Page 28 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

Juno

Sleep is a rumor. My brain keeps replaying the same loop over and over again.

Arrow’s mouth on mine in the loft, the way he stopped when I asked, the way he didn’t hesitate when I said truth .

Every mandala petal I shaded last night turned into his hands on my hips, his voice in my ear.

Steady, low, a compass I didn’t know I was allowed to follow.

When the knock comes, I don’t bother with the peephole. The deadbolt clicks, the door swings, and there he is: jeans, black Henley, a paper bag of bagels tucked in the crook of his elbow, coffee carrier in his hand. His hair is damp, like he sprinted through a shower and gravity lost the argument.

“Morning,” he says, that crooked smile flashing—and whatever speech I planned about boundaries and breakfast evaporates. I launch.

The bagel bag and coffee carrier hit the entry table with an undignified thud as I fist both hands in his shirt and pull.

Arrow’s shock lasts exactly the length of a heartbeat.

Then his mouth is on mine, hot and sure, one big palm braced on the door frame beside my head, the other cupping the back of my neck like I’m something precious and perfectly claimed.

Everything tilts. His scent is driftwood soap and cinnamon from my coffee order and the faint electric ozone of rain on wires. I taste mint and the remembered sweetness of last night’s almosts, and I make a noise that would embarrass me if I had any shame left, which I do not.

“Hi,” I murmur against his mouth.

“Hi,” he breathes back, voice wrecked already.

The world narrows to breath and heat and the light rasp of his beard grazing the corner of my smile.

He kisses me once more, slower, and then pulls back just enough to look at me—really look.

My chest heaves. His gaze is molten and meticulous, the way he looks at code when it’s about to do something beautiful.

“Door,” he says softly, a question wrapped in a single syllable.

“Close it,” I whisper, dragging him inside with me.

He hooks the toe of his boot behind the door, kicks it shut, and the soft thump is a drumbeat I feel in my ribs.

Before the lock can even settle, I’m up on my toes again, mouth searching.

He laughs against my lips and changes the angle, tilting me with careful hands until I’m flush to the door, pinned only by gravity and want.

“Juno,” he says, my name like a worn-in psalm as his thumbs skim the line of my jaw. “Tell me what you want.”

“You,” I say, reckless with honesty. “No metaphors. Just—” I catch his bottom lip between mine and bite, gentle, and the breath he releases is not safe for my equilibrium. “—this.”

His mouth curves. “Demand granted.”

He’s different like this—still Arrow, still careful, but there’s a charge to him, a quiet command that pulls my spine straight and my knees weak. He drags his mouth along my jaw to the place beneath my ear that makes my breath stutter. He finds it like he mapped me in a past life and left a pin.

“Look at me,” he murmurs, and I do, because the way he asks makes obedience feel like a secret I get to share. His gaze locks with mine as he kisses me again, deeper now, and it’s a small, devastating thing, to be seen and wanted at the exact same time.

“Hands,” he says, voice a notch rougher. “Here.” He guides them up, palms flat on his chest. Heat. Muscle. His heart a frantic metronome under cotton. “Good.”

“You’re bossy,” I breathe, but the tease shakes.

“I prefer dominant,” he counters, and moves his hand to the back of my thigh, coaxing my knee to hitch his hip.

I go weightless for a second, laughing into his mouth as my boots squeak against the door.

He steadies me like it’s nothing, like I weigh less than the thought he’s been carrying around for years.

“Wall,” I whisper. “You promised me a wall.”

“This works,” he says, pressing my body to the door.

He kisses me like he’s checking off a list he wrote in the middle of the night: mouth, cheek, throat, back to mouth—careful, insistent, unhurried and somehow starving.

When I tug his hair, just enough to test the edge, he answers with a low sound that ricochets straight through my restraint.

“Arrow,” I gasp, and he smiles against my skin.

“Use your words,” he says, maddening and hot. “You want pace? You want slow? Fast? Tell me.”

“Both,” I say, shameless. “Slow enough to make me crazy, then fast enough to undo me.”

His laugh is a huff against my collarbone. “Copy.”

We find a rhythm. He kisses like a musician who has finally learned the song he wrote before he knew what writing was for.

He’s meticulous—small adjustments, tiny tests—and demanding in a way that makes me feel safe being greedy.

His fingers bracket my jaw; his thumb skates the corner of my mouth, and the eye contact as I chase his finger with my lips is so intimate I nearly combust.

The coffee carrier gives up and slides off the table with a soft clatter.

We both freeze, then dissolve into breathless laughter, foreheads pressed.

He rests there a second, eyes closed, and I trace the line of his cheekbone with my fingertip, memorizing the tiny constellation of freckles there like I’m going to need them to navigate later.

“I’m still mad at you,” I whisper, because truth is a thing I promised to keep between us.

“I know,” he says, equally soft, equally true.

“And I still want you,” I add, the words buzzing in the inch of air between us.

“I know that too,” he says, and the flicker of a smile is all heat and fondness and caution. “I won’t mistake one for permission to ignore the other.”

“Good,” I say, and kiss him for that alone.

He breaks away only to frame my face in his hands. “Breathe with me,” he murmurs. “Five.” He counts with me, inhales and exhales matching, our chests rising and falling in sync until the edges blur and my pulse stops sprinting. “Better?”

“Yes,” I say, partly because the breathing helps and partly because the way he takes charge without taking over makes my bones feel like a home I want to live in.

“Now,” he says, a hint of command returning. “Bedroom or couch?”

“Door,” I say, defiant and laughing. “Finish what you started.”

He kisses the corner of my mouth, pleased. “Yes, ma’am.”

There’s a careful impatience to him now—one hand sliding under the hem of my hoodie to the small of my back, palm hot against skin, drawing a gasp I don’t bother to hide.

The other hand anchors my jaw gently, tilting, adjusting, finding the angle that unspools a sound from me so wanton I slap my free hand over my own mouth.

He pulls it away, slow and certain. “No hiding,” he says, voice a low rasp. “I want to hear you.”

“Demanding,” I accuse, already giving him what he asked for.

“Only because you follow orders selectively,” he says, and then shows me exactly how much trouble a mouth and a door can be.

He slides my yoga pants off, and flings them across the room as he sets me down. He sinks to his knees, like he’s ready to worship at this altar.

“Arrow,” I whisper.

His dark eyes gaze up at me, and he hooks his thumbs in the waistband of my panties and I suck in a breath.

This is really happening.

“Did you ever watch me while I slept?” I whisper as he slowly drags my panties down my legs.

His eyes lock onto mine. “Honesty?”

“Always.” I’m so turned on it should be illegal.

“Yeah, Juno, I did. I watched you a few times.”

The thought of him watching me excites me and scares me. Yet, I trust this man more than my own breath. “Did you ever… you know, touch yourself while watching me?”

He swallows hard, and his silence is all-telling.

“Answer me, Arrow. Did you?”

His cheeks tinge the slightest bit of pink, and his eyes lock onto mine. “When am I not jerking off to thoughts of you?” His hot breath across my skin makes goosebumps rise in their wake. “Take off the hoodie. Now.”

I love how demanding he gets, and I do as he says, knowing I’m wearing absolutely nothing underneath it. I fling my hoodie across the room, and I stand before him completely nude, and his eyes glaze over as he stares at me.

“Wow.”

I smile, gazing down at him. “At a loss for words?”

His lips tilt into a lazy smile. “Yeah.” His strong hands grip my thighs and he spreads my legs. “You’ve been very naughty, Juno.”

“How?”

His eyes snap up to meet mine like he wasn’t expecting me to challenge him. He nearly growls and this is not the man I grew up with. No, this is something new. He’s demanding and in charge, and calling me naughty when he’s the one who spied on me. What the fuck?

He’s aggressive as he spreads me wider. He slaps my thigh, and his stare turns heated in an instant. “Are you talking back to me?”

“Yes,” I say with a smile and instantly regret it when he rises to his full height before me.

“You think you can be naughty and talk back and not get punished?”

I blink.

“You can’t.” He pins my wrists above my head. “You’ll be punished for going on the dark web. That is not a place for pretty girls like you to hang out.”

I swallow.

“And you’ll be punished for meeting a stranger in an alley.” His hand wraps around my throat while the other keeps my wrists pinned above my head.

“But the stranger was you,” I clarify.

He tsks me, fucking tsks me , and this has my heart pounding deep inside my chest. “You didn’t know it was me.”

“Details,” I whisper, and he presses his forehead against mine, his breath mingling with mine.

He tightens his hand around my throat. “You continued to run around with this masked stranger, not telling me what you were doing, Juno. Me. Your best friend. You lied to me.”

My heart drops. “But it was you the whole time.”

He leans back a little so he can gaze into my eyes. “You’ll be punished for it. You’ll be punished for making me worry about you. You’ll be punished for lying to me…”

I cut in, “What about me punishing you for spying on me?”

“I did that for your own good, and it’s a good fucking thing I did.” He pushes the pad of his thumb against my pulse point. “I’d have to kill a mother fucker if you had met with any other stranger that night but me. Do you realize that?”

My eyes blow wide. “Kill?”

He brings his mouth impossibly close to mine, his hot breath fanning over my lips. “Yes, Juno, I’d fucking kill for you.”

I can’t help it, I close the gap and kiss him. The kiss is all-consuming and edgy, his tongue pushes into my mouth with no regard for anything else. The sound of us, sucking, kissing, and wet fills my tiny apartment.

He releases my wrists and I stand here, fully on display for him while he’s fully clothed. And I climb him like a tree. He’s a giant redwood, firm and tall.

If this is my punishment, allow me to break many more rules in the future. He kisses me like a man starved, hungry and desperate for more.

He pushes his rock hard body against mine, and I can feel the outline of his dick through the material of his jeans. He’s hard. So hard. And huge.

I grip his dick through his jeans, wanting so much more than I’m getting. I want him to fuck me right here and now against my front door. I don’t care about decorum. I don’t care about anything except having Arrow— my Arrow —deep inside me.

“I’m going to punish you,” he says as he breaks the kiss, and then he hauls me off my feet, tossing me over his shoulder like a caveman. Like he’s done this a thousand times. Like he owns me.

He slaps my ass, gripping the flesh quickly after he slaps it again. He heads toward my bedroom, and my body lights on fire.

This is really happening, and I have no idea what I'm in store for.