Page 55 of The Next Lie

The kiss is a collision. Bourbon. Salt. Reva. Raw, desperate need with anger under it, over it, inside it. She meets me like a fight, teeth and nails and fury, and I take every piece of it she gives me. My hand tangles in her damp hair, holding her where I want her. She bites my lip hard enough to sting.

I growl into her mouth.

This is not Shiloh’s softness. This is not Ever’s silence. This is mine.

Correction. Consequence. Claim.

And from the way she arches into me, from the way her nails drag down my back through my shirt, she knows it, too.

I break the kiss just enough to breathe against her mouth, my pulse a war drum in my throat.

“I should punish you,” I rasp, my hand sliding down to grip her hip. “I should make you regret ever stepping foot outside this house.”

Her eyes are dark and bright and wrecked.

“Then do it,” she whispers. “Stop talking about it, Nash. Stop managing me. Just…do it, already.”

That snaps the last thread.

I grab the hem of Shiloh’s hoodie and pull it over her head in one rough motion. It lands somewhere behind me. She is left in nothing but skin and leggings, flushed, hair damp around her face, mouth swollen from mine.

Beautiful.

Furious.

Mine.

I catch her wrist and turn her toward the bed.

She stumbles forward, palms hitting the gray silk before she can steady herself. The mattress dips under her weight. For one breath, she is face down with her knees against the edge of my bed and her heart beating so hard I can see it in the line of her throat.

I set my hand at the small of her back, then tug her leggings and panties down in a single motion, shoving them to her feet and then completely off.

“You do not disappear from this house,” I say.

Her breath catches.

“You don’t walk into graves because pain makes you think you have permission.”

“Nash—”

My palm lands against her ass.

Not hard enough to truly hurt. Hard enough to make the sting bloom on the pale skin of her ass. Hard enough to pull a sound from her that wipes every rational thought from my head.

My fingers flex against her back, testing.

Control. I have it. Barely.

I lean over her, my body covering hers without crushing her. My mouth brushes the shell of her ear.

“You don’t make me wonder whether I’m going to find you breathing.”

Another strike. Sharper. A clean, sensual crack that sends a tremor through her body and straight into mine.

She likes it, but she hates that she likes it. I know because when I dip two fingers between her thighs she’s fucking soaked. She pushes against them, seeking, and I pulse them into her once, twice, teasing, before I withdraw.

“Do you understand me?” I ask.