Page 46 of The Broken Note

His full lips fall into a frown. He jerks me back. “Kiss me now and I won’t stop, Cadence. Kiss me now, and you will never escape me. Not in this life or the next.” His voice is low, humming with a dark promise that makes my throat feel tight.

I’m dangling right over an active volcano. Any moment and the rope might snap, sending me plummeting into the abyss. But I don’t care if I get burned. I don’t care if my body turns to ash.

I felt this way that night too.

The night I opened my legs for Dutch Cross and let him take all of me.

Unbalanced.

Delirious.

Aching with need.

This is the last time.

The last,lasttime I’ll allow myself to get this close to the fire again.

My fingers wrap around his neck and I shut my brain down as I pull him closer.

One kiss.

Just one kiss and I’ll slap him, push him off, leave him wanting more.

I’ll show him who’s in control.

But when I slam my lips to Dutch’s and that ripe mouth of his brushes against mine, all the lines I drew turn to dust. Heat slices me open and burns me to a crisp.

Dutch gathers me to his chest, big hands pressing into my back and holding me there, his tongue sliding into my mouth and plundering me.

I might have initiated this kiss, but it’s not mine anymore.

It’s his.

And it’s a demand for everything I have, everything I don’t. Everything that didn’t exist before and now won’t exist for anyone but him.

This kiss is dark. Nothing like the fairytales. Cinderella and Prince Charming—Jinx’s code names. All wrong. All turned on its head. This is the kiss between the pauper and the villain. Two lost souls reaching for each other. Dragging each other down to their destruction.

It shouldn’t be this satisfying, this heady. This… perfect.

But it is.

Dutch kisses me so deeply that I can feel it in my toes. His body hardens beneath mine and I rake my fingers through his hair, loving the way I can be rough and broken and ruthless in his arms. He can handle it. He can handle that darkness in me.

“Clothes. Off.” He grunts the words out. Not bothering with full sentences. All caveman. All primitive beast.

I hiss when he slides down to a lying position, his hands disappearing under my shirt and searing me with heat. His fingers tease my chest before he grabs one of my buttons and tears it aside.

Breaths impatient and thick, I reach down and tug at his shirt. He grunts his displeasure, but I can’t wait for him to undo every one of my buttons before I feel him.

I need his hot flesh under my hands.

My palms scraping over his abs.

My nails digging into his jeans.

Ineedit.

Dutch glances over my face. I don’t know what he sees, but he allows me to haul his T-shirt up without protest. He’s the one who tugs it over his head though and, as his arms stretch over the edge of the sofa, he knocks the ring box to the ground.

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