Page 23 of The Contract

I don’t mean to echo it. It just slips out. Bitter. Disbelieving.

He shrugs. “Safe is… suggestive. Let’s go with safe enough.”

I bet it is.

“Like the bottom of a pit where if I don’t put lotion on my skin, I get the hose?”

A beat of silence.

“No hose,” he says eventually. “Though I’m sure I can scrounge up some lotion for your delicate skin.”

Shit.

Did I say that out loud?

He licks his full lips, then speaks. “It’ll take a few days for the bruising to heal.”

Bruising? On instinct, I press a hand to my cheek. The flash of pain answers. Sharp. Immediate. I suck in a breath through my teeth, irritated. “Are you keeping me here for a few days? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Is that what you want?” he asks. His measured tone testing me.

Or himself.

“If I say no?” I shoot back, but my voice is thinner now.

His hands slide into his pockets, holstering his weapons of choice. “No?” he asks. “You can’t say no when you owe me something.”

I do owe him. “A kiss,” I whisper.

Funny how one word can taste like a spark. A promise. Like delirious delight teetering on the edge of a dangerous cliff.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t need to. His smile barely forms—just the ghost of it.

But his eyes?

Already unwrapping me. One breath at a time.

“Yes,” he murmurs, voice soft as sin and twice as intoxicating.

I swallow hard and don’t think.

Don’t overanalyze.

Just move.

Because maybe it’s my zero-control-over-anything night, but something snaps.

I lunge forward. He bends. We crash.

Lips.

Scruff.

Heat.

Enough heat to power twelve fucking suns.

An awkward, hungry frenzy of too much, too fast. My fingers tangle viciously in his curls, nails scoring deep into the hard muscles of his neck.

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