Page 95 of Last Shot

‘But I cannot’—he leant down, his eyes dark pools of liquor she was already drunk on—‘focus.’

Closer.

‘Maxella.’ Her name was a caress, but his eyes were glaring, his hand, unfurled from a controlled fist above her, now grazing the thin silk strap of Nella’s dress. But his skin didn’t touch hers.

Her shivering, treacherous body let out a shaky exhale.

‘It’s not the dress,’ he said. All she had of him was his smoky, spiced scent. ‘It’s everything I know is underneath the dress.’ His hand moved from the strap and her skin singed from the shock of his touch. Not on her flesh, but through the silk, his fingers tracing an impossibly delicate line down the curve of her hip.

She could no longer convince herself this wasn’t happening. She could no longer convince herself she didn’t want it to be. He was eroding her with every breath, with every inch he closed between them, her sandcastle fortress that she’d always thought was made of stone, disintegrated in the pull of his tide. A final, whispered defence: ‘You can’t have it both ways, Grey—’ She swallowed.

‘That’s the problem,Max,’ he said, cutting her off. His fingers stilled. ‘I want it every way.’ His mouth crashed against hers with such force her head knocked back against the oak board. Even that didn’t feel like enough. She should shove him away, stop it. Instead she grabbed his belt and tugged his hips flush against hers. The hardness pushing into her stomach should terrify her, but instead it flooded her with a terrifying new power – a dangerous magic she was never meant to wield. ‘Max.’

If he was playing her, he was going to win an Oscar.

His tongue was hot and hungry, tasting, testing. She retaliated with the same force, her nails scraping through the short hair on the back of his head – the friction of even that sending shudders through her. He moved to her neck, burrowing in the crook of her, her head thunking back. She was unable to stop the moan escaping; his lips caught the vibration in her throat and tremors of gold sparks shot through her bloodstream at the sensation.

‘I just need to get you out of my system,’ his angry mouth spoke against her neck, teeth grazing the vulnerable veins and arteries she willingly exposed. This vampire would drain her of everything she’d once been, leaving her an empty shell when he tossed her aside.

But she didn’t care.

Because right now, nothing mattered, nothing existed except Greyson Hawke’s mouth on hers and his hands, no longer against the wall but gripping her hips so tight it should be painful. But it wasn’t. This was the best kind of prison. Trapped between the mud room wall and Grey’s body, she widened her stance to bring him closer. He cupped her arse, kneading her flesh andneedingher mouth with an intensity she’d never imagined could exist within the stoic, critical man before her.

Big hands gripping her thighs, he helped her wrap her legs around him and she tugged him tight against her, grinding herself against him, extracting a sound from him that made her skin prickle with hallucinogenic want. The straps of Nella’s dress had fallen to the middle of her arms. With a mere brush of his thumb, the rest of the material fell away and the way he looked at her exposed breasts made her want to scream, because it was a look she knew didn’t belong to her, and could never be hers. It wasn’t evenherdress he was ripping off.

But when he took her breast into his mouth and bit down hard enough for her to cover her mouth to stop her moan from escaping, she forgot every other feeling besidesthis. She dug her nails deeper into his scalp as he nipped and sucked, her head leaning back against the wall in a futile attempt to ground herself. She remembered how that mouth had curved with such disdain in her direction when they’d first met. Now it was full of her scorching flesh and it didn’t seem to ever be satisfied.

‘It took every ounce of self-control to not do this when you first showed them to me,’ he murmured, his lips tracing delicate, brutal patterns across her skin.

‘I nevershowedthem to you. I was proving a point.’

‘You definitely proved a point,’ he growled before taking her in his mouth again.

‘Hawke!’ God, she didn’t want it to stop but she was burning.

‘What do you want?’

She wished he hadn’t asked. She wished he’d just taken it and then she could convince herself later she’d been caught up in the moment, that she wasn’t as culpable. Guilty by association. ‘I want you to fuck me or fuck off.’

A pin from a grenade – her words ripped his mouth from her and she wanted to scream out that she didn’t mean it, that she’d be satisfied with just this – forever – as long as his mouth was on her. Somehow, she was back on solid ground, but he was still gripping her thigh, keeping her upright, otherwise she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold herself up. The hand not holding her tore through the silk of the dress, his fingers leaving marks she’d never be able to erase – tattoos no one else would ever know were there. As soon as his fingers grazed the soft, satiny part of her upper thigh she knew the game was up – she couldn’t hide how wet she was behind a sarcastic barb or cold indifference. She couldn’t hide how much she wanted him.

But he didn’t give the self-satisfied smile she’d expected. As soon as his finger slipped through the band of her underwear and he felt her, his eyes went black and she knew they’d crossed over to a place they couldn’t come back from.

‘Stop messing with me,’ she said against his jaw, which despite him having shaved, was still coarse and brutally light against her lips.

He shook his head –not enough– his lips pressing into the curve of her neck, his fingers circling, tracing but not inside her yet.

‘Please,’ she hissed. ‘Goddamn it.Please.’

The secondpleasewas barely off her lips before he thrust one, two fingers inside and Max could have sworn another bomb exploded, but this time it was in her.

Every stroke was a flame of fire. She tried to hold on, to tether herself to some sort of reality, but this feeling did not belong to her, did not belong on the ground. His fingers knew her places like she was screaming them to him, his breath hot and heavy on her neck as he worked her into oblivion.

‘Grey ...’ Her limbs shuddered at the thought of those lips on her completely.

Still inside her, he collapsed to his knees. ‘I need you.’ His gravel voice made her head spin. ‘All of you. Now. Lift this fucking dress.’

She gladly gripped the rumpled silk, nails piercing through to her skin as he pushed her legs apart. How was she meant to hold herself up when her body could barely cope with the soft graze of his jaw against her ...

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