Page 53 of He Sees You

"You said you want to possess me. That you'd kill anyone who tried to hurt me." She rises on her toes, her mouth inches from mine. "Prove it."

"You're injured. You're full of adrenaline. You're not thinking?—"

"I'm thinking clearer than I have in years." Her lips brush mine as she speaks. "I'm thinking that I've spent my whole life writing about dangerous men because I was waiting for you. The real thing. Not a character I could control on a page, but someone who could consume me completely."

"If I kiss you," I warn, my hands moving to her waist, "there's no going back. I don't do halfway. I don't share. I don't let go."

"Good."

The word breaks my control.

I crush my mouth to hers, and it's nothing like the romantic kisses she probably writes about.

This is claiming, consuming.

My hand tangles in her hair, pulling her head back to deepen the angle.

She makes a sound that's part gasp, part moan, and I swallow it like communion wine.

She tastes like danger accepted, like choices that can't be undone.

Her nails dig into my chest through my shirt, not pushing away but pulling closer.

When I bite her bottom lip, she bites back harder, drawing blood.

The copper taste only fuels the fire.

This is what I've imagined during all those nights watching her window—not some gentle seduction but this violent collision of mutual hunger.

I spin us, pressing her against the wall, and she wraps her injured leg around my hip despite the pain it must cause.

The little whimper she makes only feeds the fire.

"Mine," I growl against her mouth.

"Yours," she agrees, then pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "And you're mine. My monster. My killer. Mine."

The possessiveness in her voice undoes me.

I kiss her again, harder, darker, the kind of kiss that would terrify a normal woman.

But Celeste kisses back like she's trying to crawl inside me, like she wants to live in the space between my ribs.

When we finally break apart, we're both breathing hard.

Her lips are swollen, a smear of blood at the corner from where our teeth clashed.

She's never looked more beautiful.

"Stay," I say. Not a question.

"I can't. My father will?—"

"I'll take you back before dawn. But stay now. Sleep here. Let me watch over you the way I've been wanting to."

She looks at me for a long moment, then nods. "Just sleep?"

"Just sleep. When I finally have you, it won't be because you're running from someone else. It'll be because you'rerunning to me. Because you choose it with a clear head and healed body."