Chapter 7
Kane
T his wasn’t supposed to happen.
One moment I was trying to make Charlotte understand the danger she was in and attempting to get through that stubborn skull of hers that this wasn’t a game, that Vincent Calloway would kill her without a second thought if she pushed too hard without the evidence to back it up and convict him.
The next moment she was swinging at me, all fury and frustration and fear channeled into a clumsy fist that I caught without thinking. And then she was pressed against me, her arms trapped in my hands, her body flush with mine, and every rational thought I’d ever had went up in flames.
I should have let her go. Should have stepped back, taken a breath, remembered all the reasons this was a catastrophically bad idea.
She’d ruined my life. She’d taken the first hope I’d felt in years and ground it into dust. She’d looked at the evidence someone else had planted and decided I was guilty without ever bothering to ask for my side of the story.
I should have hated her.
I did hate her, I told myself.
But hatred and desire had gotten tangled up together somehow since seeing her again in the conference room, twisting together into something I couldn’t separate anymore. And when she looked up at me with those blue eyes blazing, her chest heaving, her lips parted—I stopped trying.
The kiss hit like a collision—hard, unrestrained, all the anger and frustration between us crashing together in a single, reckless moment. There was nothing tentative about it. No hesitation. Just heat and fury and something dangerously close to desperation.
Her mouth was hot against mine, demanding, and I met it with equal force.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful. I felt her inhale sharply against my lips, and the sound went straight through my control, shredding what little restraint I had left.
My grip tightened, pulling her closer without thinking, like distance between us was suddenly unbearable.
This wasn’t the controlled dominance of the club. There were no rules here. No careful negotiation. No lines we weren’t crossing.
This was something else entirely.
This was war.
Her fingers fisted in my shirt, yanking me closer like she wanted to crawl inside me.
I released her arms and buried my hands in her hair, tilting her head back so I could take the kiss deeper, darker.
She bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, and the copper tang on my tongue only made me want more.
I kissed her like I was furious— because I was .
Kissed her like I wanted to punish her for every sleepless night, every moment of doubt, every time I’d wondered if what we’d shared had been real or just another story she was chasing.
My teeth scraped against her jaw, her throat, the sensitive spot behind her ear that made her gasp.
She was just as wild. She raked her nails down my back hard enough that I felt the sting through my shirt. Ground her hips against mine in a way that made rational thought impossible.
And beneath all the anger, God help me , was that same bone-deep passion I’d felt from the first moment I’d touched her. That same electric connection that had made me think, foolishly, that she might be different. That we might be something more once we met outside The Players Club.
The betrayal made everything I’d felt for her cut deeper. Made me want her more, not less, and I hated myself for it.
I picked her up easily, my hands sliding down the backs of her bare thighs—those goddamn shorts barely covered anything—and lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around my waist like she’d been waiting for exactly this. As if her body remembered mine even when her mind had decided I was the enemy.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she gasped against my mouth, even as she rolled her hips and arched against my already straining cock.
“Not a damn thing,” I agreed, and bit down on her shoulder hard enough to leave a mark and make her moan.
Her fucking clothes had been driving me insane since she’d walked out of that bedroom.
I’d spent two years trying to forget what her body looked like, felt like, tasted like.
I’d tried to think about anyone else when I jerked off in the shower, tried to replace her face with someone— anyone —who hadn’t destroyed everything I’d built.
It never worked. She kept invading my thoughts, my dreams, my fantasies. I’d considered it a triumph when I finally went a whole week without thinking about her.
And now she was back in my arms and I was just as pathetically desperate for her as I’d ever been. Which only made me angrier.
I didn’t bother carrying her to the bedroom. The wall was right there, and I wasn’t feeling patient or gentle. I pressed her against it hard enough that the picture frames rattled, and she whimpered into my mouth like the impact was exactly what she wanted.
I had to release her to get clothes off, and as soon as her feet touched the floor again we tore at each other’s clothes.
Her hands frantically pulled at my shirt, and buttons scattered across the hardwood floor as she yanked it open.
I shoved her oversized tee up and over her head and tossed the material aside, revealing her bare breasts.
The sight of those full mounds and tight nipples made my cock throb painfully against my zipper.
I pinned her back against the wall, my mouth devouring hers again while I shoved those thin, flimsy shorts down her legs.
She kicked them aside while I dealt with my belt, my zipper, shoving my pants down just far enough to free my cock.
Charlotte didn’t stay passive—she yanked my ruined shirt off my shoulders, dragged her nails down my chest hard enough to leave red trails, then sank her teeth into my neck right at the junction of my shoulder.
I hissed at the sting. That was going to bruise. She’d marked me.
Good. I planned to mark her right back.
She’d always been such an obedient sub during our scenes—eager to please, desperate to be good for me, melting so beautifully under my commands. There was none of that now. She was all teeth and claws, fighting me even as she pulled me closer, and I fucking loved it.
I wasn’t into brat taming—that was Ford’s thing—but this was different.
This wasn’t playful defiance designed to earn punishment.
This was genuine fury, genuine need, and two years of resentment and desire combusting between us.
She was just as angry as I was, just as desperate, and knowing that made a savage heat unfurl in my chest.
I dragged two fingers through the slick mess between her legs. “Soaking wet already,” I said, voice rough, though my smile was smug as my eyes met hers. “You hate me that much, and you’re still dripping for my cock.”
“Fuck you,” she breathed, but her hips kept moving against my hand, chasing friction.
“That’s the plan.” I grabbed her ass and hauled her back up, her legs immediately winding tight around my waist. I let my cock slide through her pussy and all that damp heat without penetrating her.
She made a choked sound of frustration. “Come on,” she demanded, twisting her fingers in my hair and giving a painful yank while her heels dug into my ass. “Fuck me already.”
“Maybe I won’t.” I rolled my hips and licked my way up the side of her neck, until my mouth was at her ear. “Maybe I’ll leave you desperate for it. Let you feel what it’s like to want something you can’t have.”
Her fingers twisted tighter in my hair as she yanked my head back to look into my eyes, so that I could see the lust and need blazing in hers. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” I said, feeling a bit vindictive.
But even as I said it, I knew I was bluffing.
I couldn’t have walked away from this collision with Charlotte if my life depended on it.
Two years of wanting her, of trying not to want her, of lying awake at night remembering exactly how her tight pussy felt wrapped around my cock—it had all built to this moment, and I was powerless against it.
“Shut up and fuck me, Kane.”
The sound of my name on her lips, so raw and demanding, snapped the last thread of my control.
With the head of my cock notched at her entrance, I shoved inside of her in one long, hard, brutal thrust. She was so tight, so hot, that for a second I had to grit my teeth and hold still so I didn’t finish right then and there.
Charlotte gasped, her head falling back against the wall, her pussy clamping down around my dick like she was trying to keep me there.
I didn’t give her time to adjust. I pulled out and drove back in ruthlessly, setting a punishing rhythm that had her back hitting the wall with every stroke. She met me thrust for thrust, arching to take me deeper, our bodies completely in sync.
I hated how badly I’d missed this. Hated that I still wanted to claim every inch of her even after she’d torn open old wounds and left them bleeding.
But God, I couldn’t stop.
I braced one hand against the wall next to her head and wrapped the other arm around her lower back for leverage, and then I stopped thinking entirely as I pounded into her repeatedly, like a man possessed.
I’d never fucked anyone like this. Never lost myself so completely in fury and need and the overwhelming drive to claim and Christ , she took all of it, her cries getting louder and more desperate with every stroke.
When I lowered my head and sucked a mark into the side of her throat, she moaned and clenched around me so hard my vision blurred.
“Harder,” she gasped, her voice shaking. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“You want it harder? Fine. Take it,” I growled and hiked her higher, changed the angle, and fucked into her so deep she choked on a gasp.
My greedy little slut . The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back, refusing to praise her when this was a form of punishment.