“Will you tell me your name?” she hedged, her lips moving over my own. “Your real name, so I know who I’m kissing.”
Her words were a bucket of ice water, drenching both of us. I ripped my mouth from hers, stepping back. “Stay in your lane, Gia.”
“Our lanes merged, you fool.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “When we said our vows earlier tonight.”
I stared at her from a safe distance, panting like I’d just run a marathon. Her lips were swollen and raw.
What thefuckjust happened?
This wasn’t a kiss. I knew, because I’d kissed enough women in my life to file the experience under inadequate. Something I needed to do in order to hit the home run.
This was…this was…
“Come here,” I growled, rushing back to her, bending my head down, claiming her mouth harder and faster now.
She gasped when our teeth clashed, when our tongues shared the taste of her ice cream and my brandy once more.
Good.
Fantastic.
Fucking wonderful.
Was this a trick? A spell? What was her recipe for this…this…
“Your name.” Now it was her turn to end the kiss abruptly.
I glowered at her. “It’d take much more than a fucking kiss to make me tell you that.”
Growling, she glued her lips to mine. We kissed again.
No one was privy to my real name. That boy was buried right along with my past. My hand molded over her ass, the ass I’d glared at for years when I knew she wasn’t looking. Through shades. When I opened doors for her to meetings. When I berated her for no good reason at all.
“Bedroom,” I found my voice somewhere in the back of my throat.
She broke the kiss breathlessly. It took me a few seconds to catch up with that fact. My faculties were scattered like clothes on a teenage girl’s bedroom floor.
It took another two seconds to register the cold, metallic edge kissing an artery in my neck and the fact that Gia was holding the small pocketknife I took with me everywhere. She must’ve fished it out of my pocket when she roamed my body.
Her eyes danced like two flames, her gaze finding my own.
Joke’s on you, Apricity. Now I’m even harder.
“No bodyguards,” she said evenly. “You got us into this mess, you will get us out of it. You want me to be protected, you protect me. You’ve shown great capability tonight. Am I understood?”
I stared, mesmerized. I’d never been this attracted to someone. To something.
I couldn’t wait to fuck her. To watch this strong, beautiful woman taking my cock in her mouth. In her pussy. In her ass,maybe.
I was sick with want.
“Well?” She applied a little pressure with the knife, just enough to tease my skin but not to break it.
“I accept your terms,” I said coolly.
It was the first time I’d been blackmailed in my entire life, and I enjoyed it immensely. “But I will shadow you everywhere you go. Work. Gym. Your mother’s. No more avoidance, Gia,” I warned. “You’re mine, and you’re going to act like it. AmIunderstood?”
“Crystal clear.”