Page 96 of Cold Hard Truth

Lyla blinks, her eyes glossing over at my words.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She wets her lips and presses them together, nodding once.

Lyla still hasn’t told me all the details of what happened in the basement before I got there, but the way her breath hitched when I told her about her sister’s ear said a lot more than shock. Her mind drifted and her eyes glazed. She went somewhere in her memories I can’t ask her about because I think she remembers how Ellie lost it.

Grabbing her by the waist, I pull her to me. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“I know.”

“But you have to trust me this time.”

She blinks a tear free, and I wipe it from her cheek. “I know.”

“Do you?”

I might not be able to keep it together if she says she doesn’t, but I need to hear it from her lips to believe it.

Lyla grabs the front of my leather jacket, her thumbs grazing up and down. “I trust you.”

Three words.

It takes a moment for my brain to process them as she blinks free another tear. She looks up at me, and her hands on my chest might as well be peeling me open. She puts back my heart—my soul. Eight years after she took them both.

“I trust you,” she says again, sealing the promise.

Dipping my mouth to hers, I can’t resist the need to make us one. To feel her tongue graze my lip and her teeth clash with mine. She’s sweet enough to make my teeth ache at the taste of her. Her nails dig into my leatherjacket as she pulls my body flush to hers, and she’s putty in my hands.

She moans at me deepening the kiss and that sound begs the beast to the surface.

I’ve had her. I claimed her.

She was mine all those years ago, and she’s mine now.

Spinning her around, I angle her so she’s facing my bike with her back to my chest. I hold her by the throat and force her body flush with mine.

“You trust me?” I ask her again.

Maybe I just want to hear it. I didn’t know I was starving for those words until she said them and now, I’m desperate.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“Then stop fighting me.” I nip at her ear.

She moans as my teeth sink in again. “You like it when I fight you.”

“And you like it when I make you submit.” A growl rolls up my throat, and I release her to grip her hair and bend her over my bike.

Her nails dig into the leather seat as I grind my hard cock against her.

Reaching around, I undo the zipper of her jeans and pull them down her hips, trapping her legs together at her knees. With my palm pressing the center of her back, I run my fingers between her legs.

“Are you going to listen to me now, butterfly?” I drive two fingers into her tight heat, and she’s already soakingmy hand.

Lyla glances over her shoulder and smirks before I fuck her harder with my fingers and her eyes roll back.

“Maybe.” She moans when I pull my fingers out.

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