Page 8 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

ZANE DIDN’T stop kissing her. He couldn’t.

His mouth slanted over hers again, slower this time, deeper, hungry, searching, consuming.

He kissed her like it was the only way to breathe, slow, devouring, as if each brush of her lips pulled something vital from his chest and fed it back into him.

Like letting go would destroy something he hadn’t realized he’d needed until she walked into his life.

And she gave it back to him.

Her mouth opened under his, a breathy sound escaping her lips, and that sound, God, that sound, threatened to undo him completely.

Her hands slid up his chest, nails dragging lightly over the hard lines of his body.

When her fingertips brushed the edge of his wound, he flinched, but didn’t pull back. If anything, he kissed her harder.

His hands weren’t idle. One skimmed her waist and pulled her flush against him, the other buried in her hair, angling her head so he could deepen the kiss. He wanted to devour her. Wanted to carry her into the bedroom, throw her down onto the mattress, and memorize the way she writhed beneath him.

She was bare in his arms. Completely. Every inch of her skin against his felt like fire, smooth, warm, alive. And for one jagged heartbeat, Zane hesitated. Not from desire. But from memory. Of how long it had been since he’d let someone this close. Since he’d wanted to.

He buried it fast, because she was in his arms now, and she wasn’t pulling away.

Because the burn in his chest wasn’t fear.

It was need. And that was harder to fight.

He didn’t just touch her. He explored her with deliberate care.

He traced every line of her spine, every tremble in her thighs.

When he found the sensitive dip behind her knee, she gasped, her fingers tightening against his shoulder.

He grinned and returned to explore her mouth. He wasn’t the smiling type, but whatever this was, this electricity, this heat, this madness, he wanted more of it. More of her.

She arched into him, needy, wild, her breath catching on every exhale. He swore softly, dragging his mouth from hers to kiss just under her ear, down her throat. He sucked at the base of her neck until she moaned, then licked the sting away.

He hadn’t meant to go this far. Hadn’t planned it. But the second he’d tasted her, it was over. He needed her.

Needed to know what it felt like to have her beneath him, bare, open, writhing with lust. To hear her moan into his mouth.

To feel her nails rake down his back as she lost herself.

To watch her fall apart for him, whispering his name with breathless desperation curling through every gasped exhale.

He wanted to know her at her most undone, and be the reason for it.

He nudged her back, guiding her with firm hands. Step by step into the bedroom. Until the backs of her knees hit the mattress.

She fell back with a gasp, her hair a sunny halo against his sheets, her body flushed and open, breasts rising and falling like she couldn’t catch her breath.

Zane stood over her for a moment, and for the first time in years, he let himself linger.

His gaze swept from the tousled curls of her hair against his pillow to the arch of her neck, the flush across her chest, the subtle rise and fall of her breasts with each breath.

Her skin was flushed, golden, radiant in the dim light, and he could see the faint tremble in her thighs where she held herself still, waiting.

Her stomach tightened when his eyes passed over it, and lower still, to the soft curves of her hips, the inside of her thighs, her sweet mound.

She was open to him. All of her. And she wasn’t hiding.

Not her emotional scars, not her physical tension, not the hunger in her eyes that matched the fire in his gut.

His. Every inch of her.

Not claimed. Not owned.

But offered.

He stripped off the last of his clothes, pants, briefs, tossing them to the floor without ceremony, without hesitation.

Then he climbed onto the bed, naked now, every inch of his body taut with restraint and need.

He braced himself over her on his forearms, caging her in, his skin flush against hers, heat meeting heat.

“Lily,” he said, her name a low growl against her mouth, “tell me to stop.”

She didn’t.

Zane felt the shift in her the moment the words left his mouth.

She didn’t speak. Just went motionless, every breath arrested, as if frozen beneath his demand.

He watched the rise and fall of her chest slow, saw the flicker in her eyes, not fear, not defiance this time, but hunger.

Need. Something primal. Something real. Her skin flushed under the low light, her pupils blown, her mouth soft with want. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t speak.

She simply waited for him to move or to break.

And that silence, that stillness, was louder than a thousand denials.

Her fingers curled around his neck, dragging him down.

And he kissed her again, deep and slow and devastating.

He kissed her like he meant to ruin her for anyone else.

He whispered her name against her mouth and began kissing his way down.

Her throat. Her collarbone. Her breasts.

Each one a fervent promise wrapped in heat.

Her hands were in his hair now, tangled and gripping like she couldn’t decide whether to pull him back to her mouth or push him down between her legs.

Zane chose down. He kissed her ribs, her stomach, her mons. She arched beneath him, breathless and shaking.

He was ready to take her with his mouth, ready to devour her completely,

When a knock hit the door.

Zane’s head snapped toward it, instinct slicing through heat like a blade. His body went rigid, shielding Lily without thought. He pushed off the bed, yanked on his briefs and pants, left the button undone, and grabbed the pistol off the nightstand.

“Stay here,” he ordered tightly.

She nodded, lips parted, breath still uneven, her eyes huge in the dim light.

She looked completely disarmed, wrecked and radiant, breasts rising and falling with each erratic breath, eyes wide and wild, and part of him wanted to forget the knock, drag her back to the bed, and bury himself in the wildfire they’d ignited.

Hot. Reckless. Dangerous. It called to the part of him that didn’t care what came next.

The part that didn’t flinch at consequence.

The part that burned for her so fiercely it felt like pain.

But instinct wouldn’t let him.

Zane stalked down the hall, barefoot, shirtless... He glanced down at his torso and made a sound of disgust. Bleeding. He steadied the pistol in his hand, his body still wired with the imprint of her.

He didn’t pause at the front door. One glance at the feed told him everything, Kace, his right hand, waiting with blood on his sleeve and tension in his stance.

Zane stared at the image a second longer than he needed to, already bracing for whatever came next.

He knew that look on Kace’s face, it never came with good news. And something in his gut went cold.

Zane hesitated.

Just a second. Just long enough for what waited on the other side to settle in his chest like a loaded chamber. He breathed in once, slow and sharp, then opened the door.

Kace faced him, his expression grim but hard-edged, the kind of look that came with a loaded gun and a body still cooling in the alley.

“They’re all dead,” he said without preamble. “Except one.”

Zane didn’t flinch. Didn’t show surprise. His expression remained locked in that calm, lethal stillness that always came before a storm.

Kace glanced over his shoulder, voice quieting. “He was still breathing when we got there. Didn’t last long. But he said something before he bled out.”

Zane’s brows pulled together. “What?”

“He said the girl’s not clean.” Kace’s eyes met his. “Said she’s working for the ones who sent him.”

Silence.

Not shock. Not disbelief.

Just cold stillness.

Behind him, Zane could still feel the imprint of her body. Her breath. Her heat.

“I’ll take care of it.” He stepped back.

Kace inclined his head. “I’m available. If you need me... afterward.”

Zane closed the door. Turned.

And stalked toward the bedroom.

She was no longer in bed, but standing by his closet, wearing one of his shirts, too big, too long, swallowing her frame but doing nothing to soften the fire in her eyes. She looked like a contradiction: flushed, disheveled, shaken, but defiant as hell.

“I didn’t do it,” she said the second he entered the room. Her voice was sharp but trembling at the edges. “I’m not in with whoever those men were. I don’t know them, I’ve never seen them before. You think I’d be here, standing in front of you like this, if I was?”

Zane’s stare burned into her, but she didn’t shrink from it.

She shook her head once, quick, like she was trying to shake off the strength of his silence, of his stare, of whatever judgment she imagined he was about to speak aloud.

“You want to look me in the eye and accuse me? Go ahead. But don’t stand there and tell me you think I’d sell you out when I don’t even know who the hell you really are yet. ”

Her words cut, not loud, not desperate, but hard-edged with insult.

Zane’s muscles bunched tight. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but the blow landed.

He felt it in the way his pulse slowed, in the sudden sharp focus behind his eyes.

And behind that fire in her voice was something else, something quieter but still there: betrayal.