Page 111 of Light the Fire

Meeting his glare, I mimicked his scoff and eye roll, then turned to go.

He could stay in this cabin and rot. Rix, Jorik and I could sail down the coast, then figure out a way to remove the team deactivation chips.

Those who Neffers was supposed to meet probably knew how to remove the chips. We could have them do it and then be free of Zane for good.

I should have known, should have felt the vibration of the ground, the whoosh of air, but I didn’t. I let my guard down because unlike Zane, who didn’t trust me, I trustedhim… to an extent.

Only when he had me by the throat, up against the inside wall of the ramshackle shed, I was genuinely surprised.

He was right in my face, his lips curled up in a sneer, nostrils flaring as his eyes tried to bore holes into mine with the heat and rage of a thousand suns. “You’re all the fucking same. Dangerous, psychopathic bitches. Every. Single. One of you.”

Then he did something else that shocked me, and I wasn’t at all prepared for it. He crushed his mouth to mine so hard, every molecule of oxygen was shoved from my lungs.

I was stunned, frozen in place for a moment as his teeth bit at my lips hard enough to draw blood.

I shoved him away, both of our chests rising and falling like we’d just sprinted up a mountain.

His glare speared me, but I felt it in all the wrong places.

Like between my legs, my lower belly, and in my painfully pebbling nipples.

The rest became a blur.

We lunged for each other again. Our mouths locked together with an intensity born of blood and hate and sexual desire gone too long unacknowledged. Zane held firm to the back of my head, pressing me closer to him as his lips forced mine apart and his tongue invaded my mouth, meeting mine and wrestling for control.

“You’re hurt,” I murmured as he pulled away from my mouth, raking his teeth viciously over my neck. I sucked in a sharp breath, loving the way the pain bloomed into a decadent heat from where he bit me. “You were just shot.”

My protests were weak. We both knew it.

But hewasinjured. He’d just been shot and had stitches. We really shouldn’t be doing what I expected—and hoped—we were about to do.

“Shut the fuck up,” he growled, taking my mouth again, his tongue delving between my lips and tangling with mine in a torrent of pent-up desire on both our parts.

Slowly but not gently, his hand moved from the back of my head to the front of my throat, and he held me in place, pinned up against the wall, as he continued to thrust his tongue onto my mouth. His fingers squeezed slightly, cutting off my air just a bit, and my eyes flashed open.

He did say he came out to split the wood; otherwise, he was going to strangle me.

Was he choosing to strangle me?

I shoved him away again, breaking the hold he had on my throat. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“You!” he bellowed.

“No shit!”

We were panting, standing two feet apart, glaring at each other with tension strung so tightly between us that a small gust of wind would surely make it snap.

“You could get us all killed,” he ground out.

“So could you,” I spat back.

“Fucking Christ,” he muttered before he was back on me, his hand cupping the side of my face as he shoved his fingers into my hair and roughly tilted my head back to give him better access to my mouth. His lips slammed into mine with a ferocity that matched his personality. Our teeth clashed, and his tongue met mine in a battle of wills.

His free hand shoved its way under my shirt, and he began to play with my nipple, tugging and twisting it until I gasped into his mouth, breaking the kiss.

Pleasure shot through me, down between my legs, and before I could stop myself, I was grinding my pussy against his thigh.

“That what you want?” he asked, pinching my nipple again.

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