Page 6 of A Forbidden Arrangement

I’m too close. Too intimate for someone I just met, but like hell I’m stepping back.

“Just tell me who made you cry like this, and I promise they’ll never get the chance again.”

A faint sardonic curve tips her lips that tells me she thinks I’m joking.

I’m not. Not even a little.

“It really hasn’t been my night,” she says finally and huffs out a sigh as though giving up. “Turns out my fiancé’s cheating on me.”

“He’s a fucking idiot.” My teeth clench together as I grind the words out and force myself to drop my hand.

“Yeah…” She closes her eyes, her mouth twisting as she takes several breaths before looking right at me and says, defeated, “I wish I would’ve realized that before I walked in on him bending a blonde over his desk.”

Heat floods my veins. Not the good kind. The kind that makes me itch for violence. I picture him, faceless, and I want to break him apart for hurting her.

Never again. Never fucking again.

A low growl forms at the back of my throat. She doesn’t hear it, just continuing with a shrug.

“Then that creepy guy came and talked to me. Then you…” Her breath hitches, gaze widening.

“Me?” I lean in, needing to hear her say whatever comes next.

The tip of her tongue drags along her bottom lip, slow and distracting.

“I guess you’re not so bad,” she says with a hint of humor, her posture straightening, chin tilted up in challenge.

Not so bad.

A spark, like a lit match, shines back at me, and it hits me like a blow to the chest. I’m slammed with the need to have her under me, those wide eyes going dark with lust.

I step closer until her knees press lightly against my own, and her hands find my chest, and I revel in the way her nails curl into my shirt.

I lower my mouth to her ear, my voice a low rasp, and stroke the flame of her defiance. “Do you want to get him back? Do you want to be the one fucking somebody else, screaming somebody else’s name?”

She gasps, snapping back, but she doesn’t glance away. I can see the war playing out, every thought pulling her one way, then the other.

Satisfaction drips slow and hot through me. She’s thinking about it. Thinking about me.

I want to own every thought in her head until there’s no space left for that asshole’s name. Until there’s no space left for anything butme.

I dip closer, holding her jaw between my thumb and forefinger. “I can make you forget. Make your body burn until you can’t remember his name. Come on, pretty girl. Use me. Take what you want.”

The blush that spreads across her cheeks is soft, but the heat in her eyes isn't. She bites her bottom lip like she’s trying to keep herself in check.

I want to take that lip from her teeth, feel the drag of it against my tongue, but I don’t. Not yet.

Her head tilts slightly, and she searches me for any hint of a lie. I let her see the truth. I mean every word. I want her to know exactly what I’m offering.

She swallows, fingers twisting together in her lap, then presses her thighs together in a way that makes my blood thrum. The flush deepens, creeping down her throat, and I imagine following it with my mouth.

The way she’d taste on my tongue.

Finally, she looks at me with those wide, innocent eyes. The ones that make me feel like I’d burn down the world just to keep her looking at me like that.

She nods.

My tongue scrapes hard against my teeth as I forcefully hold myself back. “I’m going to need more than that, pretty girl.”