Page 138 of Burning Daylight

That just enrages me further, and I’m about to explode out of my skin. I glare at him, my closed fists resting against his chest, his fingers warm and firm where he’s holding me. “Don’t you tell me to calm down. You think this is a game? I’m trying toprotectyouandyour sister, mind you, and you just don’t even?—”

“I never asked you to do that,” he cuts me off.

“You didn’t have to,” I reply.

“And justwhatare you protecting me from, Little Rose?” he asks, his fingers tightening around my wrists. “You act like I’m the bad guy, like my dad is the one who’s the villain, and here you are with me, anyway.”

He leans down, his nose brushing against my neck, his breath hot on my skin.

I shiver.

“Is it because deep down you know that your family is up to no good? That they aren’t the heroes you pretend they are?”

His voice is a low rasp, but he might as well have shouted the words for how much they vibrate through me.

“That’s not…”

I trail off, because I’m not sure why I feel this way.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just know that if something were to happen to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

“And why’s that?”

My heart pounds against my ribs. “Because you mean too much to me.”

He groans, and then his mouth comes down on mine.

Immediately, I melt into him, my fists unclenching and my hands gripping the fabric of his shirt as I give into the feeling.

All I really wanted him to do was kiss me, anyway. Honestly, I can’t even remember what I was so mad about in the first place.

A moan tears from my throat as we collide. It’s almost brutal with intensity. He kisses me like he’s desperate, like he’s been on the edge of snapping for too long and I’m the only thing left to hold him together. His tongue slips across the seam of my lips, licking into me like he owns the space and is staking his claim, and I press into him, my body molding to his like it was made to fit there.

His hands find my waist, strong and rough andfirm, and he lifts me like I weigh nothing.

My legs wrap around him and then the kiss breaks—his lips shiny and his breathing ragged—and his eyes are molten lava as they pour over me.

“You think I don’t care?” Leaning down, he presses his mouth to mine again, his teeth sinking into my flesh and nipping just hard enough to sting. “You think I don’t worry every single second that eventhinkingtoo much about you will take you away for good?”

His words slam into my chest and burrow deep.

“Stop thinking about me, then,” I say breathlessly, before I put my hands around his neck and drag him down to me.

He grunts into my mouth, his hands sliding along the sides of my body and cupping underneath my ass, and I’m not sure who does what when, but somehow, we end up with my back against the trunk of a tree, his hips flush against mine.

“Impossible,” he rasps. “You’reallI think about.”

I can feel him. Thick and hard and pressed right up against me. He thrusts once, his hips grinding into mine, and even through our clothes, his cock slides right where I need him. My body jolts, the bark of the tree scratching my skin.

The pain feels kind of good, and my head spins from lust.

He laves kisses down my neck, licks a stripe over my pulse point, and then bites, just enough to make me whimper.

His hands feel like they’re everywhere, one holding me up against the tree and the other slipping beneath my shirt and tracing the curve of my waist before dipping lower.

He nips my lips again. “You taste like sugar.”

I can only mewl, words having left me the second he started touching me.