Page 7 of Duchess

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I shot back, my voice unsteady, but laced with venom. "Cleaning up the mess your boy left behind."

He spun me, caging me in with one arm as the other slammed into the wall just beside my head. His face hovered inches from mine, jaw tight, midnight eyes furious.

"You shouldn’t be here."

"Neither should you. And yet, here we are."

His gaze dropped to my mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes. "What was on the laptop?"

I smiled. "Wouldn’t you like to know."

He stepped closer, eliminating the sliver of space between us, pressing his body to mine in a silent threat that felt far too intimate.

"You playing games with me, Duchess?"

"You think I don’t know what kind of man you are? You think I don’t see you for what you really are?"

His hand moved to my throat, firm but not cruel, a warning written in the way his thumb dragged over my pulse point.

I should have been terrified. Instead, I was wet.

"I’m not afraid of you, Killic," I whispered.

His lips curved, not in amusement, but with something darker. Something possessive.

"That’s your first mistake, Winters."

And then his mouth crushed mine, and all of it, the rage, need, fear, power, erupted in that kiss. Harsh. Brutal. Raw. A collision of two people who should’ve killed each other but were too consumed with tearing the rest apart first.

His lips were hot and punishing, dragging over mine with brutal insistence. He took what he wanted and as his tongue slid between my lips I realized he was claiming everything I hadn’t realized I’d kept locked away. He tasted of heat and cognac, with an edge of devilry. Because that’s what he was, the devil himself.

My fists curled in his shirt, desperate to shove him off, but instead they tightened, pulling him closer as my back slammed harder into the wall. My skin burned beneath his palms as he gripped my hips, his fingers bruising, dragging me tighter against the length of him. I could feel how much he wanted me, how deep that hunger ran, and it lit something wild in me.

I tried to fight it. Tried to stay cold.

But his tongue tangled with mine and I melted against him, even as the voice in the back of my head screamed that this was wrong.

He growled into my mouth, like he knew I was slipping. He felt it. The war raging under my skin. And I hated him for it. Hated that he knew exactly what buttons to press. Hated that I still wanted him after everything.

I bit his lower lip, hard enough to taste blood.

He pulled back, eyes burning, breath ragged, and I slapped my palms to his chest again.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” I hissed.

His lips were swollen, his jaw clenched, and when he smiled, it wasn’t sweet.

“It means everything, Stephanie,” he breathed. “And we both fucking know it.”

“Fuck you,” I snapped back.

"This isn’t over," he snarled.

"No," I snapped back, swiping the laptop from the floor. "This is just the beginning."

We stared at each other, both shaking, both knowing we’d just crossed a line we could never uncross. My hands trembled, not from fear, but from the fire still coursing through my veins, the kind that only came from touching someone you shouldn’t. His eyes held mine, stormy and wild, and I knew we had stepped into something neither of us could control, something dark and destructive that had already taken root.

As I turned to run, every instinct screamed that I hadn’t escaped him, not really. Caleb Killic wasn’t the kind of man you walked away from. He was the kind that followed you into your dreams and turned them into nightmares.

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