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She sped forward, catching him. Or had he slowed down for her?
No matter. Her hand grabbed his arm, her heels digging into the cold ground and leaves to stop his stride. “Rafe, wait.”
He didn’t turn to her, but he did look back at her over his shoulder as his stride halted. The cold mask had been secured firmly in place.
That fissure across her heart cracked a touch wider.
“You don’t understand.”
His left eyebrow lifted. “What do I not understand?”
She rounded him, planting herself in front of him, her fingers not dropping from her grip on his arm. “You don’t want me?”
His brow furrowed. “Why would you think that?”
She stepped in, her neck craning to look up at him, her look searching past the chill in his dark eyes. Searching until she found it—just on the edges of the brown where his eyes turned into wisps of hazel. The spark, the fire that always simmered in him, well hidden away. She doubted he even admitted to himself that it existed.
But it did.
At least with her.
“Compromise me.”
He blinked as the right side of his jawline ticked. “That thought is born out of anger and wanting revenge on your father, Vic. Nothing more.”
“And if it is?” She knew full well it wasn’t, but she needed to push him. Push him until he admitted what she suspected was the truth.
“I’m not your revenge. I’m not your pawn to drive your father mad.” His lip curled, the spark enflaming his eyes in a scorching blaze as his voice dipped dark and raw. “There is only one way I will take you, and that is when you come to me with brutal need in your eyes because you want me.Me.And you know that I am the only one that can turn your body inside out, consuming you from head to toe.”
She gasped a breath. The truth. That had been easy.
And fiercely, rabidly, carnal.
That was the thing about emotions, they drove truth. And Rafe didn’t have any defenses against his emotions, unaccustomed as he was to having feelings take a hold of him.
Her tongue suddenly dry, she stared up at him.
It was time for her own truth.
“Look into my eyes, Rafe, and tell me what I want.” Her voice caught on the words and she reached up, setting her palm long against the side of his face, forcing him to center his gaze on her. “What if it is that I want you? Brutally, as you said. And I do not care to curb that need? I am ready for this to spiral out-of-control. To accept all the consequences for this. My choice. You are the only man that has ever respected me as a grown woman that can make her own decisions—right or wrong. And this—what is between us—right or wrong, this is a decision I am making.”
She inhaled a shaky breath, every nerve in her body sparking into mayhem, her core pounding as she stared up at him, her words rushing. “I want you. Consequences be damned. I want you because you listen to me and hold me, and you are smart and strong and vicious when you need to be, and there is some otherworldly pull between us that I couldn’t explain in a thousand years. But it does exist and I think—know—you feel that raw, undeniable pull towards me too. You feel it in your gut just like I do. I’ve seen you try to deny it. But you are as helpless against it as I am.”
Her left hand went up to his cheek and she captured his face between her hands. “Look into my eyes and tell me I am not coming to you with a violent, crushing need to have you. You and only you.”
His chest lifted in a deep breath as he stared down at her, fire like she’d never seen consuming his eyes.
One. Two. Three.
Three seconds where her heart, her breath stopped.
Three seconds and he crashed down into her, his arms capturing her, his hands everywhere on her body all at once.
Rough across her nipples, her hips, sliding across her bottom as he yanked her up and into him, his hard cock straining against the fall front of his trousers and pressing through layers of clothes to the crux of her.
Great blazes, she wanted this.
She found the ends of his white cravat, yanking at the fabric, stripping it off and pulling the V of his lawn shirt wide to find the skin she craved. Pulling free from the kiss, her mouth dropped to the side of his neck, down to the line of his collarbone. His skin salty and heated under her tongue, tasting just like the scent of him that had haunted her for far too many days.
