hers, his chest rising and falling violently. Her lips were swollen, her chest rising and falling rapidly, and before she could even gather herself, he bent down without a word, slipped one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back, and lifted her effortlessly into his arms.

She instinctively wrapped a hand around his shoulder to steady herself as he carried her out of the elevator.

The hallway was quiet.

There were only two apartments—one on the left and one on the right.

Xavier's sharp gaze swept over both doors before dropping to the woman in his arms. His jaw was locked, his breathing still rough, and the muscle in his cheek ticked with impatience.

"Which one?" he demanded, his voice low and gravelly.

Elise looked up at him, still dazed, barely able to form a coherent thought after what had just happened.

"What?"

His expression darkened.

"Which fucking apartment, Elise?" he ground out, his grip tightening around her. "Either you tell me right now, or I'm breaking into both of them until I find the one that smells like you."

She stared at him for another second before finally lifting a trembling hand and pointing toward the apartment on the left.

"That... that one," she murmured.