One sharp twist and he’d break her neck. Then, strategically positioning her near the ladder—
Fuckit. She tasted minty. Toothpaste. He slid his tongue over her teeth, felt hers come out to play in a heated glide that had his blood roaring through his veins like a supernova. All caution evaporated, replaced with a buzz of euphoria.
She made a low sound of need, leaning into him as she slid her hands around his neck in response to the kiss, her fingers fisting in his hair. Her mouth was made to fit his like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Gripping her hair in his fist, he sank into the kiss, although kissing wasn’t his thing either. He liked to fuck. He didn’t like to cuddle or kiss. But kissing her felt . . . good. Which was bullshit. Kissing her felt like the prelude to fucking her. That was all.
She drew back slightly, opening her mouth to say something, and he quickly laid a hand on her cheek, positioning his thumb so it fit perfectly into her mouth. Her lips closed around it delicately; then, holding his gaze, she sucked on it with deliberate implication.
After several moments of pulsating energy buildup, when his cock pulsed with every pull of her mouth, she delicately spat out his digit. Cheeks pink, mouth set, she said tightly, “Either fuck me now, or leave.”
“What’s your hurry? I’m not on a time clock, are you?”
The elegant arches of her dark eyebrows lifted while displeasure tightened lips lush and damp. “I’m ready, and clearly so are you. Just do it and get it over with. There’s a bonus if you can make me come more than twice.”
Cruz’s own brows lifted at the queen-to-serf tone. “Here’s the thing, lady. I didn’t give you permission to speak, and I didn’t give you permission to move. And I’m not giving you permission to come.” Cruz had no idea why he was toying with her like a panther batting a hummingbird from the air. Maybe because he knew he was going to kill her, and fucking her now, in some twisted way, seemed wrong.
Maybe to test himself? To see if he—what? What the fuck?
He was reaching the outer edge of his self-control, which was not aided by the rush of sex-induced adrenaline the smell and sight of her evoked.
Easy solution.
Kill her.
Now.
Chapter Two
Body rigid, Mia Hayward gave the man tormenting her a cold look warning him to do his damn job or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, mixed with her annoyance, she also felt a fluttery surge of excitement. “Then I have absolutely no use for you—”
In response he used both hands to shove her knees farther apart. Her thigh muscles flexed as she attempted to close her legs, but his hips were already wedged between them. The hard bulge behind his jeans zipper, and the coiled tension in his muscular body, indicated he was as ready as she was.
He knew exactly what his tone and actions were doing to her, and he was enjoying his mastery. His dark eyes were hot but also impersonal. And why wouldn’t he be? He was doing his job.
“Wider,” he murmured, looking between her legs as he clasped her hips to propel her forward the few inches separating them. Straight black lashes lifted, and he gave her a look so provocative, she expected to go up in flames any minute. “I want to see all of you—every wet pink inch.”
God. God. God. When the hell had she lost control? This wasn’t how she liked things done. Her body was acting independently of her mind and her usual common sense. A first. She was learning how powerful and primitive pure lust could be, and how quickly scruples and conscience went out the window.
“It’s good to want things, but wanting isn’t getting, and since I’m not getting, you might as well take that impressive erection out of here and leave me to finish the job my—”
The brightly lit kitchen swirled in a dizzying arc as he lifted her with both powerful hands under her bare ass and swung her around. Her back hit the center island with a thud. Vaguely she heard the crystal vase crash to the floor and the clatter of the cookie sheets as they bounced. He’d swept everything off the counter.
Mia found herself flat on her back, squinting up at the underside of the hideous light fixture hanging from the ceiling.
Face burning, she struggled to sit up. The counter was cold. The lights too bright. She felt exposed and dangerously vulnerable spread-eagled on the counter with a strange, albeit gorgeous man, fully clothed, between her dangling legs. He wore jeans, a T-shirt stretched over an impressive, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped, rock-hard physique that she’d only been allowed to touch briefly.
Black eyes looked like obsidian glass as he leaned over her to stretch her arms over her head, clamping both wrists in the manacle of one large hand. The soft fabric of his black T-shirt brushed her breasts, and the zipper of his jeans, and his impressive erection behind it, pressed exactly where she wanted his naked, rampant damn penis inserted.