"I should break your fingers. Torture you until you give it to me."
"Do it. But if you want what I found, you better start using something other than your threats, cause those don’t work on me."
I dragged her closer. Our lips, just inches apart. Her hot breath hovered against my mouth as her scent of sweet lilies filled my lungs. My hand slid from her wrist, up her arm, over her shoulder, and around her throat. She didn't move, but I felt her shudder against me as I squeezed. A small whimper fell from her lips, and I thought I was going to lose it right then and there.
“You're not leaving here alive, Winters. We both know that. Give me what you found, and I may make your death quick.”
"You can try. But you won’t survive what comes next,” she whispered.
I grunted in approval. “You will fear me, Duchess.”
“I am not afraid of you, Killic. I never was.”
"That’s your first mistake, Winters."
I kissed her. I don’t know why I did it, but I kissed her.
Hard.
Violent.
I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, but the sound of her moan getting lost in my mouth made my cock jerk, and I wanted to take her right there against that wall.
She bit my lip, clawed her nails into my chest like she wanted to tear me apart and take me all at once. I slammed her back against the wall, one leg between hers, grinding until she gasped.
I broke the kiss, leaning back just in time to see her cheeks flush, the redness running down across her plush tits. I let my eyes take their time lingering on those globes, wanting to tear them out of her tank top. My gaze was distracted by the way she licked her kiss-swollen lips, and then they traveled up to meet the rage in her eyes. Her anger only made me grow harder for her.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she hissed at me, that sweet venom lacing every syllable.
But those words? They lit something inside me. She made me feel this rage mixed with a heartbreak so deep it hurt my fucking chest. And then it filled with a hunger so vicious it curled in my gut and whisperedruin herjust so I wouldn’t have to feel this ache clawing at my ribs.
“It means everything,” I growled against her mouth, my voice like gravel, my lips brushing hers, wanting another one of those kisses. “And we both fucking know it.”
“Fuck you,” she spat out, the fire flashing in her eyes.
God, she was beautiful when she hated me.
“This isn’t over, Duchess,” I snarled, every syllable dripping with promise.
She bent to grab the laptop from the floor, her breath uneven, eyes steady on mine, thinking I might stop her, might pull her back into what we’d just started.
But I wasn’t going to. I was going to let her run because the thrill was in the torment. The torment of knowing damn well that I wouldn’t stop until I had her pinned down beneath me, breathless and begging for her life, right where I wanted her to be.
Chapter 4
Duchess
Obsidian’s place was the kind of chaos that made sense only to her. Every cord, every wire, every neon-lit gadget looked like it had been salvaged from a cyberpunk apocalypse. The scent of coffee grinds, burnt plastic, and something sweet… maybe patchouli, maybe just her perfume, but it clung to the air like static. The low hum from the dozens of machines filled the space, vibrating through my boots and into every one of my nerves.
Her apartment was one floor above a boarded-up pawn shop in East Hollywood, and it looked like a bunker mated with a nightclub and gave birth to a war room.
“So do you think you can help me?"
"You brought me a hot laptop, probably with a tracker on it, into my home, and now you ask for help!"
"Come on, Obsidian, help me out here."
"You don't fuck with shit like this, Stephanie. This is how people like us get killed."
