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It was that thought, the idea that he was so immersed in his own mind, even chastising himself for losing control, that had me breaking into a run and jumping on his back.

Adrian went still the moment my arms circled his shoulders, shocked out of movement.

“Reyna,” he growled, moving his hands up to my arms. “What are you doing?”

“You wouldn’t listen to me,” I defended, my legs coming up to hug his hips on instinct.

Adrian grumbledthat’s enough of thisunder his breath before peeling me off him with a strength that made my jaw go slack and planted me back on the ground.

I thought that would be it, but the second my feet hit the solid stone floor, Adrian grabbed my shoulders and walked me back into the wall. “What are you doing?” he asked again, speaking so low I almost couldn’t hear him.

“I was trying to stop you,” I breathed. We were close enough that the warmth of it landed on his lips. I could see it. In the way he sucked in, like he wanted to share the same breath. “I was trying to say thank you.”

“Thank you for what?” he asked, like he was daring me to tell him that no one had ever done that for me before.

But it was the truth. “Thank you for defending me.”

A low rumbling sound came from Adrian’s chest. He closed his eyes, taking in a ragged breath.

“Honey,” he said, like it was an apology. His hands ran over my arms and I shivered at the touch. I couldn’t help it. Something shifted then, taking a turn for the predatory. “No one has taken proper care of you, have they?”

The words were laced with an unavoidable undertone. “No,” I confessed.

Adrian’s forehead dropped to mine with a curse. I could feel the restraint in his bones, in the way his muscles went taut.

The dim candlelight made me bold, the adrenaline pumping through my body with the rapid gallop of my heart making it even worse. “Are you going to?” I whispered.

Adrian’s breath shuddered out of him. “I don’t already?”

Not in the way I wanted him to.

“You do,” I answered instead. But Adrian had gotten too attuned to me, because he caught the lie immediately.

His hands trailed up to my neck, cradling my face in his strong palms. With a soft nudge, he shifted my head to one side, baring my neck to him. His lips fell to the skin there, my body erupting in goosebumps at the hot slide of his mouth.

A small sound broke off in the back of my throat as my hands tightened on the lapel of his jacket. “What are you doing?” I dared to ask. There was no one here we needed to convince.

Adrian hummed into the space where my neck metmy shoulder. “I’m livid. It’s taking everything in me not to walk back in there and kill that fucker for daring to even speak your name.”

“Adrian.” I wasn’t sure what I was begging for, but there was no mistaking the plea in the way I said his name.

As if in answer, he pressed me harder into the wall at the same time his hand smoothed down my side. A rough, desperate move followed by a comforting caress.

It was exactly what I always craved but was never quite able to find. And the fact that Adrian gave it so easily, when this was nothing but a farce, devastated me.

But I wasn’t about to push him away. Not when I might have only one chance to feel this content.

“I’m distracting myself,” he murmured, his lips skating up my neck. The closer he got to my face, to my lips, the more desperate I felt. I’d never felt desire this strong, the force of it enough to flatten a row of trees.

I was squirming under him, but his solid weight wouldn’t let me move more than an inch. The only thing I could move was my arms, so I brought them up over his chest and around his neck to hold onto his hair for dear life.

A low growl fell from his lips, right onto my feverish skin, the second my fingers threaded through his thick hair. And when I tugged, the only thing I could do to keep my knees from buckling, it was like the move pulled his control right out of his hands.

His tongue darted out, drawing over the line of my jaw in a slow glide.

“I once told you that you tasted like honey.” The words were barely audible. I only understood thembecause they were placed so close to my ear. Or maybe they just seeped into my skin.

“Yes?” The word was more of a soft moan than anything. He wasn’t letting memove, which forced the want—the yearning—out in other ways.