Page 69 of The Sniper

“You split hairs real pretty for someone who deals in blood,” I snapped, but my voice was shaking now, everything unraveling at the edges.

His hand caught my waist, fast, like he couldn’t help it. “You’re shaking.”

“Don’t touch me.”

But I didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

Because the second he touched me, the second his fingers dug into the curve of my hip through the thin cotton of my dress, the ache flared back to life—hot and vicious.

“You hate me right now,” he murmured.

I nodded.

“Then hit me,” he whispered. “Scream. Break things. Just don’t shut me out.”

I had never felt rage like this. Not ever.

Not when I was a kid and heard Mama screaming in the middle of the night, Bible thudding to the floor like it had lost its faith, too. Not when Daddy told me no to my first college out of state. Not even when I stood in that cold morgue and saw him lying still beneath a white sheet.

This was different. This was personal. This was mine.

It came from someplace deeper than grief.

This was betrayal mixed with lust.

Love mixed with loathing.

A wildfire under my skin that didn’t know whether to devour or destroy.

My hands shook with it—rage that felt like a second heartbeat pulsing through my veins, hot and erratic, and too loud to ignore. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want his sympathy, his understanding, or those steady eyes acting like he still knew me.

I wanted him to hurt. I wanted me to hurt, justenough to feel like I was still real. Because nothing else made sense anymore.

I grabbed his shirt.

Fisted it.

Yanked him forward.

And kissed him like I was drowning.

It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t soft.

It was teeth and fury and the taste of last time still on my tongue.

He groaned, deep and feral, and shoved me backward into the wall, mouth colliding with mine, one hand dragging up the back of my thigh to hook it around his hip.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I panted, even as I ground against him.

“I don’t give a damn,” he growled. “I’m not leaving.”

His hands were everywhere—rough and sure and hungry. He shoved the strap of my sundress off my shoulder, yanked it down so fast it tore a little, the fabric whispering against my skin as he bared me to the waist.

“You’re mine,” he said, voice thick with heat and something darker. “I don’t care what that paper said. You feel this?”

He pressed his hips to mine, hard and hot and ready, even through his jeans.

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