Page 5 of Under Pressure

“It’s you who I can’t trust,” she replied, keeping her eyes locked on Delta.

“Wrong.”

“You need to leave.”

With crossed arms, he planted his powerful legs like tree trunks, clearly unwilling to be moved, waiting for her submission.

“I swear to God, Matteo. I’ll shoot you.” A pained tone escaped her lips, like a cornered animal.

“You wouldn’t—”

The voices that she’d heard outside suddenly grew louder, yelling to take cover. In a flash, Delta lunged toward her, grabbing her protectively, shielding her. Gunshots ricocheted outside, followed by unintelligible shrieking. Chills ran up and down her body while Delta squeezed her closer.

What the hell is going on?

Shaking, she glanced up and drank in his determined face. She realized he’d made himself into her human shield as he pulled her toward the side of the room. He’d switched into fight mode, and she observed his calculating eyes searching the room, likely looking for any detail that could make the difference between survival and death. She sucked in a breath, hearing sirens outside and continued shouting.

At the side of the room, they stopped. Delta assessed her, his grip tightening while she strained to listen, trying to comprehend what the situation was. His searching eyes reminded her of another time—of things she’d rather forget. It was the first time she’d had his body against hers in a long while. She wasn’t ready to experience his effect. His darkened gaze, angry yet intent, drove a familiar deep need in her core, so intoxicating that she had no choice but to react one way or another. Choosing self-protection, she reflexively slammed on his chest to push him away.

A bullet crashed through one of the intact windows near the front of the building, sending shattered glass everywhere. Kendra shrieked, unwillingly stumbling into his warm body. Holding her to his chest, he swiftly moved them into an adjoining hallway, pulling her farther into the darkness, silently and without permission. Just like him, he didn’t ask. He simply did what he wanted. She panted, detained in a bear-hug against his hard chest, as the war continued in front of the building, complimenting the war that raged within her.

Delta dropped his head, uttering into her ear, “Now’s a good time to pull out your gun.”

“I don’t actually have it.” She whispered her confession, knowing full well she rarely brought her service weapon anywhere anymore. Shooting him had been an empty threat.

“You lied to me?” his gravelly voice questioned, his forearms flexing as he tightened her back against him. Her breath shortened with his hold as he continued, “Do you know what happens to girls who lie to me?”

I know very well. The reminder sent tremors up her thighs as she sensed his touch rising up her chest toward her neck. The torture tactics he engaged in were unconscionable, both physical and psychological. Moving her as he wished, he spun her around slowly in his grasp, as though she were his ballerina, so that they came face to face. Her mind cried in revolt, but her body grew increasingly supple, willing, acquiescing to his silent demands, like she was wont to do.

Reluctantly, she tilted her chin up to him, inhaling that heady wood smell she distinctly remembered. He had always been so much taller than her, well into the six-foot-three range, but with heels she was tall enough that all he had to do was drop his head and find her mouth. That fact was both terrifying and thrilling. She couldn’t believe that there she was, held in his arms once again.

“You never told me what you wanted.” He stationed his mouth just inches above hers.

A kiss, she fantasized, but she tightened her lips. “I’m not doing this,” she said, shaking her head slightly, affirming that she wouldn’t fall victim to the man twice—a man who was certainly guilty of using her for his own gratification.

She pressed her eyes shut—not wanting to believe her own sensations, not wanting to acknowledge the burning desire she still carried for him. She was not going to go through that again.

“I wanted to call,” Delta explained too easily, driving pain through her chest. “I wanted to see you again.”

“No, you did not,” she ground out, attesting her truth.

As the words rolled off her tongue, Delta snapped off one of his dark gloves and reached his bare hand up to her chin, angling her mouth upward. The motion was so smooth, so fast, that she was caught off guard, shocked and paralyzed as he held her face. Submitting to him was easy—and it was her expected state.

“You think you know what I wanted?” he challenged her, as his grip tightened on her jaw.

“I think we both know.”

“No,” he growled, his mouth too close to hers, “you have no idea.”

She pouted, questioning if he would take her mouth. The anticipation was the same as his grasp—gripping and consuming, just the way she remembered it from that one fateful night so long ago when she’d lain under his body, taking every inch of him.

He slipped his hand down her throat, controlling, caressing and pushing her hair behind her ear, like he was assessing his prize. Whatever buzz he drove in her was threatening to pop. God, he made her so high. And the way that he was breathing down on her promised things that he still wanted to do.

“I know bad intentions when I see them,” he admitted, dropping his head to brush her lips with his. “Don’t let your guard down.”

Reflexively, like touching a hot stove, Kendra snapped her head back. Simultaneously, the sounds of car tires squealed, clearly pulling away from the street.

Spinning in Delta’s arms and pushing away, she cried out in finality, “Just leave me alone—” As she spoke, the glove that he’d taken off dropped onto her foot, and he sank back into the shadows, leaving her alone in the hallway.

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