Page 85 of Bad Bishop
“Looks to me like you are.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t worry. It’s working.”
“Maybe guns aren’t for me.”
“Guns are for everyone.” He threw me an incredulous look. “Especially the wife of a man who just killed the Russian pakhan.”
“Is that why I have so many bodyguards?” I asked. “Because of the dead pakhan?”
“Why the fuck else?”
“Because of what happened to me.”
“That won’t ever happen again. You’re mine now, Lila.”
“But the Russians can still hurt me,” I pointed out. “Maybe the answer is not to be married anymore.”
I gave him my back, stomping out of the booth. I wanted to escape this feeling. This urgency. The need to touch him. To conquer something inside him I wasn’t even sure existed.
Tiernan clasped me by the wrist, yanking me back to him. My body slammed against his, my full, tender breasts colliding with his abs. He glowered at me, a hint of disgust pulling the corner of his lips down.
“You want me to kiss you.” He stared at me abhorrently, like I was deranged.
I barked out a laugh, snatching my wrists back so I could answer. “You’re delusional.”
“You’re more fucked up than I suspected.”
How could he read me so well? It drove me to madness.
“I just might kill you,” I warned.
“I just might let you,” he deadpanned. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want us to kiss?”
“Because…” I spluttered, dying of embarrassment. “Well, forget about it!”
I spun again, but he tugged me back to his body, grabbing my jaw and tilting my head up.
“I may not be good.”
I huffed, wanting to strangle him. This absoluteidiota.
“I think we can handle one bad kiss.” My hands moved clumsily.“We both survived far worse.”
“Whiskey in a teacup,” he muttered to himself, staring at me in fascination. “Unassuming to the naked eye. But so sharp. And oh, that bite.”
I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant.
His lips fastened over mine.
We both stilled, holding our breaths. Tiernan was the first to put his hand on my face, snaking his other one around my waist, drawing me in.
It was cautious and exploratory. Like treading into a foreign body of water. At first, it was so soft, I second-guessed its own existence. A tentative brush of the lips. A breath that passed between us, where I couldn’t tell who inhaled and who exhaled.
But then he applied more pressure against my mouth, and the decorum and elegance my mother taught me all flew out the window as I pressed all of me against all of him and opened my mouth, darting my tongue to trace his lower lip.
It was plump and warm. My toes curled inside my shoes.
