Page 5 of Ruin
"Yes."
"Good." He doesn't move yet. Holds the space between us like he's savoring it. "There are things I need you to learn before you're ready for what I have in mind. Things this world can't teach you."
"Like what?"
"Like how to take apart a man's empire without touching him. Like how to walk into a room full of wolves and make them think you're one of them." His eyes move over my face, reading something I can't see. "I'm going to make you as feared as I am, Selene."
"And if I'm already dangerous?"
"Then you'll be unstoppable when I’m through with you."
He moves first, or I move first, or maybe we move at the same time—I don't know and it doesn't matter.
His hand is on the back of my neck, fingers wrapping around the collar, and he pulls me into him.
My hands land on his chest and I feel his heartbeat through the fabric, fast, faster than a man who controls everything should ever let his heart beat.
His mouth finds mine.
He's not gentle, and he’s certainly not careful.
A year of being apart collapses into a single point of contact, his lips against mine, and the sound I make is involuntary, animalistic, the sound of a body getting something it's been starving for.
He kisses me like he's reclaiming territory.
His tongue parts my lips and I open for him, and the taste of him—whiskey and heat and the faint copper edge of a man who bites—floods my mouth and my chest and the space behind my eyes where I've been replaying the last night we had together.
His fingers tighten on the collar, pulling my head back, exposing my throat, and his mouth drags from my lips to my jaw to the place just below my ear where my pulse is hammering so hard he can probably feel it against his tongue.
"A year," he says against my skin. The words vibrate through my throat and down my spine and into the place between my hips that has been aching since the elevator doors opened. "You made me wait a year."
"Yousent me away."
"And you came back." His teeth graze my earlobe. His other hand finds my hip, grips hard enough that I'll feel it tomorrow, pulls me flush against him.
I can feel what this is doing to him—hard against my stomach, undeniable—and my body responds with a heat that has nothing to do with the red lights and everything to do with the man who is holding me like I'm something he won and something he stole and something he'll never let go of again.
I grab his shirt to pull him closer and kiss him back hard.
He presses me against the wall.
The concrete is cold through the back of my dress and he is hot against the front of me. The contrast makes me gasp into his mouth.
His thigh presses between mine and I grind against it before I can stop myself, and the low laugh he makes against my lips is the laugh of a man who just confirmed something he already knew.
"Still mine," he murmurs.
"Still yours," I breathe. "But we're going to talk about that lock."
"Later."
"Cassius—"
"Later." He kisses me again, slower this time. Deep, thorough, the kind of kiss that isn't a beginning but a promise.His hand slides from the collar to my jaw, tilts my face up, holds me exactly where he wants me while his mouth takes its time relearning mine.
When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
His breathing is uneven. His hand is still on my jaw, thumb tracing my lower lip, and his eyes are the color of smoke and steel and every dark thing I've ever wanted.
