Page 1 of His to Burn
ONE
Asia
After…
His hand was on my throat.
Not squeezing.
Not yet.
He didn’t have to.
The weight of his palm told me exactly how fragile I was in his hands.
And then we moved.
The hallway was too dark.
Too still.
Silence waiting to pounce.
Every sharply inhaled breath scraped my throat like glass as I fought to keepup with him.
His hand was wrapped around my wrist so tight, it ground bone to bone.
It wasn’t an accident.
His grip was deliberate—like he needed me to understand he could shatter it.
And the sickest, most shameful part?
The terror of his touch had company.
Want bloomed in my belly, low and obscene.
Of all the things I could be thinking now.
Of all the things Ishouldbe thinking now…andthatwas the thought lodged in my brain.
I wanted to vomit.
Wanted to claw that feeling out of my body.
And I hated him for making me feel it.
Hated the way every dark corner of this courthouse felt like it waited to swallow me whole.
Hated thathewas the only thing keeping me tethered to solid ground.
A low shuffle sounded in the darkness.
He stopped abruptly, and I slammed into his back, breasts colliding with hard muscle.
A whimper rose from the back of my throat before I choked it down.
He didn’t flinch.
