Page 54 of That Girl is Trouble

Desperately.

A thrill. A burst of adrenaline. A fix guaranteed to make my heart bounce in my chest. It was a test. An attempt to understand the words that have been on repeat in my head since they slipped from his lips. Never fucking touch what’s mine.

Axe’s hands feather down my waist, steadying at my hips. His touch is light. Barely there. “I don’t like what you do, Kat. Your job. I don’t like it.”

I slap his hands away. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“I don’t like you walking around that place shaking your ass like some dirty little slut.”

The palm of my hand hits his face so quickly I don’t have a chance to stop it.

For a moment, it’s near silent. The low hum of my speakers is the only noise filling the space between us, but I swear I can still hear the echo of my hand making contact with his cheek. His eyes harden, the glare of them lined with that harshness, that edge I’ve always been so fascinated with.

It should terrify me. I slapped Axel fucking Donovan right in his stupid face, and I should be backing away, begging for forgiveness. But I can’t bear any of that. I can’t bear begging for anything from this man ever again.

Squaring my shoulders, I tilt up my chin and stare right back at him. He steps into me, his body so close I can feel the heat of his anger burning my skin. I press my palm to his chest and push him back, and this time he lets me.

“Axe,” I say, teeth gritted. “In the time I’ve known you, I have watched you parade a never ending line of conquests through your bedroom door because you can’t help but stick your dick into anything with two legs and a heartbeat. You don’t get to call me a slut. You don’t get to call me anything. You don’t get to have an opinion on my life. You lost that privilege when you decided to kick me out of yours.”

I should stop there. Take the anger swimming in his eyes as a cue to back the fuck up. But this man makes me want to strangle something, and the rhythm of my heart pounding in my chest feels too damn good to quit now.

“Why are you here?” I ask him.

Pinning me with a stare, he scrubs a hand over the scruff of his jaw. “Because I want to erase all the fucking hands that touched you tonight. And maybe you’re right. I got no business talking to you like this. Never had any claim on you, Kat. Not back then and not now. But I can’t help but think of all the ways I want to clean them from your skin.” He steps into me, his hand closing lightly around my throat. “I want to touch you until the only hands you remember are mine.”

Fuck I like the sound of that. So many goddamn nights, I dreamed of that. His hands, my body. His mouth and tongue and teeth scraping over my skin.

He lets out a breath. “I should go.”

“No.” The words rush out of me as I step closer to him. As his hold on my throat tightens. “No, don’t… don’t go.”

It’s been just over a year since he told me to leave. Told me he didn’t want me. That I was nothing to him. Swore it was all in my head. Even then, as much as those words hurt, a big part of me knew that every single one of them was a lie. I was too young. He was too dangerous. But he wanted me. I knew it then, and I know it now. I’ve been waiting for him. Wishing he’d come for me like I used to wish Triss would come after she’d left me alone with my mother.

And now he’s here.

And that’s a problem. Axe may be the greatest high I’ve ever ridden, the biggest rush, but if I know one thing about that feeling, is that it’s fleeting.

The light turns red. The heartbeat slows. The song ends.

None of it is forever. And right now, with his lips so close to mine, his chest pressed hard against me, I don’t want to know what it’ll feel like when this ends, when the rush is finally over. When he utters those words again.

I don’t want you Kat.

But like the addict I am, I can’t help but fucking chase this, no matter how temporary. No matter how hard I might come down when it’s over.

I drop my hands to his hips, teasing the waistband of his jeans, and tip my face up towards his, waiting. Waiting for him to touch me, to kiss me, to take what he so clearly wants.

His fingers tangle in my hair, and he yanks my head back, the anger in his eyes retreating, replaced with the same desire thrashing around in my chest.

He smashes his lips against mine, and it’s another one of those mind-melting, soul-claiming kisses. His tongue is suffocating, punishing. He invades my mouth, taking what he wants from me, and I give it freely. Because it’s his. All of me. It always has been.

With rough movements, he grasps my ass, and with just as much force, he picks me up and slams me onto the table, hooking my legs around his hips, only breaking our kiss to rip off his jacket and shirt.

When his chest is bare, he dives back in, but I push him back so I can stare. Touch him. Feel him. The ripple of his abs, the broadness of his tattooed shoulders—the reaper on one, the snake-wrapped Sinner skull on the other. Ink marks his ribs and chest. And just like I used to do, I skate my fingers over the lines and then down the deep cut of his pelvic muscles to the top of his jeans, where they sit low on his hips.

Fuck, he’s hot. A shirtless Axel Donovan is one of my favourite things to look at.

“Belt,” I whisper.

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