Page 64 of Gilded Shackles
We sit in the quiet, the tension slowly draining like water after a storm. Her hand finds mine on the mattress. I don't pull away.
I look at her. The robe. The bare legs. The way her hair falls across the silk like something out of a painting I'd never admit to wanting.
She just shattered my suspicion, held her ground against my worst self, and didn't flinch. That does something to me that I'm not prepared for.
"You owe me," I say, and my voice comes out lower than I intend. Rougher.
Her eyes flick to mine. Not playful this time. Careful. Testing. "For what?"
"For making me admit I was wrong. I don't do that for anyone."
Something shifts in her expression. The caution melts into something darker. Hungrier. Like she's been holding this back behind the anger and now the dam is cracking.
"How would you like me to repay that debt?" she asks, and her voice drops to a register that goes straight through me.
"Get over here and find out."
She climbs onto me. Slowly. Deliberately. One leg over my hips, hands on my chest. Not rushing. Not joking. Just looking at me with those green eyes like she can see every wall I've ever built and has decided, one by one, to burn them down.
"You want to know what I was thinking the whole time you were yelling at me?" she whispers.
"Tell me."
She leans down until her breath ghosts across my mouth. "That I've never wanted anyone to shut up and kiss me more in my entire life."
I grab her jaw and pull her mouth to mine. And this kiss isn't playful. It's not a negotiation.
It's a surrender. Both of us. At the same time.
18
ELLE
When his mouth finds mine, the fight doesn't end. It transforms.
All that tension, the accusations, the fear, the brittle honesty that cracked us both open, it doesn't disappear. It pours into the kiss like gasoline on a fire that was already burning.
I lean forward, hair falling around us like a curtain, and bite his bottom lip. Hard enough to make him grunt. That sound. God, that sound. It goes straight to my core, and I soothe the sting with my tongue.
His fingers slide up the back of my neck, threading into my hair until I can't tell if he's steadying me or warning me.
"You don't play fair," he mutters.
"Neither do you."
I kiss him again, slower, deeper, until words stop working and there's nothing left but tongue and teeth and the rough sounds he makes that turn my spine to liquid.
His hands tighten on my hips, fingers digging in like he's claiming territory. I rock against him, slow, and feel him hard beneath me. My silk robe slips off one shoulder and I don't fix it.
Every line of him is solid heat. I find the buttons of his shirt and start working them open. One by one. Each pop a small victory.
Warm skin underneath, golden in the lamplight. I follow each inch with my mouth, mapping him like a secret meant for just me. His scars under my lips. His heartbeat under my palm.
His shirt hits the floor. I lean back, still straddling him, running my hands down his chest. The ink on his forearms, the lean muscle, the battle-written skin.
"You're killing me," he growls when I circle his nipple with my tongue.
I glance up through my lashes. "Patience, sir."
