Page 25 of Irrevocably

“Lucien,” she gasps out against my mouth. “Stop.”

I don’t want to. I want to keep going. And I don’t think she wants me to stop, either, because she’s not fighting me. She’s not pushing me away. No, it’s the opposite. Her fingers are curling in the cotton of my hoodie and she’s melting against me as she trembles, but it’s not with fear. In fact, I can’t smell fear on her at all, and believe me, I’m familiar with its stink. No, the scent coming off her is that lavender and a delicate musk that rouses everything male in me.

I kiss her harder, challenging her to respond, because I want it, I demand it, and she does, tentatively touching her tongue to mine. And something triggers inside me, a lick of desire welling up so intense and dark, that I press my fingers hard against her jaw, holding on tight as I sink my teeth into her bottom lip.

She gasps and abruptly stops clinging, shoving me instead. “Lucien.”

There’s panic in her voice so I lift my head, gripping her as I look down into her eyes. They’ve gone black in the night, her mouth as red as the bloody fingerprints I’ve left on her skin. She’s breathing very fast, panting almost.

I want to fuck her, but she’s a target and you don’t fuck a target. There’s too much risk involved. So, it should be easy to step back and let her go, since I’m not a man led around by his cock. Yet it’s not easy, and I don’t want to let her go. I want to keep kissing her, fuck her up against her car, right now, right here.

With the body of Angelo Moretti bleeding out on the ground?

The thought is a cold thread, cutting through the heat pumping through my veins, a reminder of where I am and what just happened. A reminder I shouldn’t need, for fuck’s sake.

I’m always aware of my surroundings, and I can’t afford to lose that awareness, not even for a second. Yet someone could have crept up on me while I was kissing Astrid and I wouldn’t have realised it until it was too late.

Christ. What am I doing?

I’m here for a reason, and that reason is to get information from her. I gave her two days to ask her father about the Hellhounds, and that time is up. She didn’t talk to him, though, and I know because I’ve been watching her. She’s been burying herself in her studies instead, as if my threat to tell the chief about her dark little secret meant nothing to her. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I’ll have to use something else as leverage. Then again, I’ve also been monitoring her texts and I know she’s seeing her enforcer friend tonight, so perhaps she’s going to talk to him about it instead.

“Why did you do that?” Astrid asks, her voice hoarse. “Why did you k-kiss me?”

“Because I wanted to.” I ignore the flick of reluctance that catches me as I let her go and step back. “Have you got the information I wanted?”

She straightens but doesn’t step away from the car. It’s as if she needs it at her back to keep her upright and that makes the heat in my veins burn hotter. My kiss did that to her, made her legs weak. Of course, it might also have something to do with the dead body on the ground at her feet, but I choose to ignore that for now.

She takes a ragged breath. “Not yet. I’m going to talk to Wolf tonight.”

“I gave you two days, Tinkerbell.”

“Don’t … don’t call me that.” She shoves away from the car, already pulling herself together, putting steel in her spine and a stubborn cast to the angle of her jaw. She’s got guts, this woman. I slit a man’s throat in front of her, then kissed her, got his blood on her face, and she’s already scowling at me as if none of it ever happened. “I’m not a goddamn fairy.”

Really, right now, she doesn’t look like one, either. There’s a red streak across her cheekbone from where I stroked her with blood on my thumb, and a few red prints on her jaw and the side of her neck. If I squint, I can see the fading edges of the bruises on her throat, too.

My marks on her.

I step closer again and this time it’s instinct, I can’t stop it, and I take her chin in my hand, turning her head so I can see the bloody fingerprints I left on her. She doesn’t resist this time, looking up at me, angry sparks glittering in her eyes. “Are you going to assault me again?”

I study her. Does she know that sounds like a challenge? Did she mean it that way? Because it wasn’t an assault. She didn’t pull away, no, she stood there and let me kiss her.

“An assault?” I echo. “Is that why you curled your fingers into my hoodie and kissed me back?”

Her jaw firms. “It was shock.”

“Shock,” I repeat. “You were so shocked that you kissed me back.”

“Let me go.”

“Why? You liked it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I search her face and despite myself, amusement tugs at me, the same amusement I felt in the alley, when she bit my thumb. Because she’s lying and we both know it, and her refusal to admit that she liked that kiss is almost … sweet.

“Liar.” I trace that red mark across her cheekbone with my thumb. “You shouldn’t play these little games with me, Astrid. You might end up getting more than you bargained for.”

“I’m not playing games.” She jerks her head away. “If you want me to get you information, you’ll have to let me go.”