Page 70 of Twisted Steel

His laugh is dark and breathless.“Yeah.”

That does something to me.Knowing I’m not alone in this.Knowing the man who terrifies everyone is trembling because my hands are under his cut, sliding over his chest, feeling muscle jump beneath my palms.

The door opens behind him.

“This is a hospital,” Raven says dryly.“It’s public, there are cameras, and a very emotionally inconvenient witness standing right here.”

I jerk back so fast my shoulder hits the wall, but Steel doesn’t move away immediately.He looks over his shoulder, and I swear the entire ambulance bay reconsiders living.

Raven raises both hands.“Don’t murder the messenger.Savage says Reaper’s hospital rat is secure, Dante’s alive, and if you two are about to combust, he would prefer it happen somewhere with fewer security reports.”

My face burns.“Wonderful,” I mutter.“Great.Fantastic.”

Raven’s gaze slides between us.Then she looks at me.Only me.“You choose this?”she asks quietly.

Steel goes still.I understand the question beneath the question.

Not sex.Not heat.

This.

Him.

The danger.The blood.The man who waits for permission while wearing death on his skin.I look up at Steel, and his eyes stay on mine.No command.No demand.Only the same terrible restraint that keeps undoing me.

“Yeah,” I say.“I choose it.”

Raven nods once.“Then make sure he remembers that choosing isn’t the same as owning.”

Steel’s voice is low.“I know.”

Raven’s mouth curves faintly.“Good.Savage learned eventually too.I only had to maim him a dozen times emotionally.”

Despite everything, I laugh.Steel looks back at me, and the hunger in his eyes softens into something worse.Need, not just sexual, but something deeper.

I look up at him.“Take me back to the clubhouse.”

His entire body goes still.“Harper.”

“I am not having sex in a hospital parking lot while Raven judges our technique.”

Raven snorts.“I wasn’t going to judge technique.”I glare at her, and she shrugs.“Not out loud.”

Steel’s mouth almost curves.“Good.”

“But I am having you,” I say.

The words leave me bold and reckless and absolutely true.Steel stares at me as if I’ve just handed him something sacred.

Then he nods once.“Then we go now.”

****

The ride back is ablur of dark streets and too much silence.I sit in the back of Savage’s SUV beside Steel because my car is still at the clubhouse and my common sense has apparently resigned.

Raven sits up front beside Savage, turning her head once to look at me.Not intrusive, just checking.I give her a tiny nod, and she faces forward again.

Steel’s hand rests on his thigh between us.Open and waiting, and I put mine in it halfway there.He closes his fingers slowly.