Page 56 of Rogue

Jaxson stops short and I plow right into him. His nostrils flare and I swallow hard, but before I can say “boho”—like in the long pretty printed skirt I’m wearing—,he holds me up and flings me like some amateur lightweight across his shoulder. I wiggle wildly, halfheartedly trying to dislodge myself when I feel his palm connect with my ass.

Smack.

Game on, asshole.

I cease my struggles. Patience is a virtue, remember. Wait for him to exit this back alley that no one seems to know about. To stop this maddening pace he’s set, his heartbeat thumbing wildly beneath my palm. To put me down so I can kick his ass.

Except when he stops, we’re still in the empty alley and he doesn’t put me down. No. He thrusts me into a wall nestled back between two limestone buildings, out of sight from prying eyes.

My head rolls backward and hits the wall. “Asshole,” I cry out, more angry than anything. Because he’s got me rooted in place, his big body man-blocking me, my feet dangling, and my mouth opened wide in shock. I’m instantly that same naive girl I was a year ago, keeping company with a masterful player.

My skirt’s caught up around my waist.

His fingers brush my hip bones.

And with one smooth tug, he rips my Shelby faux-lace panties right off me.

Oh. OH! He’s proving a point right now?

I feel his hand on my belly. But damn if I’m going to let him discover what I suspect he already knows—that I’m wet for him. And it’s not this piddly Parisian rain responsible for the flood of moisture between my thighs.

I grab his head and pull him closer, thoughts of kissing him overshadowed by the desire to head butt him. Except as I arch my head back slightly, preparing to attack, he bounces me in his arms and angles his head. I gasp as our lips smash into each other. From that point onward, everything becomes muddled.

The past, the present, the rain, the wall, our bodies shifting into one another, our tongues intertwining in an aggressive dance.

His taste is familiar, like cinnamon toast. The kind I’d eat not just for breakfast but all day, every day.

Deepening his kiss, he simply devours me, his tongue wrapping around mine, touching me everywhere, making me feel things I shouldn’t. His mouth pressing firm and hard against me, telling me that I’m going nowhere. When where I want to be is here. Raw and aggressive. Bittersweet.

What happened to us?

He shifts, then I feel his hand between my thighs and his fingers between my folds. I hear him groan.

I quiver beneath his touch. My excitement, my desire, my need for him obvious, my happy place an open floodgate of untapped pleasure.

He breaks our kiss. Then smashes my heart.

I feel the tingling scrap of lace on my skin as my panties—caught between our bodies and forgotten in a blind moment of passion—fall free to my ankles.

You’ve been played, I think.You want him so bad, you’d let him take you up against the wall in the rain. Anywhere. Anytime.

Score, Jaxson.

“You didn’t show up,” he gruffly says, his beautiful eyes, blue like a cloudless September sky, narrowing on mine.

“I did but not in time,” I whisper. Choking on the words, choking on the overwhelming agony of having—of all people—failedhim. I want to explain . . . need to explain about Madelyn . . . but his expression changes from what might have been hurt . . .God, I think it was hurt. . . to loathing.

Actions have consequences . . .

“What did Novák do to you?” I demand.

He removes his hand from between my legs and lets me slide to my feet. Distancing himself, from me.

I grab his arm. “What did that Prick do to you?” I repeat, abruptly overcome with a sneaking suspicion that those scars on his chest aren’t the only wounds he carries.

He jerks free of my hold. “The question is, what didn’t his men do?”

I feel sick, bile rising up in my throat. Tortured. In all the time I’d thought he was dead and with Hayden’s right-hand hit man after me, I never considered the extent of the pain he had to endure . . . because of the choice I made.