Page 9

“Almost zero crime rate,” I admonished her. I didn’t like the way I felt thinking about her getting hurt. Someone hurting her. “You should be careful who you let people see you standing next to.”

“Is that a warning about my reputation or yours?”

“Mine’s already shot. I’m talking about yours.”

“Wilder.” She stepped closer. Close enough to fill up the space I’d been keeping empty on purpose. “Are you dangerous?”

The honest answer was yes. Not in the way the town liked to whisper about. Not a ghost. Not someone to be feared. But I knew how to hurt someone.

“Only when somebody comes at what’s mine.” I heard the claim land too hard, too soon, for a woman I’d known for just a few days.

Something flickered across her face that was not fear.

It was hunger. I wasn’t so out of step that I didn’t recognize it. Not when I felt it in return.

“Good to know,” she said, and did not step back. “So. Are you going to kiss me, or are you going to keep standing there issuing warnings nobody asked for?”

I had wanted to kiss her since I saw her talking to Grimm in the alley. Wanted it more than I should have. I was a man used to denying himself things. I had told myself all day the want would go away if I ignored it.

It hadn’t. It had gotten worse every time the wind pulled my hood and I caught her looking at my mouth.

I lifted a hand to her jaw, slow enough to give her every chance to tell me no.

She didn’t. She tipped her chin into my palm like she’d been waiting for me to touch her.

So I did. I kissed her.

She made a small sound against my mouth — surprised and pleased at once. She laid a hand against my chest as if she wanted to feel my heartbeat. I placed my hand on her waist and when she didn’t pull away, I moved it lower, to the generous curve of her hip, and pulled her closer. She half stumbled against me at the unexpected move, but she didn’t move away. She arched closer instead.

Her mouth opened under mine, and I moved until she was flush against me. Until there was no mistaking what she was doing to me. I was already hard — thick, obvious, aching against my zipper — and instead of flinching she moved her hips against the ridge, as if she wanted to feel the proof.

I kissed her until I had to pull away so we both could breathe. I’d never tasted anything so good.

“Wilder.” My name came breathless against my mouth, almost a question. I knew what she was asking.

“I’m not stopping.”

I didn’t just kiss her. I took her mouth the way I’d been thinking about taking it since the alley — deep, hungry, unapologetic. She tasted like tea and sugar. The wet little moan she fed me went straight to my cock. I gripped her thigh and hauled it up around my hip so I could fit myself against the seam of her jeans and grind there, slow and steady, letting her feel the exact shape of what she was getting if she kept saying yes.

She moved against me, matching my movements. I slid a hand up under her sweater, over her stomach, up to the practical cotton of her bra. I pushed the cup aside and found the heavy weight of her breast, the tight peak of her nipple and rolled it between thumb and finger.

She arched like she’d been shocked. A broken sound against my lips. My other hand stayed locked on her hip, holding her on my cock through two layers of clothes while I pinched and soothed and pinched again, learning what made her shake.

I wanted to drop to my knees on her shop floor and put my mouth between her legs. I wanted to turn her around, bend her over her counter, and fuck her until the bells on the door rang from the force of it.

I settled for popping the button on her jeans. I gave her a second to change her mind. A kiss was one thing. What I wanted to do to her was another thing entirely.

When she didn’t stop me, I moved my hand down the front of her jeans, under the cotton, until I found her wet heat.

“Damn,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. It was raw, almost brutal. “You’re soaked.”

“Don’t, don’t tease, Wilder,” she whispered against my mouth.

I slid two fingers through her, not in yet, just enough to coat them, and found her clit with my thumb. She jerked in my arms. I did it again, firmer, and she broke the kiss to bury her face in my throat, panting. I pushed my fingers into her. She was tight and slick and I groaned as she clenched around them. “Spread your legs,” I ordered, my mouth at her throat.

She did so without any hesitation.

“That’s it.” I kept my mouth at her throat, biting softly. “Let me—”