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That’s when he kissed me.

Hard. Fiercely.

With the kind of hunger that made me gasp into his mouth. That was so damn immediately intense, it was a little frightening.

It was as if he was flooding me with every twisted emotion he had bottled up inside him. All the time he’d spent observing me,plotting my death, growing to loathe me and view me as some kind of prey, poured into this single moment.

This hot, impulsive, ravenous kiss between us.

He forced his tongue into my mouth. He squeezed at my throat and made it so I felt like I was flying. I was so dizzy, my mind reeling, that I no longer felt like I was trapped on the floor of my apartment.

I was spinning, suddenly consumed by the man who had tried to kill me.

His tongue lashed against mine, warm and dominant. We were still in some kind of aggressive fight.

Except this time, we were dueling with our lips and tongues.

A fire sparked inside me that rose to dangerous levels. It melted away any doubt or hesitation I had until I found myself kissing him back.

Just as hungrily. Just as desperately.

Hands pinned above my head, I was his for the taking.

…and, in that moment, Iwantedto be.

I wanted Jin to take me, use me, do whatever he needed to do to end this.

His kiss was that disruptive to my psyche. It was an unmistakable point of no return, similar to the symbol he’d marked on the inside of my wrist.

I didn’t know what would come next, but I damn sure didn’t expect him to rip his mouth away from mine, collect his fallen knife, then stride out of my apartment like none of it ever happened.

I wake the next morning with my heart fluttering at the memory.

My lips still tingle from his kiss. I’m flushed and hot, yet somehow shivery and drenched in cold sweat at the same time. I’m lying sideways across the bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, my blanket twisted around my legs like a net.

The body aches make themselves known at once.

Not just the tingle from my lips. But the soreness at my throat and the ache at the back of my skull.

I dart to the mirror at my vanity table and admire the damage. Jin’s left a bruise along my throat from where he’d gripped me and almost choked me out. I can make out the purple imprints of his long, strong fingers as they blend against my brown skin.

My fingers touch the lump on the back of my head, from where I’d been tackled to the ground by him.

Up until that point, it seemed he was… almost going easy on me?

He let me get several hits in, scratching, punching, stomping at him while he only sought to restrain or subdue me.

One look at Jin and his physique and how he moved, and I could tell he had a prowess that was deadly. If he wanted to, he could’ve easily snapped my neck at any point or truly left me battered.

But he didn’t. He didn’t hit me once. He couldn’t even kill me when he finally seemed to trap me on the floor and pulled out his knife.

By his fearsome glare, he seemed to want to. Almost as if he was at war with himself over it.

He knew it was what he had to do, but it was also what hecouldn’tdo.

…but why? Why couldn’t Jin, with his tattoos inking his skin all the way up to his chin and all the way down to the tips of his fingers, kill me?

My mind flashes back to how lethal yet sexy he’d looked—an admission that makes me burn with shame.