Page 22 of Crush (Deadly Hearts 1)

All my rationale falls away and there is only her and me in this room together. I grab her throat, hearing her gasp of surprise, and I shove her up against the wall behind her. I lean in closer, licking her neck, tasting her skin the way I’ve wanted to for so many months. My cock is pressing up against my pants, painfully erect.

She struggles in my grip, but I don’t relent. She turns her head away when I flick my tongue over her jawline.

“Get off me,” she growls.

“Not this time,” I murmur, squeezing her tighter until she chokes.

Her hands shoot up to mine, clawing at me to loosen my hold. I don’t. I know she is safe. I know the limit. I have strangled men to death with my bare hands before, this is nothing. She knows it’s nothing. She is in survival mode and that just makes it even sweeter. I press my other hand to her pussy, feeling her wet my hand, she is so turned on. I palm her gently before I pinch her clit hard, twisting it until she yelps.

“Bad girl,” I whisper in her ear. “Stay still for Daddy.”

“No!” she chokes out. “Get off me. We are over.”

“Not until I say so,” I growl.

“You promised,” she whimpers as I loosen my hold on her. “It was your penance.”

It’s like a slap in the face. I stumble back, my heart thumping in my chest. I don’t even react when she brings her hand up to slap me hard in the face, her nails out for blood. She gets it. I grunt as she gouges me deeply with those talons, she calls nails. Not long but shaped into sharp points. I see why now.

“Fuck!” I roar, slapping my hand to my cheek. “Jaysus fecking Christ, woman.”

She presses her lips together, her shoulders shaking as my usually cultured, lilting Irish accent falls into the rough accent of my upbringing in Finglas, one of Dublin’s roughest areas.

“Does that hurt, Daddy?” she purrs, running her hand up my shirt.

I should’ve known.

I should’ve been expecting it.

She yanks the handgun out of the back of my pants and presses it to my forehead. “Don’t want to shoot you in your pretty face, Daddy, but I will if you touch me again.”

“You are cruising for a slapped arse,” I growl at her and slap the gun away. She gives me a smile so cruel, so utterly arousing, my lips fall open with a soft pant.

“Promises, promises,” she taunts and saunters off, swinging her slim hips and throwing the gun down on the sofa as she passes.

It’s a sign of trust someone in her position will rarely display and it makes me smile wickedly. She is a firecracker, and she has captured my heart, my head and my cock.

“By the way,” she calls back. “Seeing as you work for me, we are definitely over, Declan.”

Her use of my name, which sounds like honey coming from her lips, pierces my cold heart.

“I don’t work for you, I work for your father,” I point out, following her through her house to her bedroom.

“Not anymore you don’t,” she informs me. “You want to keep me safe? You do it on my terms.”

“I’ll leave it to you to tell Rex then,” I mutter.

“Oh, you can fucking count on it,” she growls and slams the bedroom door in my face, leaving me on the other side, looking and feeling like a hard cock with no pussy to shove it into.

“Fecking fantastic, darlin’” I mutter and determined to show her I’m not leaving her, not ever again, I stand there prepared to wait however long it takes for her to reopen the door.

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