Page 46 of Brutal Ice

It was. “If I start kissing you, I may not stop.”

“Promises, promises,” she murmured.

His hands closed around her waist. He lifted her up and sat her on the dressing room table. The soft lights were behind her, sending a glow spilling around her body, and damn if she didn’t look like an angel.

Fitting, since he felt like the devil. But an angel wasn’t supposed to wind up with the devil. That wasn’t the way things worked in this world. “You shouldn’t be with someone like me.” Yet he didn’t take his hands off her.

“Why not?”

“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t know what I’ve done.”

“Then tell me.”

Maybe he should. But if he laid bare all of his deep, dark secrets, then she would fear him, more than she wanted him.

“Who are you, Royal Boudreaux?”

“Not even my real name,” he heard himself say.

A faint line appeared between her brows.

“I was thrown away. A freaking two-year-old kid. Found wandering around Royal Street in New Orleans. No parents ever claimed me. The name I got came from the street I walked.” An exhale.

Her eyes widened and then…a tear slipped down her cheek.

“What the hell?” Royal stared in horror at that tear drop.

Then another fell.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Violet!”

She swiped at her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.”

His chest burned. Ached. Burned.

Another teardrop fell.

“Stop it.” He didn’t like her tears. This time, he was the one to wipe the teardrop away. To catch it on his hand.

No one ever cried for me before.

Why was she crying for him?

“I like your name,” she said, even as another tear leaked down her cheek. “I like you. I want you, Royal, and I?—”

He took her mouth. He could taste the salt of her tears, and she should not be crying. Not Violet. She should not be crying for me.

His hand curled carefully under her jaw. Her mouth opened beneath his, and her tongue snaked out to meet his. She kissed him tenderly, as if he was somehow the fragile one, when the truth could not be further from that.

He pushed closer to her. Stood between her spread legs. And the hunger he felt for her burst free. He’d been riding a dangerous river of adrenaline ever since he’d seen her on that stage. Trapped in the coffin. Shoving her hands against the glass.

Get her. Save her.

Take her away.

He kissed her with growing hunger as his control fractured. This wasn’t the place for her first time. He knew that. Knew that he should exercise restraint and caution.

But restraint and caution had always been so very boring.

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