Page 20 of Axle
“No.” I was already moving, my hand locked at the back of her thigh to keep her steady. Heat from her skin burned through the fabric, and I swore under my breath because my body didn’t give a shit about the lecture on restraint being delivered by my brain.
“You can’t just carry me around like”—she squirmed, hips shifting over my shoulder, and I bit back a groan—“like a sack of potatoes!”
“A sack of potatoes wouldn’t fight me this hard.” I climbed the stairs two at a time. “And it doesn’t run straight toward trouble because it thinks it’s doing the right thing.”
“I’m not?—”
“Yeah, you are. And you’re done.”
“You’re impossible,” she growled.
It was so damn cute, I almost smiled.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”
At the top of the stairs, I pivoted down the hall. The prospect at the far end took one look and suddenly found the wall very fascinating.
I stopped when I reached him and waited for him to look me in the eye. Ashlynn started wiggling again, and I popped her ass once, but she didn’t get a chance to do more than gasp because the prospect finally looked at me.
He was scared as shit. And he fucking should be. Ashlynn had slipped by him unnoticed, and it was gonna cost him.
“You’re lucky I’m otherwise occupied at the moment, asshole. If not, you’d be crawling down the stairs to Kane’s office, battered and broken. Instead, you're gonna march your pathetic ass down there, leave your patch on his desk, and pray you never see me again.”
He swallowed hard and practically ran away.Fucking pussy.
In my room, I kicked the door shut, crossed to the bed, and set her down. Not gently or roughly. Just…final. She hit the mattress, her hair a wild mess, shirt rumpled, eyes burning with frustration and something hotter that she hadn’t figured out how to hide.
I planted my hands on the mattress on either side of her, leaning in until her breath mingled with mine. “Run again, angel. I dare you.”
Her chin lifted a fraction, a movement I was already learning meant a head-on collision was incoming. “Or what?”
My gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered, then dragged back up slowly. “Next time, I’m putting you over my knee and spanking that pert little ass until you remember what ‘stay’ sounds like.”
Her breath hitched, sharp and unsteady. Heat rose in her cheeks, spreading down her throat, and for half a second her lashes dipped—trying and failing to hide the heat my threat had induced.
She looked like every sin I’d ever wanted to commit and every prayer I’d never learned to say.
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered.
“I will,” I warned. “And it won’t be gentle, angel.”
Her breath hitched at my threat, heat climbing her cheeks even while she tried to hide her reaction under a mask of defiance. She didn’t have to say a word for me to know she was thinking about what it would feel like. Her eyes held mine a beat too long before she looked away—just enough to tell me the idea wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
I didn’t give her a chance to recover. Just backed off one step and raked a hand through my hair as I toed my boots off one at a time. She tensed like a cornered cat, eyes tracking my every move as I gripped the hem of my tee and peeled it over my head. Her gaze dragged down my chest before she caught herself and yanked it back up, a scowl snapping into place like it could undo what she’d just seen.
“What are you doing?” she asked, suspicion thick in her voice.
“Exactly what I said I’d do.” My belt came loose with a snap, the sound seeming extra loud in the tense silence between us. I shoved my jeans down my hips, stopping at my black boxer briefs because I wasn’t a complete idiot. The look she gave me said she hated that I didn’t take them off too. “Protecting you even if I have to tie you to the bed. Or sleep beside you. Sinceyou can’t be trusted to stay where I put you, you choose—me in boxers or me going to find cuffs.”
Her pupils blew wide, the gray of her irises shrinking to a thin ring. Curiosity flickered. Then heat. Finally, that stubborn tarp of defiance was slung over both. “You…wouldn’t.”
“Cuff you?” I climbed onto the mattress and stretched out on my side facing her, one arm pillowed under my head, so we were eye to eye, breath to breath. “Only if you ask nicely.”
Something soft and wrecked slipped past her guard—not a laugh, not quite a sigh. It sounded like a woman who’d never been handled right. One so innocent that she had no idea why the thought of it made her body ache. The possibility crawled under my skin and rewired everything I thought I knew about patience.
“Fuck,” I muttered, because my cock had been firmly knocking since I’d lifted her off the floor, but now it was banging on the door with a battering ram. I shouldn’t have gotten into bed with her. I knew better. But better didn’t mean shit when the room now smelled like her—clean skin and a whisper of citrus that clung to my sheets. It did stupid things to my head. Made it too easy to picture Ashlynn rolling over, reaching for me, whispering my name with sleep-rough edges.
Mason. Not Axle. She’d said it last night like she was tasting it. I’d been hearing it on loop in my head ever since.
