Stalking forward, I let my book bag slip off my shoulders and thud to the floor.
Dutch’s amber gaze strikes me as I stomp over and settle myself on his lap. His smug little smile when I straddle him is a gunshot to the heart. I feel like I’m playing right into his hands, but my runaway temper won’t let me back down.
I dig my fingers into his shoulder, my eyes like flint. “See? Nothing.”
That’s not true.
In fact, it’s the farthest thing from the truth.
My body is instantly hot and the way his hard, muscular form feels beneath me makes me wonder if I set myself up for failure. Maybe I accepted this challenge, not to prove anything to Dutch but to grab an excuse—any excuse—to be close to him.
I realize my mistake, but I can’t take it back. Dutch grips my hips with two rough hands, pinning me in place.
My breath catches as he begins to tease a circle over my hip bone. Every so often, the pad of his thumb catches the skin of my upper thigh, which is exposed thanks to the ridiculously short skirt.
I shouldn’t have worn this stupid outfit today. In this position, I might as well have taken my skirt off. The skirt is crushed around my waist. I’m practically sitting on Dutch in my underwear. Only a thin strip of fabric between me and the coarseness of his trousers.
“It’s too late for regrets, Cadey.” His eyes are sharp, studying me with calculation. As if every step was predetermined. As if he’d known, before I walked into this room, exactly how he was going to trap me and exactly how I was going to fall for it.
“The only thing I regret is meeting you,” I whisper arrogantly.
He snaps my wrist and pulls my left arm to rest on the back of the sofa. In this position, I’m leaning even deeper into his hip. With the heat of Dutch’s body wedged between my thighs, it feels like my skin is about to melt off.
“I don’t know when it started for me,” Dutch purrs. A hint of his cologne swirls in the air between us and makes my already heightened senses turn delirious. He smells so good. “I don’t know the exact moment I fell for you, but I know that I did and I know it wasn’t random.” His eyes flash, endless honey. Sharp golden pools. “This is real.”
“You never fell for me. You fell for a fantasy. For someone you thought you could control.”
“Control?” His voice is a violently beautiful husk, like a predator luring his prey in for the kill.
I tremble, even though the sun is draped over my back and the tension in the air is thick enough to start a fire.
He chuckles. “You disobey every one of my orders.”
“Who the hell gave you the right to issue orders?”
Our eyes lock. I narrow mine in anger.
He stays where he is, waiting, holding my gaze. “I don’t want to tame you. Not anymore. But I also want to make myself clear. Whether you keep the ring or not doesn’t matter to me. You were mine, even before the handcuffs.”
“Bastard.” I wield my free hand at him.
He captures it and smiles. “Keep that up and I’ll start confiscating your clothes as punishment.” Dutch leans in close and whispers, “Starting with your panties.”
A flood of heat rushes my body, but I scowl at him, refusing to let him see. “You think I won’t fight?”
“That doesn’t scare me.” His eyes run down the length of my body before returning to my face. “If you weren’t such a fighter, you wouldn’t have lasted this long at Redwood Prep. And you wouldn’t have caught my attention.”
My lips and tongue start to tingle as his gaze caresses my mouth. Dutch releases my hands and returns both of his to my hips. His cocky demeanor, his certainty that I won’t slap him or push away, makes my body tighten with fury. He’s so sure of himself and it pisses me off.
“You still haven’t proven your point, Cadey.” He tuts. “I’m not convinced.”
Fire and anger burn through my veins. I can’t retreat. If I do, it’ll prove that he has a hold on me.
I grip his collar in my tight fingers, desperate to show him that I’m not his pony. I’m not his property. I’m not his to own.
I’m my own person.
And I can take what I want too.
I drag him toward me. “Your words mean nothing, Dutch. Not to me. Not anymore.” I lean forward, but Dutch stops me, gripping my jaw in his tight fingers.
His eyes cut me to my soul. More black than amber. More beast than man.
The full extent of his brutality is rising to the surface, held back with only a thin thread of restraint. If I push him, if I take that next step, he won’t be gentle.
And that excites me rather than terrifies me.
I must really have lost my mind.
“Why are you dragging this out?” I snap. “Shut up and let me prove how much I hate you.” I grind my hips down. “Unless you’re the one who can’t handle it.”
His fingers dig harder into my face. “I don’t have protection.”
It’s scary that I wasn’t even thinking of that. It really didn’t affect me as much as my need to feel his body filling mine.
“Who said I was going to take my clothes off?” I lean in to press my mouth to his.
His full lips fall into a frown. He jerks me back. “Kiss me now and I won’t stop, Cadence. Kiss me now, and you will never escape me. Not in this life or the next.” His voice is low, humming with a dark promise that makes my throat feel tight.
I’m dangling right over an active volcano. Any moment and the rope might snap, sending me plummeting into the abyss. But I don’t care if I get burned. I don’t care if my body turns to ash.
I felt this way that night too.
The night I opened my legs for Dutch Cross and let him take all of me.
Unbalanced.
Delirious.
Aching with need.
This is the last time.
The last, last time I’ll allow myself to get this close to the fire again.
My fingers wrap around his neck and I shut my brain down as I pull him closer.
One kiss.
Just one kiss and I’ll slap him, push him off, leave him wanting more.
I’ll show him who’s in control.
But when I slam my lips to Dutch’s and that ripe mouth of his brushes against mine, all the lines I drew turn to dust. Heat slices me open and burns me to a crisp.
Dutch gathers me to his chest, big hands pressing into my back and holding me there, his tongue sliding into my mouth and plundering me.
I might have initiated this kiss, but it’s not mine anymore.
It’s his.
And it’s a demand for everything I have, everything I don’t. Everything that didn’t exist before and now won’t exist for anyone but him.
This kiss is dark. Nothing like the fairytales. Cinderella and Prince Charming—Jinx’s code names. All wrong. All turned on its head. This is the kiss between the pauper and the villain. Two lost souls reaching for each other. Dragging each other down to their destruction.
It shouldn’t be this satisfying, this heady. This… perfect.
But it is.
Dutch kisses me so deeply that I can feel it in my toes. His body hardens beneath mine and I rake my fingers through his hair, loving the way I can be rough and broken and ruthless in his arms. He can handle it. He can handle that darkness in me.
“Clothes. Off.” He grunts the words out. Not bothering with full sentences. All caveman. All primitive beast.
I hiss when he slides down to a lying position, his hands disappearing under my shirt and searing me with heat. His fingers tease my chest before he grabs one of my buttons and tears it aside.
Breaths impatient and thick, I reach down and tug at his shirt. He grunts his displeasure, but I can’t wait for him to undo every one of my buttons before I feel him.
I need his hot flesh under my hands.
My palms scraping over his abs.
My nails digging into his jeans.
I need it.
Dutch glances over my face. I don’t know what he sees, but he allows me to haul his T-shirt up without protest. He’s the one who tugs it over his head though and, as his arms stretch over the edge of the sofa, he knocks the ring box to the ground.
At first I don’t notice.
Dutch is shirtless and sitting up again. He’s kissing my neck hard enough to leave a bruise.
I slide my hands down his muscular back, my hair in my face, mouth open in hot pleasure and eyes unseeing.
Until something comes into focus.
The ring box.
It’s on the floor, open… but there’s no ring inside.
