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She looks up at my face, reaches for my hand.

I grab it, then pull back.

She loses her balance. The next second she falls onto me. "The hell?" She sputters, "You tricked me."

"No more than you’re trying to trick me with the lies you’re spinning around me, sweetheart." I bury my fingers in her hair, yank her close. "I am going to show you what happens when you poke the lion in its den."

"Saint, no—"

I smash my mouth to hers, thrust my tongue in between her lips. I devour her, suck on her with such force that our teeth clash. I hold her in place and consume her. Swipe my tongue across the roof her mouth. I am going to punish her for what she’s doing to me. For weaving a spell around me from the first time I’d met her. Enticing me, luring me into her trap. If she thinks I am going into this blindfolded, she is so fucking wrong. I am going to give her a taste of how it will be from now on. Me—the marauder, the destroyer… And she—she’ll bloody well accept everything I give her, and more. I tighten my grip until my fingertips dig into her scalp, and I fucking mouth fuck her.

Her body slackens, then she kisses me back in earnest. She sucks on my tongue, pushes her lips into mine, opens her mouth completely, allowing me to take and take and… My chest lurches; my groin hardens. Blood drains to my cock so fast and so hard that my head spins.Fucking hell.

I tilt my head and she mirrors my action in the opposite way. The yin to my yang. The bloody darkness to everything that is wrong in me. The tempest to my storm. The turbulence to the raging intensity that roils in me, that shoves at my ribcage, that urges me to lean up, until her upper body is curved in sync with mine. We’re not in resonance though. Nothing about us matches. Everything about this is wrong, which is why I must show her exactly how she is going to pay. I tear my mouth from hers, then push up to my feet, taking her with me.

I release her, and she stumbles, then rights herself.

Her features are frozen, her mouth slightly parted, those beautiful lips swollen and throbbing. Only when my breath raises the hair of her forehead, do I realize that I have leaned into her.

I jerk back. Then, pulling out the handkerchief from my breast pocket, I pat at my lips, "Your technique sucks, doll."

She whitens. The hollows under her cheeks throw her features into sharp relief.

"Jerk," she snarls.

I laugh, "I’m just getting started." I pocket the piece of linen, then yawn, "You’d better come in. You don’t want to keep my friends waiting."

She blinks, "Friends? What do you mean?"

"Oh, didn’t I tell you? We’re getting married in…" I look at the watch on my wrist, "...precisely half an hour."

I turn to the hotel as my guards from the hotel arrive. "Are you okay, Sir?" one of them asks.

"I’m fine." I run my fingers through my hair.

The other guard walks past me, "You all right, Ma’am?" he asks Victoria.

She nods, takes a step forward and seems to lose her footing. He steadies her, and something inside of me explodes, "Get away from her!" The next second, I find my hands twisted in his collar. I plant myself between him and Gigi, "Don’t you fucking touch her."

He raises his hands, "Uh, sorry, Sir, I was trying to help—"

"Well she doesn’t need your help, so back the fuck off."

"Of course, Sir." He glances toward Victoria and my vision tunnels. I haul him by his collar and—

"Saint."

I raise my fist; she wraps her fingers around my bicep. "Saint, stop."

Her touch sinks in through the fabric of my tailormade suit. Her touch is more precious…The fuck am I thinking?I shake off her hand, release the man’s collar. He lurches back, then squares his shoulders.

"Leave us," I snarl.

He pivots and walks back to the hotel.

I turn on Victoria, "Never stop me again in public, do you understand?"

She stiffens, then draws herself up to her full height, which puts her at eye level with my chest.Shit,she is tinier than the mental image I have of her. Perhaps it is her resilience, her feistiness, the layers of prickliness that cover her like a second skin, that contribute to her larger-than-life image, huh?And the fuck am I thinking, waxing lyrical about this woman, huh?