Page 31 of Intense (Beneath The Blaze #3)

STEPHANIE

Song- Closer, Kings of Leon.

H is hand finally drops from my throat, but the imprint remains. I need more. I’ve always craved it but never found it.

Everything about him seeps into my dark heart. The way his breath scorched my skin. The way his body boxed me in. The way my thighs trembled around his hips like I belonged there.

I don’t.

I won’t ever.

He’s a disease I should’ve cut out the second he infected my life. But instead, I married the fucking virus. And now, I want him to ruin every inch of me.

I shove him back and straighten my spine, ignoring the ache between my legs.

“Annul it.”

My voice doesn’t shake, but my insides are glass. Close to cracking.

He lifts an eyebrow, like I just told him to amputate a limb.

“No.”

“Finn,” I warn.

He leans in, his palm flattening on the table beside me. “Dance for your divorce. Strip to get your name back.”

I blink.

“What?”

“That’s the deal, temptress.” His voice is low. “You want your freedom? You’ll have to earn it. You’ll put on a show. For me. Right here. Right now.”

The air disappears from my lungs.

My skin burns, not from shame, but from something far more dangerous.

Lust.

This man drives me insane. Makes me feel more alive in five seconds of rage than I’ve felt in years of medicine.

But I won’t give him what he wants.

I swing my legs to the side of the table and hop down, standing chest-to-chest with him in my gigantic heels.

“You think everything is a game, don’t you?” I spit. “Marriage. Love. People. Work.”

He smirks, teeth flashing like a fucking wolf. “How is it a game when I’ve already won?”

I shake my head, fury swirling in my throat like acid.

“You haven’t won, Finn.”

He leans down until his lips ghost my ear.

“Then prove it. Walk away without giving me what I want. Go on, love. Or should I call you Angel here?”

I can’t move.

Because deep down, I know I’d rather strip for him than give him the satisfaction of seeing me run.

His palm brushes my waist, and I flinch, not from fear. From the electric, all-consuming obsession between us.

“I like the name choice, but I suppose even the worst of us could be fallen angels,” he mutters.

“You came up straight from hell, Dr. Quinn,” I whisper.

He chuckles darkly.

“How do you know? Were you holding my hand on the way up?”

I scoff. But he’s probably not far from the truth. Is that why I crave him?

Even as I want him gone.

Even as I want my name back.

Even as I want to forget what his hands feel like on my skin.

He pulls back, eyes dragging over my body, slow and possessive. “Clock’s ticking, Mrs. Quinn. Want that annulment? Let me see what’s mine.”

I hate him.

But more than that?

I hate the part of me that’s already reaching for the back of my bra.