Page 172 of Salvatore

I nod. Leaving is the right thing to do.

But I find myself gravitating toward him instead, leaning closer.

His hand descends with my approach, his palm moving to grip my throat with threatening caution as our noses brush. “Go back to your room. I can’t give you any more warnings.”

“Good. Because I’ve made my choice.” I bridge the space between us, my kiss tentative and meek.

I choose to be in this moment. With him. Consequences be damned.

“You’re making a mistake,” he grates against my mouth.

“Not this time.” I dare to brush my lips harder over his, earning a groan from him—a deep, throaty glimpse of acquiescence.

“Ivy,” he sneers, his fingertips closing around my jugular.

“Please.” I delicately whisper my tongue over his bottom lip, hoping, praying. “Kiss me.”

He’s a stone wall—harsh, unyielding, the tension radiating from him. It’s as if I’m torturing him, testing his limits with punishment instead of pleasure.

I pull back, my heart breaking as I stare into his eyes—his narrowed gaze vehement, his breathing labored. The sickeningsense of humiliation returns while his jaw clenches, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

He’s going to physically remove me from his room. Shut me out. Turn me away.

“Goddamn you.” His hand careens around the back of my neck, possessive and rough as he lurches forward, smashing his mouth to mine.

I gasp from the relief of his deliciously violent contact, and he takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue ravaging me, his hold tight.

“Thank you.” I can’t explain the gratitude. It’s a sign of weakness. Desperation. But that’s the way he makes me feel. He fills me with uncertainty. Yet he’s also the only man to consume me with need—that heated, hungry sensation obliterating me as he kisses me harder.

“Don’t fucking thank me for this,mi reina.” He groans into my mouth, the sound raw, almost pained. “I’ll be your damnation.”

“I won’t let you.” I cling to his jacket as a hand slides down my back, dragging me toward him, almost chest to chest, his exhales my inhales.

His teeth graze my bottom lip before he captures it between his own, a sharp tug that sends a bolt of heat straight through me. “You’re my fucking weakness.”

“I don’t want to be.” I hesitate a second, the vulnerability making my stomach somersault. “I want to be your strength, just like you are mine.”

“You’re that, too.” Tension wracks his body, his fingers digging into my uninjured hip like he’s barely holding himself back. “You’re everything, Ivy.”

His mouth works me like a roller coaster—forceful and unyielding one moment, soft and almost worshipful in the next.

He drags me through a gamut of sensations—heated urgency, tormented yearning, pitiful need—as he swallows my gasps and grips me tighter when I moan, as if every sound I make touches him more than my hands ever could.

And when the kiss breaks, it’s like a fever, only the heat spreads—his lips abandoning mine and trailing over my jaw, sinking down my neck.

“You smell fucking incredible.” He nuzzles my throat.

I groan, loving the way his breath teases my skin. “Respectfully, I taste even better.”

“And don’t I fucking know it.” His mouth latches onto my neck, sucking, biting. “I’ve never been more painfully hard in my life.”

I whimper, his want for me making me equally crazed. I scour my nails over heavenly defined pecs, our mouths fighting for dominance.

“All I can think about is you.” He slides his palms up my thigh, beneath the hem of my nightshirt, awakening every nerve ending until he stops at the apex of my thighs. “No panties?”

“They press against my bandages.”

“God, you’re killing me.” He steals another kiss, feral, forceful, his thumbs a bare inch from where I need them.

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