Page 28 of The Heart Breaker

I mean to addthere isn’t even going to be a this, but the words stick in my throat.

His jaw flexes. “You embarrassed of me or something?”

I twist my head to glare at him over my shoulder. “Do you want people knowing we’re—” I swallow hard, forcing it out anyway, even though it scrapes on the way up. “—sleeping together?”

“Hell no,” he says instantly, but then his eyes narrow. “But why don’t you want people knowing?”

I swallow again and lift my chin, even though my insides are a complete mess. “I’ve hated you for years, Cole. What do you think people would say if they found out I was?—”

“Jumping on my dick?” he cuts in.

Heat rushes up my throat, but I shove it down before he can see it. “That is never happening,” I tell him.

He hums, and the sound rolls through him and into me.

“Trust me. It will,” he grits out. “You’ll be begging for it.”

“I don’t beg,” I snap, though there’s the slightest shake in my voice that I know he catches.

“You will for me.” His eyes burn into mine in the mirror as his hand slides slowly down my thigh. “Say yes, Viper, and I’ll have you on your knees, gagging, drooling, begging for my cock. You know you want it.”

I squeeze my eyes closed, every filthy word burrowing under my skin, my pulse slamming against my ribs and my brain screaming at me, every part of me split between what I’m supposed to say and what I actually want.

His mouth drops closer to my ear, his warm breath brushing my skin, and my stomach flips so hard I have to bite down on the sound trying to climb its way out of me.

“I’ll fuck you so deep you’ll scream for mercy,” he rumbles, his voice wrapping all the way around my spine. “And then you’ll beg me for more.”

A shiver runs straight down my back, my body reacting before my brain can catch up, before it can remind me why this is such a terrible idea.

“I am never going to sleep with you,” I grit out.

“Oh yeah?” He chuckles. “Then why are you gripping my hand?”

My eyes snap open.

I look down and—shit.

His hand is on my inner thigh, under the hem of my skirt, and my stomach drops when I see my own fingers wrapped around his, holding him in place.

I let go like it burns, pulling my hand back fast.

I turn my head away from him, staring hard at the sink, at the stupid faucet, at anything that isn’t the mirror, because if I meet his eyes right now, I’m going to do something reckless.

Cole laughs under his breath, leaning in again anyway, close enough that I feel him at my back. “You want to get revenge on your cheating ex?”

My heart slams hard enough that I feel it in my teeth. I want to deny it. Deny him. But I don’t move. I can’t. Not when I’m burning from the inside out, wanting something I already know I’ll hate myself for the second it’s over and still unable to make myself step back.

“Fucking his enemy would do that.”

He’s insane. Completely delusional. We’ve hated each other for years. There is no universe where a little chemistry wipes out every reason I can’t stand him.

He’s a dick, and I am never,eversleeping with Cole Ellis.

At least, that’s what I mean to say.

But when I lift my head and meet his eyes, the only words that actually leave my mouth are,

“No one can know.”