Page 88 of Face Off

Her confidence should’ve warned me.

Instead, it made me want to put her on the other side of the door and show her precisely what she’d forfeited.

I turned the handle. Charm took one backward step into the darkened room, holding my stare while the challenge remained between us.

“Last chance to make an intelligent decision,” she said.

“I already made one.”

“What was it?”

“I’m done giving you the version of me that you destroyed. My shits bullet proof now, mami. Try your best.”

The door opened behind her. She crossed the threshold without looking away, either expecting me to hesitate or daring me to prove I wouldn’t.

I followed her through, kicked the door closed, and drove her against it hard enough to make the lock strike home behind us. Her gasp disappeared beneath my mouth as I caught both of her wrists and lifted them above her head.

The room remained dark except for the moonlight stretching across the floor. I didn’t need more to see her. I’d spent fifteen months remembering every inch of the woman I lost and the entire evening discovering everything memory had missed.

Charm arched into me, the green satin trapped between our bodies while I dragged my mouth down her throat.

“Ryan.”

I tightened my hand around her wrists and lifted my head. Anger, hunger, and every unanswered question collided as I looked into eyes that finally held mine without fear.

Moonlight caught the challenge inside them. One of my hands pinned her wrists above her head while the other held her thigh against my hip, the smooth satin of that goddamn dress keeping my palm from the skin I’d wanted to touch since she walked onto the terrace.

I released her long enough to strip off my jacket and toss it aside. My tie followed. I pulled the tail of my shirt free, opened the buttons with none of the patience Charm had once required from me, and shrugged it from my shoulders.

Her gaze traveled across my chest.

She knew the tattoos by touch and tale, but fifteen months separated the woman looking at them now from the one who once traced every line in my bed. Recognition crossed her face first. Longing followed as her attention traveled over the ink she remembered.

The room remained dark enough that she couldn’t see encanto hidden among it.

I had chosen to keep the room dark for that reason. Charm could have my body tonight, but she wasn’t seeing my devotion inked in the skin by my heart. She already had enough weapons aimed at the door protecting my heart. I wasn’t handing her the fucking key.

I stepped into her again and backed her against the door. My hand followed the satin over her hip until I found the hidden zipper at her side.

“You made this?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I lowered the zipper without taking my eyes from hers. “Then I won’t ruin it.”

Charm’s breathing changed as I caught the loosened dress at her waist and pushed it over the curves I’d been staring at all night. She stepped free when the satin pooled around her heels, leaving the dress intact on the floor and her body exposed to the hunger I had stopped pretending I could control.

I pulled her against me.

A shudder ran through her when her bare skin met my chest. Her body was softer now, healthy where she had once forced herself toward sharpness, and the confidence in her eyes told me she knew exactly what I was seeing.

“No lies,” I said against her mouth. “No careful version of me. I’m done holding back because I’m afraid you’ll mistake everything intense about me for danger.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You were afraid of what wanting me required.”

“I’m not anymore.”