Carefully, I opened my eyes.
Holy shit.
Those eyes. Those black, undead eyes. Those obsidian pools of nothingness, beautified with abnormally long lashes. Those wide, tempting lips peeled back in a snarl.
“Did that hurt?” he questioned.
“Not even a little bit,” I replied, braving it.
Strong, long fingers instantly fisted around my throat, tightening, squeezing… “Does this hurt?”
My breathing was cut off completely, and my veins felt like they were swelling, about to implode at any minute. A heaviness behind my eyeballs was practically forcing them from their sockets.
Holy hell, he was killing me.
Still, I managed to give an infinitesimal shake of my head.
Clearly frustrated with my obduracy, he made a growling noise and released his grip on my throat. As I moved my hand toward my aching throat, he promptly grabbed my arms, yanked them straight at my sides, and pinned them down with his knees—which hurt like a motherfucker. The man weighed a freaking ton.
I clenched my fists and curled my toes to stop myself from crying out like a virgin getting penetration for the first time. “You said you’d never hurt me.”
Those empty eyes narrowed to scary slits as he roughly cupped my chin and held my face in place so I had nowhere to look but into the infinite blackness of his eyes. “Judging by the way you fight, you’re trained. So you do know that an uppercut done the way you did it could have killed me, right?”
I didn’t respond. But I did know. There were uppercuts for fighting and knocking someone out. And uppercuts for killing with a single blow. But I wasn’t an MMA fighter. I was trained to kill. Not knock someone out.
So, yeah, I knew what I did. Which was why I ran. Nevertheless, we both knew my intention wasn’t to kill him. If I’d been aiming to kill him, I would’ve channeled my swing more towards the throat and less towards the chin.
Still, he asked, “Were you trying to kill me, Blood?”
My turn to narrow eyes at him, because I knew he knew the answer to that.
“Answer me!” he said in a hushed growl, squeezing my face harder.
Through squished lips, I said, “If I were, you wouldn’t be straddling me now, would you?”
Releasing his hold on my face, he sighed, frustrated, irritated, those damned sexy lips forming a pinched O for the air to pass through.
The man was straddling me, inflicting pain on me with his knees pinning my arms, and, in the midst of all this, all I could think about was how much I wanted those lips on mine again.
A rush of white-hot arousal pooled between my legs, and I squirmed beneath him.
Chad misunderstood my squirm. “You’re hurting. I’m sorry. But…before I let you go. Tell me…”—his gaze shifted from mine to the grass, and his chest rose and fell, as he let out another exhalation. Then his gaze came back to me—”Doyou want to kill me?”
What? Did he really just ask me that? Did he know? Did he know it wasme?
No. He couldn’t. There’s no possibly way he would’ve allowed me to get this close to him if he knew. This was Chadrick fucking Niiveux. He would’ve killed me ages ago if he knew.
Icouldunderstand him questioning who I was, considering I fought like a man and showed no fear to his face. Maybe he was just suspicious of me and a little leery. If he knew, one hundred percent, that I was his once-upon–a-time reading buddy, back for revenge, no damn way in hell I’d be breathing right now.
I didn’t answer with a yes or a no, because I figured, if I lied to his face like this, he’d be able to tell. “Swap the L’s with S’s in the word ‘kill’.That’swhat I want to do to you.”
As his gaze drifted down to my lips, warmth supplanted the emptiness, supplanted the threat in his eyes. But it didn’t stop him from gritting out, “Answer my question.”
I didn’t. I was stubborn like that. “Kiss me, boss.”
Slowly, steadily, he breathed through his lips, gaze still on my lips. “Whatever you’re doing, stop. Unless you want me to fuck you right here in this garden with no regard for the residents.”
My core throbbed, and I squirmed again, licking my lips. Clit pulsing heavily with need. “That’s.exactly.what.I want.” As I hiccupped those words, I moaned out loud, thrusting up my hip in impatience, simply because I couldn’t help it.
