Page 90 of X's and O's

I shook my head.

He rolled us onto our sides, our legs tangled, his thick thigh between mine in a way that had the very private parts of my body alive for the first time in my life. His hand skated down my arm until he reached my fingers.

He forced the knife into my grip and wrapped my fingers around it.

My arm trembled when he guided my hand and the deadly sharp weapon up to his throat.

His dark eyes burned through mine. “Do it.”

I shook my head, my fingers trembling beneath his.

He touched the very tip of the knife to his throat, hard enough a tiny drop of blood appeared on his skin.

I gasped, “You’re hurting yourself!”

But he wouldn’t let me pull away.

“You being scared of me hurts me more than any blade could.” His eyes locked with mine. “Don’t you know you have all the power, Violet? I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to. But you…” He breathed out a ragged breath. “You have the power to destroy me. You just don’t seem to know it. With that knife in your hand, maybe you’ll finally see it.” His eyes were a tormented mess of emotions. “So do it.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

His gaze dropped to my mouth again. “Then kiss me, because not kissing you right now is fucking torture.”

My entire body shook. The knife fell from my grip, and he picked it up, tossing it away like it was as harmless as a TV remote.

“I’ve never really…” Heat flushed my face. God, it was mortifyingly embarrassing to admit I’d never been this close to a man. “Never kissed anyone before.”

A slow smile spread across X’s face, and he shifted me onto my back, taking up the dominant position once again. “Me neither.”

I rolled my eyes. “Liar.”

“Not lying.”

Oh, he was so full of it. “You expect me to believe you’re a virgin too?”

“Not a virgin. Just never kissed anyone. Never trusted myself to be that intimate with someone.”

“Because you might…”

“Put my fingers around their necks and strangle them?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to do that to me?”

A look of pure determination swept over his handsome face. “Only in the kinky way.”

My eyes widened.

He laughed and swept his lips over mine. “Stop thinking, Violet.”

“I don’t know how,” I admitted.

He ground his erection against my core again, and I gasped. He lowered his mouth, so it hovered just above mine.

“Tell me I can kiss you.”