Page 135 of The Forbidden Note

Off-limits.

Zane Cross is the very definition of ruin.

One touch and he could destroy me.

My life.

My investigation.

Everything I’ve worked so hard for.

His head lowers slowly, his heated blue gaze stealing my breath away.

I turn my face at the last minute.

Shivering, I moan, “Zane… we can’t.”

His fingers grip my chin and he hauls my face up to his. Those rough hands are strong and almost painful on my jaw.

I squirm, but his body pins me into the wall, harder than granite, lashing up a fiery heat that’s nearly violent.

“We can,” he says.

“We shouldn’t.”

“But we will.” He leans forward, his lips poised at my ear. The scent of his body wash coils around me, lingering and mixing with the musk of my sweat and desire. “I’m going to have you, Grace Jamieson,” Zane says, his warm breath tracing over my tingling lips. His eyes are a dark shadow of seduction. “And no one is going to stop me.”

I feel my inhibitions breaking apart. All the desires and wants that have been gathering since our first night together collide in a storm. My body aches, throbbing in time to my errant heartbeat.

My head tilts up.

His sharp mouth curves into a smirk.

At that moment, a door slams open.

Finn steps out.

I push Zane off, horror mixing with the lust that made me powerless to resist him.

Zane’s brother gives us a bored look and crosses the hallway to the bathroom without a word.

An exhale skitters out of my lips. Heart screaming and body as hot as a human bonfire, I rush away from the beast who just made his intentions known.

No one is going to stop me.

Including me.

That’s what he meant.

It’s a threat.

A promise.

A vile and enticing challenge.

I’m in deep crap.

Because now I see that…