Page 71 of Twisted Steel

At the clubhouse, no one speaks when we walk in.Savage heads straight for the war room.Raven peels off toward the kitchen, but not before saying, “If anyone interrupts them tonight, I’m letting Mama M handle the body.”

Mama M appears in the doorway.“What body?”

“Future problem,” Raven says.

Mama M looks at me, then Steel, then our joined hands.

Her smile is pure menace.“About fucking time.”And my dignity dies quietly behind my ribs.

Steel leads me down the hall to his room.At the door, he stops.“Are you sure?”

I look at him.The blood on his collar, and the bandage on his hand.Violence in his bones, but restraint in every breath.

“No,” I admit, and his face changes.“But I choose it anyway,” I say.

His eyes close briefly before he opens the door.The room is dim and quiet.He steps in behind me and shuts the door, but he doesn’t lock it until I say, “Lock it.”

The click sounds final, and my pulse jumps.Steel turns to face me, and for a moment, neither of us moves.Then I cross the room and kiss him.He meets me halfway.

The heat is immediate.Not soft, cautious, or the gentle, careful kind of heat that asks permission from the room before it burns it down.This is Steel.It hits like a match dropped into gasoline.

His hands clamp around my hips, fingers digging in just hard enough to make my breath hitch.Then he lifts me like I weigh nothing, like my body is something he has already memorized in his head and is finally allowed to touch.My legs wrap around his waist on instinct, and the sound that falls out of me is half gasp, half surrender.

His mouth is on mine the entire way to the bed.Hungry.Rough.Devouring.

He kisses like he fights—focused, brutal, and completely unwilling to lose.His tongue pushes past my lips, taking every inch I give him, and I give him too much.I give him everything because I am tired of pretending I don’t want this.Tired of acting like the sight of his hands doesn’t make me think of filthy things.Tired of lying to myself every time he looks at me with those hard eyes and that barely leashed violence.

He lays me down like I am precious before he looks at me like he wants to ruin me.The combination should scare me, and it does.But God help me, it also makes me wetter.

I grab his cut, fingers fumbling with need more than nerves, and shove it off his shoulders.He lets me.Watches me do it, eyes dark, jaw tight, like every second I touch him is another piece of control being stripped away.His shirt follows, black fabric dragged over his head and tossed somewhere behind him.

Then my hands stop.Bruises bloom across his ribs, dark and ugly against hard muscle and tattooed skin.My chest tightens.“You said you weren’t hurt.”

“I’m not.”I glare at him.Steel catches my wrist and brings it to his mouth, kissing the inside of it with a tenderness so sharp it almost hurts.His lips brush my pulse.“Not enough to stop.”

That shouldn’t turn me on, but it does.So.Fucking.Much.

Heat punches low in my belly, and I tug him down because if he keeps looking at me like that, I may lose my mind before he even touches me properly.

He comes willingly.His big body covers mine, one arm braced beside my head, the other sliding along my waist.I feel the weight of him without being crushed.The heat pouring off his skin.The strength in every hard inch of him.The restraint.God, the restraint is what makes me crazy.He is holding back when I don’t want him to.

I dig my nails into his shoulders, and his breath leaves him in a rough hiss.“Touch me,” I whisper.

Something breaks across his face.His hand slides under my shirt, hot palm dragging over my stomach, my ribs, then higher until he stops beneath my breast.

“Here?”His voice is dark enough to make my thighs tighten.

“Yes.”

He cups me through my bra, his thumb dragging over the sensitive peak, and my back arches off the mattress.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, watching my face like he needs every reaction.“Let me hear you, baby.”

A sound leaves me that I would absolutely deny in court, church, and under threat of death.

His mouth moves lower.Down my jaw, my throat, my collarbone.Every kiss is open-mouthed and dirty, teeth grazing, tongue soothing, beard scraping my skin until I am squirming beneath him.He strips my shirt away inch by inch, not rushing, not fumbling, making me feel every second of exposure.

When my shirt is gone, he looks at me.Really looks.And the hunger in his face goes raw.Not just lust, but need, and possession.Something deeper and far more dangerous.