Page 155

Yes it has.
Not long since we’ve been together, but years since he’s scared me so much that I feel the need to fight.
Wherever this cliff leads, we’re going over it together. Because the sad truth is that not falling was never an option. Not with us, at least.
Or more truthfully, Ezra may have planted his hand against my back and shoved us both off a long time ago, in a shadowed room in Kevin Landry’s pool house, on the first night we revealed our truths.
We’ve been free-falling ever since.
Despite the lies.
Despite the betrayals.
Despite the distance.
Everything was all just smaller cliffs we hit going down, and we’re both bruised and scarred because of them.
Ezra picks me up from the counter with an ease that astounds me, like I weigh nothing at all, his arms a steel band, his hand supporting my ass, my arms slipping over his shoulders where they were always meant to be. And although I should complain and protest, should remind him that this can’t happen, I say nothing as he quietly moves us through the house and upstairs into the guest bedroom he’s using.
He wastes no time after dropping me to the bed, my butt pulled up as he tugs my shorts and panties off, my arms stretched over my head as he yanks the shirt up and off my body.
And while I’m naked and exposed within seconds, he’s in jeans that hang from his trim waist, the black t-shirt he wears struggling to stretch against the heavy bulge and deep valley of muscle that carves his body into a machine intended to cause damage, to seduce, to intoxicate me until I’m thoroughly besotted.
I shiver beneath the impact of his stare, the amber like molten liquid, a bit delirious, a touch lazy, but so fucking hungry that I still in place as if held down with shackles locked over my wrists and ankles.
It’s like staring down a lion; any wrong move and you’ve invited it to attack.
I stretch my body over the mattress while he watches, my arms above my head, my feet on the edge of the mattress, my knees held together demurely to hide the view he wants most.
The bastard grins, knowing he’ll splay my legs apart eventually, the challenge I’m silently giving him nothing more than a game he aims to win.
Reaching over his shoulder, he grabs the back of his shirt and pulls it off, the fabric not yet on the ground where he drops it before my mouth is watering and my insides are tight and throbbing.
Fuck, this man is too perfect for words even with the patchwork of faint white scars.
His eyes find mine, pure masculine arrogance in that stare, his head tilting slightly to the side in question. When I don’t move, his eyes spark, and his grin widens, that deceptive dimple indenting his cheek.
“It’s going to be like that, is it?”
A fight.
Just like it used to be.
Because that’s the way we like it.
“Yeah,” I say, voice husky.
The sound rattling in his chest makes my stomach clench, a challenge and an acceptance, a growl so inherently male and approving of my answer that my breath catches to hear it.
“Just remember you started this.”
You know what else I remember? Ezra’s been drinking. He’s not controlled. And we still haven’t finished that conversation from earlier. It’s a shame I don’t have time to consider those thoughts before he’s dragged me to the edge of the mattress and locked my wrists in place with one hand.
The first sharp bite against the side of my breast is a warning, the pain of it slicing deep as his lips close over the sting, and his mouth marks me with a blistering kiss.
I yelp in response, my back arching, my thighs squeezing together as he slips a hand behind my legs to tease me with cruel fingers.
Keeping my knees together means nothing. Not with Ezra. He’ll find a way to get to me regardless of any fight I put up.