Page 69 of Twisted Steel

“Harper.”My name sounds ruined in his mouth.

I reach for his shirt and pull him down.The kiss is not careful this time.I don’t want careful.I want proof.Heat.Breath.The living, solid weight of him against me.I want to stop thinking about blood and death and the shape of my own fear.I want Steel, and that’s the most reckless truth I have ever held.

He groans against my mouth, low and rough, and the sound goes straight through me.His hands stay on my face, only my face.Even when I press closer, when my body lines up with his and heat sparks between us so hard I nearly shake from it, he keeps himself leashed.

I break the kiss, breathing hard.“You can touch me.”

His eyes open.Black.Hungry.Devastated.“Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

“I mean it.”

“Harper.”

“I mean it,” I repeat, sharper now.“I am terrified and furious and probably making questionable trauma choices, but I know what I’m saying.”

His hand slides from my jaw to my throat.Not squeezing.Holding.His thumb rests over my pulse, and I feel the moment he finds it.The wild beat of me under his touch.

“You tell me to stop,” he says, “I stop.”

“Yes.”

“Any second.”

“Yes.”

“No pride.No punishment.”

I swallow under his palm.“Steel.”

“I need the words.”

My chest aches because he is bloodstained and brutal and asking for consent like it matters more than his own need.Maybe it does.

“If I say stop, you stop,” I whisper.

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t?”

His gaze drops to my mouth.“Then I make you forget the whole fucking world for a while.”

Heat floods me so fast I grip his shirt tighter.“Yes,” I breathe.

He kisses me again, and this time, his hands move.One slides to my waist.The other cups the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, anchoring without trapping.He turns us, backing me into the shadow beside the ambulance bay wall where the cameras won’t catch more than shapes.

I should care, but I don’t.

His mouth leaves mine and drags down my jaw, to the side of my throat.He kisses over my pulse, open-mouthed and hot, and my knees nearly give.

“Steel.”

“I’ve got you.”He does, and that’s the dangerous part.

His hand slides under my shirt, palm spreading over my bare waist.Rough and hot, but careful enough to break me.I arch into him, and he makes a sound like restraint being carved out of bone.

“You’re shaking,” he says against my skin.

“So are you.”