Page 45 of The Ruthless Note

I just want to be normal.

I just want to pretend the past never happened.

Everyone else is handling their baggage perfectly. I’m the only one breaking down at the mere sight of an instrument. Why is it so difficult for me to be strong?

One second, I’m locked in my own head, certain that I’ll be imprisoned in this panic for the rest of my life.

The next, Dutch is tipping my head back, looking down at me with hazel eyes fierce and wild, and attacking my mouth.

It’s a kiss that knocks the soul right out of my body. Something in my chest loosens. I finally inhale, a loud, desperate sound. But it’s not air that I take in. It’s him. He’s the oxygen, and I suck in chaotic, desperate gulps like a girl who’d finally stumbled on water after days in the desert.

Dutch’s hands skim down my back and I cantastehis relief.

The danger has passed, but he doesn’t stop kissing me. After a second, he pulls back, checks that I’m breathing and then kisses me again. It’s like he needs to be sure. Like he needs to know there won’t be a repeat if he sets me away from him.

I should ease off his lap. Tap his back. Tell him I’m fine now.

But I don’t.

My good sense is gone, stripped away by the horror of my panic attack. I’m sanded to the very essence of me, the bare bones of survival floating to the surface of my rattled mind. I’m alive.

Dammit.

I’m alive.

So I slide my hands over his broad chest and slip them around his neck. I close my eyes and open my mouth to a kiss that grabs my heart and squeezes it until itbursts.

Dutch leans forward and, as if he realizes this kiss is no longer about survival but about pure, animalistic need, he changes the speed of his onslaught.

I clutch at his jacket, my hands numb, my knees weak, my body melting like snow in the summer as his frantic slashes turn into sensual, slow strokes.

It’s like kissing raw electricity and hopelessly trying not to get electrocuted.

I can’t withstand it without moaning.

How could I be silent? Dutch freaking Cross is in-your-face sexy. He claims my mouth with a tenacity that makes it clear, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am hisprey.And I always will be.

Normally, that would anger me. But, in this moment, I put the weapons down and allow myself to be caught.

He feels my surrender and snarls into my mouth, wild and insatiable, crashing me under a sweeping tide of my own restless wanting.

I’m being lifted and, a second later, I feel piano keys give under my hand. The discordant notes ring out, a thrilling soundtrack to the havoc of our sparring tongues. The lip of the piano digs into my back. I smell the instrument oil used to tune the inner strings.

I should protest. Should tell him we’re going to ruin this sacred piano with our savagery, but his hands skim down my body, delightfully greedy, and my mind goes blank.

It’s a new kind of crazy, a new kind of need.

If I wasn’t so delirious, the force of my desire would probably scare me. In my current state, it excites me. I dive into him, stroking my fingers over his jaw and digging them in his hair.

I’m panting as Dutch leaves one last bruising kiss on my mouth and sets his hands on the piano on either side of my legs. He unwittingly holds down a chord.

C E G

It sounds beautiful. Like a peaceful spring morning, wind rattling the trees and the scent of peaches heavy in the air.

Dutch looks anything but peaceful as he hangs his head, his shoulders hiked, his chest heaving violently as he makes—what looks like—a valiant effort not to touch me.

“What are you doing?” I croak.

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