Page 92 of Unholy Bonds

I grabbed Nikki’s folder from the lower shelf and quickly leafed through it to make sure it was hers. I was trying to reach Sofia’s file when Ryden stepped closer to me. The warmth of his body was distracting, as was his scent. Stomach clenching with need and breath hitching, I ground my ass against his erection. He let out a long moan.

“Want help, Doctor West?” he whispered, his breath teasing the back of my neck as he ran his fingers through my hair, pressing me against the rack with one hand while his other went around my stomach, pulling me flush against his erection. Need coiled up my bones, thrumming, chanting, lusting.

When would this forest fire burn down to become a soft, more manageable flame? I could deal with a flicker, but this raging heat was becoming scary.

He tugged me by my hair, his hand rough… until my head was tilted back, my throat exposed.

“Now that you’re here, it’d be rude to turn down your help.” I breathed out when his lips gently pressed against the side of my neck before he let me go with a smile.

“Ah, and you’re always so polite,” he said, his voice mocking as he leaned over me and grabbed the file from the shelf, his other hand never leaving my body.

When I turned around to meet his eyes, they were already deliciously dark. There was a small earthquake within my heart. I couldn’t do this. This wasn’t a part of the deal I made.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, my voice hoarse, my heart running like a horse on a racetrack, my body trembling with more than lust.

There was something so strangely open and vulnerable in his eyes but also something possessive and deranged.

“Like what?” he asked, as if he was completely oblivious. He wasn’t. We both knew what I was talking about.

“Like you want to eat me, like you want to devour me until…” Until I become a part of you, until I wear your mark on my body that’d become a fucking storm warning, cautioning other men against making a move on me, until I was only yours.

Did I want to be his?

No. A part of me clawed in warning.

The thing between us, wasn’t… ever going to become anything real. We weren’t built for relationships. The real ones. That would be a fucking trainwreck, and the collision would bring secrets spilling out, secrets we didn’t want the other to know.

How would one live and love with too many secrets, especially ones as dark and distorted as ours?

“We have work to do,” I finally managed to gasp out, trying to pull myself out of Ryden Sinclair’s orbit. He was the fucking sun.

“I don’t believe I’m saying this because I was called a workaholic one too many times, but the report can wait,” he whispered, taking the autopsy files from my fingers and putting them down on the shelf. He grabbed my hands in his and pulled them to his chest, imprisoning me between the metal shelves and his body. His stormy gray eyes became onyx until I was panting from just that look.

He took my mouth in a ravishing kiss. He bit, licked it to make it better, and then he bit harder. “Sometimes I feel like I’d die without touching you, like my survival is tethered to your skin. It’s madness, is it not, Doctor West?”

“If you’re mad, I may be mad too,” I whispered as he kissed my cheek and softly bit the underside of my chin with a sigh. I pulled open his zipper, and he groaned when my fingers met his cock.

He pulled my dress up with a groan. “I hope… it won’t always be like this.”

“It won’t be,” I said.

With all the secrets we carried, all the bodies we buried, there was no way to continue this for a lifetime without burning each other down. I didn’t want that.

“You’re not good for a man’s ego, Little Killer.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me that he gave me a nickname that was more than suitable for me, even though he didn’t know that side of me.

“Well, I think it’s good to hear the truth once in a while,” I said with a smirk as he played with my skin, tracing patterns and painting an abstract that lit a new fire burning within me. “Now, do you want to fuck me or keep talking?”

“You—do you even think before you say something?”

“I believe you only get what you ask for,” I said with a shrug as he traced the side of my thighs, his fingers creating a strange friction. “I’ll always ask for the things I want. I want you. NOW.”

I had once stayed on the sidelines, watching as people stomped all over me. It took me one dead father to walk away. I was never going back there, not for anything, not for anyone.

“Was it hard to fight alone?” His voice was soft, as if he understood even the things I hadn’t told him. Shit. I just wanted to fuck him, but whenever he was around… Things were starting to get out of control. “Let me fight with you then.”

Once again, I felt that tremor in my heart. Why would he say something so… so mad, so sincere to me?

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