Page 57 of The Break Down

Scary woman.

“What, um, what’re you doing here?”

“Why’d you run from me, Red?”

She bites her lip and looks down at her trainer clad feet.

Finley is the only redhead I’ve ever known with such an affinity for pink.

It looks great on her. I mean, she’s so goddamn adorable. Utterly precious and feminine, while maintaining a badass persona that makes me hard and leaves me panting.

So fucking cute.

“I didn’t, okay, fine. I kinda did. But only because I had a sort of epiphany,” she starts, and I step closer, unable to resist the draw of her fresh, sweet scent.

“What epiphany?”

“I just, I don’t do casual affairs,” she murmurs, voice quiet but steady.

Like she’s warning me. Testing me.

But all it does is set fire to every part of me.

I meet her gaze, fierce and unwavering.

I want her to see it—that this isn’t a fucking fling.

This isn’t temporary. Not for me.

“Good,” I say, my voice low, rough. “Because I’m not fucking casual, Red. Not with you.”

And then, because I can’t resist the pull any longer, because I am two fucking ticks of the clock from a full on breakdown, I kiss her.

Hard. Deep. Like I need her to feel it in her soul, in her marrow.

My hand cradles the back of her head as I angle her mouth beneath mine. Her lips are soft, sweet, but her tongue?

Bold. Demanding.

So good. So mine.

She kisses me like she’s been missing me, and it gives me hope. She clings to me like I’m the only thing that can satisfy the ache inside her.

And I am. I am her salvation.

Just like she is mine.

She tastes like heat and honey and something I can’t name but already know I’ll never get enough of.

I kiss her like I’m claiming her.

Because once more, I am.

When I finally pull back—barely, just enough to breathe—she’s panting, her cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bitten and swollen.

Wrecked. Perfect.

Exactly how I want her.

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