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I bite back a laugh. “Alpha-male—?” I look away to center myself with a slow breath. I don’t know why I’m expecting her to stop pushing my buttons.

“I mean it, Smith,” she says in a low voice.

Has this woman really dug herself so deep that her calling me out is all it takes for me to get a semi?

But it’s not her insolence that gets me hard.

It’s the thought of fucking it out of her.

Again…and again…and again.

Because apparently, I still haven’t had enough of her. And Christ, how that thought excites me. I have to force myself not to sit here thinking up creative ways of breaking her. But the second I push those thoughts away, something more insidious surfaces. Something even more dangerous.

My lips tingle again. My dick hardens.

Zoey pipes up again. No idea she’s tempting fate. Always pushing, pushing, pushing.

“Pinky swear you won’t?—“

Fuck it.

I unlatch my seat belt and grab hers. Yank it so hard, she gasps. Only surprise in those big hazel eyes as I lean in close.

So fucking close.

She smells like my shower gel. My shampoo. The familiar scent of the hotel’s laundry detergent.

All mine, mine,mine.

I inhale deep, soaking up that scent,herscent. Different from the cheap perfume she’d been wearing the night I caught her. Different, but the same, because I can still smell her beneath all those artificial scents.

“I’m not promising anything, kitten,” I murmur.

Her lips part, drawing my gaze. And Christ, I have to force myself to look away.

I want to tear into them, destroy them, leave her wrecked and ravaged.

Because that’s what I do.

I break things.

Her eyes flicker, pupils dilating when I give the seat belt another hard tug.

Anything can happen when she walks into that diner. Though the street looks deserted—no cars or people in sight—they could already be inside, waiting.

I’m not taking any fucking chances.

I need to know, right now, what the stakes really are.

How much she means to me.

And there’s only one way I know to find out.

Zoey stiffens when I crush my mouth against hers, her head leaning back until she’s pressed into the crook between the headrest and the window. I follow her, refusing to let her break away.

Attacking.

Zoey whimpers against my mouth, still not reciprocating. Just letting me take what I want, like a wounded animal too tired to put up a fight.