Chapter 12 #2
I blow-dry my hair, pinning my locks into place to enhance the natural wave of my hair. I put on a little makeup, not too much. Concealer, blush, mascara and then top it all off with a cherry lip balm that gives my lips a subtle shade of red.
I rummage through my underwear drawer, deciding I’ll wear something nice for him tonight, instead of my usual large briefs.
I don’t know why I felt like wearing them would keep him from touching me.
Truth be told, he would have torn them off anyway, maybe even cut them off with that pocketknife he had in his pocket.
The thought sends excitement to my core, and I realize I’m chewing my bottom lip.
I find a small, red lace thong, with the tags still attached and a matching bra. Again, items he had purchased for me. I can imagine the thought he had when he bought them, and I hope he wants to live those fantasies tonight.
I hear his boots before I see him. He’s downstairs, pacing. I imagine the weight of him. The scent of aftershave. The heat in his eyes when he sees what I’ve done with myself.
I imagine his heat, too. Because he’ll know what this dress means. It means I’m no longer afraid.
I step out onto the stairs. His head turns slowly—like a man bracing for impact. And when his eyes land on me, everything stills. The room. The air. The storm behind his ribcage.
I feel it.
He drinks me in like I’m the last thing on earth he’s allowed to want, and he hates me for it. But he wants me more for it. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t blink, he just walks toward me like something old and angry that’s finally found a reason to calm down.
His hand wraps around my waist—firm. Possessive. Not cruel. He dips his mouth to my ear.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart.” His voice is low. Rough silk. A blade with a sugar edge.
“So are you,” I whisper back.
I don’t know where the mask ends, and the man begins. I don’t know if the warmth in his touch is real—or just another kind of trap. But when he leans in and kisses me my body betrays me again. Heat blooms low in my belly.
I let it.
“Mmm, cherry,” he groans, before his fingers fist in my hair, yanking my head back just enough to deepen the kiss.
There’s no patience now. No performance.
Just want—dark, dangerous, and all-consuming.
I don’t try to stop it. I don’t want to.
Because the way he moves—the way he claims every inch of space like it was built for him—pulls me under all over again.
Hard lines, rigid muscle, brutal command.
It seeps into me, makes my skin hum, makes me remember last night in a flood I can’t shut out.
That dangerous authority was always my weakness, even before the world soured. The flash of his off-duty badge catching the light. The hard twitch in his jaw when restraint is the only thing keeping him human.
He’s a monster. But somehow, impossibly, he’s mine.
My fingers hover—shaking—before daring to brush the edge of his jeans. He’s already hard, already gone, and his cock—my God—it’s huge. I flinch at the feel of him, ashamed of the answering pulse low in my body.
His groan rumbles into my mouth, low and guttural, the sound crawling down my spine, like poison and fire all at once. My head screams no, but my body forgets the word entirely.
“I want you,” I whisper, breathless, betraying myself the moment the words slip free. They’re raw, jagged, ugly in their desperation—yet true. Too true. If I can’t escape him, maybe I can choose how he consumes me.
He stills. His breath shudders against my lips, every line of him strung tight, ready to snap.
“Say it again.”
The command slices through me. I swallow hard. “I want you.”
He jerks back as though struck, but it isn’t rejection I see in his eyes. It’s restraint. A war being fought behind the black heat of his gaze.
“No,” he exhales, rough, reluctant. “Not like this. Not yet.”
The words crash through me, cold and disorienting, leaving confusion clawing up my throat.
“Why?” My voice trembles, small.
His hand brushes my waist—gentle, almost reverent—and it breaks me more than his brutality ever could.
“Because I want more than your fear,” he says, voice low, certain.
“I want the part of you still fighting. The part of you that doesn’t even realize it belongs to me yet.
” His eyes lock on mine, merciless and unflinching.
“I want you clear. Awake. Sober on me. Not high on adrenaline. Not softened from foreplay.”
Silence falls heavy. I don’t know if that part of me even exists anymore, or if he’s already stripped it away.
He steps back, leaving an ache in the air where his body held mine. The space between us burns, a void that feels impossible to cross.
He exhales slow, a sound caught between a laugh and a growl.
“What you want isn’t me—it’s the way last night felt.
The way you broke for me. And you’ll want it again.
You’ll crave it until you can’t breathe without it.
I’ll keep peeling you open until every morning, every night, begins and ends with me in your head.
” His eyes burn into mine, merciless. “And when I finally fuck you, Summer, it’ll be so deep, so hard, you’ll wonder how the hell you ever survived without me.
” He steps back, like the moment hasn’t just scorched the ground beneath us. “Now, let’s go. We have a reservation.”