Page 31 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

“You think that’s going to stop me?” she spat. “You think dragging me around like some caveman is going to keep me from finding out who came after me? Who tried to kill me and possibly our baby?”

“Damn it, Lily, I’m trying to protect you! You and our baby!”

“Protect me?” she spat. “You don’t even believe me. Well, fuck you, Zane. I need answers, and I’m going to get them, whether you help me or not.”

The words hung there, electric.

His eyes burned. And then, in a voice so low it scraped down her spine, he bit out,

“Strip.”

Lily’s mouth compressed. “No.”

The word came out quiet, but it hit like a gunshot. Not meek. Not wavering. It was a line drawn in steel, and she didn’t look away.

She saw it strike him like a match to dry tinder. His entire body stiffened, rage and frustration battling behind his eyes. And still, she held his gaze.

“No,” she said again, sharper this time. “Not because I’m scared. Not because I don’t want you. But because you don’t get to order me like I’m yours to command.”

She saw the moment it hit him, the refusal, the resistance. His eyes darkened like storm clouds tightening over a strike zone, and something primal flared to life behind them.

But she didn’t flinch. Not this time. Not when every cell in her body still buzzed from the fury, the defiance, the way his voice tried to rip dominion from her like it was his to take. Like he could command her surrender before he ever laid a hand on her.

“You want to protect me?” she lashed out at him. “You dragged me in here, demanded I strip, and for what? You don’t believe me. You don’t trust me. So don’t stand there acting like this is about protection.”

His eyes darkened, thunderous.

The corner of his mouth curled, not in amusement, but something sharper. A threat. A challenge.

“You think this is a game?” he asked, voice like gravel. “Say no again. See what happens.”

She crossed her arms. “You don’t get to command me like that. Not after carrying me in here like a possession.” She glared at him. “So, no.”

Zane didn’t say a word.

He stepped back, ripped his shirt over his head, and dropped it to the floor. His hands went to his belt next, slow, deliberate. Eyes locked on hers.

“I won’t ask again.”

Still, she didn’t move. Her chin locked, her spine stiffened, radiating defiance.

He stepped toward her. One slow step. Then another.

The sharp whisper of leather slicing through belt loops hissed through the room, quick and deliberate.

Then his belt hit the floor with a metallic clatter against the hardwood, sharp, final, unforgiving.

His jeans followed, leaving him in nothing but fury and restraint, barely leashed.

“Zane—”

His hand came up, not to touch, not yet, but to curl in the waistband of her jeans. “You won’t strip? Then I’ll do it for you.”

He ripped off her hoodie, then grabbed the hem of her shirt and tore it open with a single, savage motion, threads snapping, fabric ripping in a sharp, brutal sound that echoed through the room.

Buttons flew. The neckline gaped. Then his hands were on her bare skin, shoving the remains off her shoulders before she could stop him.

She fought, shoved at him, but he didn’t stop.

Her jeans came next, wrenched open with brutal precision, peeled down over her hips with hands that trembled from everything he wasn’t saying.

“You think this changes anything?” she hissed.

He didn’t answer.

Instead, his hands dropped to her back, finding the clasp of her bra. One snap. Gone. The straps slid off her shoulders and down her arms. She gasped, trying to twist away, but he was already at her waist, fingers hooking into the edges of her underwear.

“Zane—”

He didn’t stop. Didn’t soften. He tore them away, fabric splitting under his grip, shredded like it offended him.

Her shoes went next, yanked off her feet with violent efficiency and flung aside like they didn’t deserve to touch her.

Then her socks, stripped away with ruthless speed, baring her completely to the chilled floor beneath them.

She staggered slightly, breath catching, not just from the force of it but from the overwhelming vulnerability clawing its way through her chest. Every piece he stripped from her felt like a demand.

Not just for her body, but for her trust, her surrender, her truth, and it rattled through her like aftershocks following an earthquake.

She stood exposed, nothing left between her and the storm in his eyes.

Utterly. Completely. Physically. Emotionally. Naked.

He stepped back half a pace and looked at her like he’d never seen anything more infuriating. Or beautiful.

“You want to be reckless?” he said, low and harsh. “Fine. But don’t pretend this connection between us isn’t real. Don’t pretend you’re walking into that fire alone, because if you go down, I burn with you.”

“You’re insane—”

“You’re mine.”

“I’m not property!”

“You’re not expendable!”

His hands were everywhere, but not with heat. With desperation. With fury. With need too tangled to name. The air between them pulsed, thick and unrelenting. And neither of them moved.

Staring. Breathing. Daring the other to blink first.

Lily’s chest heaved, her breath jagged, heart hammering so loud she was sure he could hear it. Her skin was flushed, her limbs trembling, not from fear, but from the light of truth bearing down on her.

Her voice, when it came, was low. Suppressed. Dangerous. Her blood was still pounding, her body shaking from everything he’d taken, and everything he still hadn’t asked for. She was furious, vulnerable, scorched raw. But she wasn’t broken. Not even close.

“You think ripping my clothes off proves something? It doesn’t. I’m still here. I’m still fighting. You don’t get to win just because you’re louder. Or because you’re stronger.”

Zane’s eyes blazed, and for a second, she thought he might actually come undone. But he didn’t. He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, and reached for her chin, not rough, not cruel, but with a searing intensity that made her breath hitch.

“You think I want to win? I want to survive. With you.”

His hand moved between them, deliberate and rough, and caught hers, the one still curled into a fist at her side. He opened her fingers with slow pressure until her palm lay bare, the Dante Brand glowing faintly beneath the surface of her skin.

Then he lifted his own hand, showing her the mark burned into him, and pressed it to hers.

The moment their skin touched, heat surged through her, fast, searing, elemental.

Not just warmth. Not just contact. It was a jolt that sank beneath her skin, cracking through her chest and stealing her breath.

The Brand pulsed between them like it had a heartbeat of its own, and she swore she could feel his emotions bleeding into hers, rage, need, and something deeper that scared her more than anything else.

Something richer. Something raw. Something that felt like... love?

It curled low in her belly, electric and terrifying.

Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it wasn’t.

Because some part of her had known it from the moment she touched him.

From the moment the Brand took hold. And now it was here, unspoken and painfully honest, burning through her like a truth she hadn’t wanted to face until it was too late.

There was no going back. No pretending this hadn’t taken root inside her. No pretending she hadn’t already chosen him, somewhere deep in her bones, even before she understood what it meant.

Heat bloomed where their skin met. Not from anger. Not from lust. From the bond between them, wild, magnetic, irrefutable.

He dropped his other hand to her belly. “This?” he said, voice rough. “This is why you don’t walk into danger alone. Because you’re not alone anymore.” Then he lifted her hand and kissed the dove centered in her palm. “And this. This is also why you don’t walk into danger alone.”

She looked at their joined hands, at the matching Branded heat. Her chest rose with a breath that trembled.

“Do you believe me?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer right away. His gaze lifted to hers, unreadable.

“I believe in this,” he said. And then he kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t soft.

She tried to fight him, just for a heartbeat.

Pushed at his chest, twisted her face away, the echo of betrayal still burning hot in her veins.

But the heat of his mouth, the press of his Branded palm against her cheek, blurred everything else.

Her fury fractured. Her breath caught. And that was all it took to drag her in.

His mouth claimed hers with the kind of hunger that drowned out thought, silenced protest.

She moaned, a sharp, helpless sound that broke past her lips before she could catch it. It was part rage, part ache, part overwhelming surrender, and it vibrated through her like something pulled from the center of her chest.

And then she yielded, body, breath, will, because resistance felt like a lie in the face of what lived between them.

Because no matter how furious she was, no matter how hurt, the bond between them didn’t care. It demanded. It consumed. And this time, this time, she let it.

Without another word, Zane lifted her into his arms.

She didn’t gasp. Didn’t protest. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he carried her the short distance to the bed and threw the covers back like they were in his way. Then he laid her out across the sheets like a possession he refused to lose.

What followed wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet or slow.

Her body burned beneath his touch, each kiss, each thrust pushing her further than she ever imagined.

Her skin tingled with every press of his body, and the rawness of it all made her breath catch in her chest. She was drowning in sensation, heat, sweat, hunger, torn between giving in and pulling back, but there was no room left for resistance.

It was all fury and fire, hot, relentless, animal.

Every nerve in her body screamed as the intensity crashed over her like a storm.

The heat between them didn’t just burn, it seared, leaving her skin alive with the aftershock.

She could feel every brush of his lips, every thrust, every move he made as if he were marking her from the inside out.

His mouth ravaged her skin, teeth scraping along her collarbone, tongue trailing heat down her chest, across her breasts, sucking until she gasped.

He moved lower, lips and teeth pausing at her stomach as though acknowledging the possibility of a child, then down to her thighs and the slick heat between her legs.

He worshipped her there, groaning against her as she writhed beneath him, hips bucking, fingers tangled in his hair.

His hands roamed possessively, gripping her ass, her hips, her ribs like he meant to brand her with every touch. And Lily gave as good as she got, rising to meet him, pulling him closer, nails dragging deep lines down his back as she wrapped her legs around him and arched into his thrusts.

She didn’t beg. She didn’t whisper love. She grabbed his face and kissed him like she was devouring him, like she could tear out everything between them and finally, finally feel whole.

She gave him war.

And he met her with ruin.

They fought for each other with every savage thrust, every gasp that turned into a cry, every ragged moan that broke from their throats like confession.

It was teeth and tongues and sweat-slick skin, her nails slicing down his back as he drove into her over and over until she shattered around him, again and again.

It was his hand fisted in her hair, her lips dragging across his jaw, their hips colliding in a rhythm that had nothing to do with restraint and everything to do with claiming.

This wasn’t sex, it was truth carved in flesh.

It was desperation bared and taken and given back tenfold.

It was a war between souls who refused to lose each other, even if it meant burning alive.

When they came together, it was with a violence that shattered something inside her.

Her chest constricted, heart pounding so hard she thought it might break free.

Her breath stilled, and for a second, she was weightless, drowning in the flood of emotion, of pleasure, of everything that had led to this moment.

The sharp edge of their connection cut through her like a wave, and when it hit, she didn’t know if it was relief or devastation, but it consumed her whole. She cried out, fingers clutching his shoulders, her body writhing beneath his as pleasure detonated through her like fire.

And then—

The heat between their palms pulsed.

Her eyes flew open just as his did. Their hands were locked between them, pressed palm to palm, the Dante Brands searing against skin.

Flashing.

Burning.

The marks glowed like molten gold, deepening into streaks of crimson and orange, pulsing with sharp, alive heat that radiated through their bodies.

It wasn’t just the glow that changed, but the air between them.

It vibrated, thick and electric, as if the world itself were bending to their connection.

It burned in her chest, her limbs, as if it were marking her, reshaping her, confirming something ancient and unspoken.

The edges of the Brand curled into feathers, wings, not of a phoenix, but a dove.

Flame-kissed and brilliant, the symbol shimmered with impossible contradiction: peace forged in fire.

The irony of it hit hard. Two warriors. Branded by a creature of peace.

But maybe that was the point. Not softness.

Not surrender. It was the peace of two who had survived the storm and found stillness in each other’s arms.

Her breath caught. His body froze.

Neither of them spoke.

But both of them saw it.

They knew what it meant.

And neither one dared to break the moment.

Because whatever came next, war, peace, forgiveness, blood, it would be built on this.

On fire.

On truth.

On them.