Page 32 of Captivating

“Don’t listen to them, princess. Don’t let them in your head. You, Lilah Belle Ryan, are fucking perfect. You’re beautiful, and you’re kind... well, to everyone who isn’t me. So what if you gained a pound or two, Lilah. They look really fucking good on you.”

Goosebumps break out over my skin when his voice is suddenly closer, and his breath skirts over my skin.

“Your curves are perfect.” His words are slow and heavy and make my knees weaker than they should. Weaker than I’ll ever admit. “Your legs are the kind men fantasize about getting lost between for fucking days.”

Killian’s breathing slows and grows heavy, like he’s forcing himself to regulate it. Like he’s holding on to an invisible string, refusing to allow it to snap.

The energy in the room shifts.

It thickens.

Like it has its own pulse. Its own heartbeat.

“If you were mine, I’d worship every inch of your body every day.” I can feel his hand reach out, like he’s going to touch me, but he doesn’t, and suddenly I’m not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved. “I’d make damn sure you knew how much I appreciated every... incredible... curve.”

His hand flutters by me as he drops it and angles toward me long enough to see his eyes harden and narrow before he storms off, leaving me standing here, completely shaken.

Oh. My. God.

What the hell was that?

Killian

“Killer,” Hudson calls out as I work the battle ropes in the corner of the room, fucking desperate for something mindless. I need something that’s gonna make me so goddamn tired, I’ll forget the line I already came dangerously close to crossing.

The first of how many mornings I have to wake up and smell Lilah Ryan?

Sugar and a sweet spice... vanilla maybe. Like a Belgium waffle.

Sweet and spicy. Perfect for her.

I’m so screwed.

“Killian—” Hudson grabs the rope, stopping the motion. Stopping me. “What the fuck, kid? Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to talk to you for ten minutes.”

I stare at my uncle, one-half of my training team, and wait for him to drop the rope, already so on edge I don’t want to talk.

Not to him. Not to anyone.

“I’m sorry. Did you think that was a rhetorical fucking question? When I speak, you answer or you get the hell off the mats.”

Hudson Kingston, my mom’s younger brother, my dad’s first fighter to win a belt training under him, and in some ways my uncle, but in others, the older brother I never had. He’s rarely a hard-ass, so when he is, I know it’s bad.

“Do I need to change into red booty shorts and a tight white tank to get your attention or are my tits just not quite big enough for you?”

I drop the rope, plant one foot, and knock all six and a half feet, two hundred and forty pounds of him back five feet with the other, driving us both down to the mat. He lands with a bounce like I knew he would, this mat has springs under it, and I straddle his waist. “Watch your fucking mouth, Uncle.”

“Woo-hoo,” he blows out and shakes his head. “It’s like that already, huh?”

He doesn’t try to fight me.

He could try to flip us to get me out of the mount and into a position he can control, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even try.

“Kid, you’re so fucking screwed, you don’t even know it yet.”

I release my hold and drop back on the mat. “Yeah, I actually do,thanks.”

Lilah isn’t even fifteen feet away from me, walking on the damn StairMaster again. Like her ass isn’t already enough to bring a man to his knees. Worse, that thought makes me want to kill any motherfucker who looks her way.

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