Page 8 of Sweet Animosity

“My boyfriend! My tall?—”

My head craned back to take in the man’s well-over-six-foot stature before I continued, “My super tall, seven-foot, cage-fighter boyfriend who is just outside impatiently waiting for me.”

Keeping his unsettlingly dark gaze on me, he grinned. “You are amusing when you lie, but I wouldn’t recommend it—not to me.”

The moisture in my mouth turned to dust. “It’s just an ex-boyfriend’s.”

He nodded as he unbuttoned another button.

Knowing I was risking death, I clasped the sides of my shirt together, covering my bra. “What are you doing?”

His hand wrapped around my wrist and placed just enough gentle pressure on the right nerve that I was forced to release my grasp. “I’m checking for a wire.”

My eyes widened. “I’m not wearing a wire. I’m not with the police. Far from it.”

He made quick work of the remaining buttons. “And I believe you.”

His warm hand encircled my waist as he yanked me forward against his body.

My hands pushed back against his chest as I sucked in a gasp.

Moving in slow, deceptively soothing circles, he ran his flattened hand over my lower back, then swept it up my spine.

All the while, he stared down at me.

So close I could feel his breath against my cheek.

If someone had walked in on us, they would have assumed they’d interrupted a lover’s embrace.

Pushing beneath my bra strap, he pressed his palm between my shoulder blades and stilled.

Without my own volition, my gaze moved to his mouth. With his angled jaw covered in black stubble, he had a strangely sexy mouth. I’d never really noticed a man’s mouth before. Perhaps because none had captured my attention before.

As if taunting me, his lips opened to expose his perfect white teeth. The tip of his tongue ran along the sharp edge of his upper teeth before pressing against the point of the right canine.

My lips opened on a gasp, but no sound came out.

He leaned in.

For half a second, I thought he was actually going to kiss me.

A Judas kiss before he killed me.

His hand swept around my torso and over my stomach to inch along the waistband of my leggings.

The muscles in my abdomen tightened as I wrapped my hand around his wrist. “Please, don’t do this. I swear I’m not wearing a wire.”

Ignoring my plea, he dipped his hand inside my leggings.

My cheeks flamed.

The corner of his mouth lifted again. He leaned down and rasped against my ear, “Naughty girl.”

He’d just learned I wasn’t wearing any panties. I rarely did with leggings.

He would not have to kill me. I was going to self-combust from embarrassment.

His hand swept over my lower abdomen, then dipped slightly lower to tease the very top of the juncture between my thighs. My leg muscles clenched as my knees locked.

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