Page 93 of Play Dirty

I couldn’t sleep.

That wasn’t new. The level of cold was.

I lay curled beneath the blankets, teeth chattering softly, staring up at the ceiling as frost gathered along the edges of my window. My breath fogged in the air. Again.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered, tugging the covers tighter around myself.

It didn’t help. It never did.

The door creaked, and I froze. Slowly, carefully, I turned my head.

Ares stood in the doorway.

He was framed in shadow, but it was unmistakably him. Massive. Still.

For a second I thought I might be dreaming. That maybe I’d succumbed to the cold, and was in some hypothermia-induced hallucination, because he didn’t look real.

He looked like something carved out of stone; broad shoulders, thick arms, chest bare beneath the dim light of the hallway. Like some colossal statue, dragged down off its pedestal and dropped into my life, just to ruin it.

Then he stepped inside, and my heart started pounding hard and fast.

One step. Then another. He didn’t make a sound, but I felt him anyway. Like the room shifted around him.

He stopped at the edge of my bed. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak, or even breathe.

Because if I did… this would break.

And I didn’t want it to. Not when my mind was already racing ahead, to see what happened next.

I could see it. Feel it. Him, climbing onto the bed. Pinning me down. Kissing me like he meant it — hard, rough, relentless.

Throwing me around like I weighed nothing. Like I belonged to him. The kind of sex that wasn’t careful. Wasn’t slow. Wasn’t the least bit polite.

It would be violent.

Shocking.

Totally—

Butterflies erupted in my stomach, as he continued moving forward. Staring up at him, frozen beneath the blankets, I realized something:

I would let him.

Anything. Everything. Whatever he wanted…

I swallowed hard, my lips parting slightly as he leaned down. Closer. Closer—

His hand pressed the mattress beside me. His weight dipped the bed just enough to make my body react, instinctively arching toward him.

I wet my bottom lip. Waiting. Ready.

His face hovered just above mine. Close enough that I could feel his hot breath.

And then—

He reached past me.

There was a sharp, metallic click. Followed by a long, strange hiss.