Page 70 of Lawless Rivals

I keep my eyes on the fire, refusing to let Saint watch that truth hollow me out.

Saint finishes chewing and drops the fork into the empty bowl. He sits deeper in the chair, the firelight dancing on the side of his face.

“If you belonged to me, Keira, I wouldn’t waste time wiping out innocent animals. I’d hunt you down first. Then I’d kill the people who hurt ya.”

My throat tightens because the way he says it has me wishing it could be real.

“Do you think you’ve hurt me, Saint?”

He reaches sideways and puts his bowl on the hearth. “I think this could’ve been a very different experience if things had gone another way.”

“What things?” I push.

“Let’s just put it this way,” he begins, his voice raspy from tiredness. “I buried those men in the heath this evening and I’ll sleep like a fucking baby.”

“You’d still kill for me,” I whisper. “Even if you won’t choose me.”

When he sits straighter in the chair and opens his mouth to speak, I beat him to it. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t choose you either.”

Air shoots down his nostrils, and he props his elbows on his knees, the flames dancing in his inky pupils.

“If I chose you,” he says, “there wouldn’t be a choice for ya to make.”

His words spark heat in my veins, the same current that’s been humming between us since the first night at the gala.

I push the blanket aside, rise from the couch and stop right in front of him, then lower myself to sit between his knees.

“You don’t want to choose me,” I say, meeting his gaze head on. “You just want to give in again.”

Saint doesn’t move. There’s no flicker of a smile or twitch of his hand.

I stay in place, my knees on the floor between his ankles and my hands resting on my thighs, not touching him in any way.

“Don’t you?”

Both of his hands settle on the arms of the chair, his fingers curling around the wood instead of reaching for me.

“Take off that sweatshirt,” he says at last, voice a low rumble. “It’s mine.”

Heat blooms under my skin.

I rise just enough to catch the hem and drag it upward, slow enough that his stare tracks every inch revealed. The air kisses my skin as the fabric falls away.

His jaw tightens. “And the t-shirt.”

I obey without a word, my fingers already curling around the soft cotton that holds a faint trace of him. Taking my time, I pull it away from my ribs and my bare breasts.

The shirt clears my head, and I let it drop to the floor beside the sweatshirt. Bare now from the waist up, the firelight licks across my skin, painting me in shifting orange light and shadow.

Heat warms my skin, but it does nothing to stop the goosebumps that race down my arms, across my collarbone, tightening my nipples into aching points.

Anticipation coils low in my belly, charged and electric.

I lower myself again, letting my bare breasts brush down the front of his shins as I go. His breath hitches, a barely audible inhale, but I hear it.

The awareness of it sets off sparks inside me.

When my knees hit the floor between his spread thighs and I settle there, naked, exposed and almost panting.