Page 90 of Lords of Ruin: Owned

"We're alone, Josie. Tell me." My steps echoed throughout the stadium as I made my way closer to Josie. The scent of fresh snow and vanilla invaded my senses, and I had to swallow back the growl trying to escape my throat.

"It's a Biellmann spin. It’s supposed to be simple." She shook her head, looking down at her bare legs, pink from the cold, and her hands shaking from frustration.

I pinched her chin, making her look me in the eye. Her breath caught in her throat. Her pink lips were slightly agape. Her green eyes, which looked like emeralds, glossed over and were wide as she stared at me.

"Explain it to me, princess," I whispered, my breath feathering over her face.

She took another breath, her words coming out slow, deliberate. “You start spinning, just like any other move. Then you reach back, grab your skate, and pull it up over your head... It’s like—like you’re trying to break yourself in half. Your leg is straight, but you have to keep spinning. Faster. Tighter.”

Her voice faltered as I tilted her chin just a little higher, making her look at me, getting a peak of a perfect-like heart right behind her right ear.

"Your back arches so deep it feels like it might snap, but you have to hold it. You can’t slow down. Everything has to stay perfectly balanced, or you fail." Her eyes flashed with frustration, like the memory of every failed attempt was burning through her.

"And where do you fail?"

She swallowed, her eyes darting from me, but I squeezed her chin tighter, pulling her damn near underneath me. Josie is so small I could toss her around with one hand, and her nerves radiate off her onto me in waves that I allow to satiate me until her fury returns.

"Fail?" Her nostrils flare. "I don't fail."

"Don't lie to me, little girl. You wouldn't be on this ice if you weren't failing." I licked my lips, my eyes trained on her face while hers darted to my lips.Naughty girl,turned on by the lips of a man fifteen years her senior.

"It's tighter." She whispered so low I barely heard her.

I watched the fire in her eyes flicker, the blush creeping up her neck as she tried to compose herself, but she was trembling—half with anger, half with something else. I tilted her chin higher, not letting her escape the moment.

“Tighter, huh?” I murmur, my voice low, teasing her, testing how far she’ll let this go.

“Yes, tighter,” she snapped, her breath coming faster. “The moment I pull my leg up, everything has to lock in—my core, back, even my hips. One tiny slip, one muscle out of place, andthe spin goes wide. If I’m not tight, I lose control. I can feel it wobble.”

I smirked, inching closer, my thumb brushing over the soft skin of her chin. “So that’s where you’re failing? You’re nottightenough?” The words roll off my tongue slowly, like a challenge.

Her lips parted, the slightest hitch in her breath giving her away, but she kept her gaze locked on mine, refusing to back down. “I’m tight enough,” she whispered, her voice sharp despite how she shivered beneath my touch.

I leaned in closer, my mouth just inches from hers, and I could feel the tension vibrating between us. “Prove it, then,” I whisper against her lips. “Show me you can hold it together, princess.”

In waves, heat danced off her body, and right when she was going to break and tell me to fuck off or show me how she takes command over her body, the man I was going kill for her came into the stadium.

"Why don't I hear your fucking skates?!" A man barked. I turned slowly, looked over my shoulder, and narrowed my eyes at the idiot. He was shorter than me and looked like a clean-cut, all-American skater.

"Because I'm talking to her," I growled, baring my teeth.

"Oh, Mr. Jackson, I am-"

"Who the fuck are you?" I snarled, making the more petite man in a fucking neon turtleneck flinch.

"I am Dylan. Josie's partner, right babe?"

Josie placed a small hand on the center of my back, sending flames rushing through me.

"Right." She whispered, moving around me.

"You let your partner talk to you like that?" I lowered my eyes to hers, ignoring the nervous twitching of the idiot.

"No. Dylan, I will practice when I want."

"Women, am I right, Jackson?! Don't know a hard day’s work."

Heat surged through me, my jaw locking the moment that idiot's voice grated the air. I focused on Dylan, feeling the primal need to protect her spike in my chest. He had a smug grin plastered on his face, clearly trying to play buddy-buddy.

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