Page 25 of The Carnage We Keep

“Not an IED,” I sigh in a bored tone. “I didn’t make the freaking thing, I bought it.” My brows furrow. “And those things are not cheap, by the way, not to mention a serious pain in the butt to get. So if you’re just going to throw it off a fucking cliff, I’ll take it back for next time⁠—”

Suddenly, his fingers are at my jugular. I go silent, my eyes widening as they lace across my skin, until his huge hand is wrapped completely around my throat.

Holy fuck.

Heat ripples over my skin as my pulse skips with raw hunger. He shifts, putting all his weight on the hand pinning my wrists down.

It hurts.

Throbs.

Ignites.

Makes me want things I have no business wanting, least of all with him.

Just as I’m about to kick into protest mode again and tell him to go fuck himself or throw himself off the cliff, a vicious shadow flickers over his face.

A cold, edged lethality.

A deadness that simultaneously sends fear rippling up my spine and achy need curling through my core.

“My my my,” he purrs in a cold voice. Like he’s no longer Damiano Barone, but a dark presence, elemental and dangerous. An ambassador from Hell itself. “What. A. Predicament you find yourself in.”

His voice is measured and cool, edged in a dark amusement, like a cat toying with the mouse caught under its claws.

“We,” I croak against the hand around my throat. My pulse thuds erratically. “What a predicament we find ourselves⁠—”

“Oh, I didn’t misspeak,” Damiano growls. “It’s definitely a predicament you find yourself in.”

My throat bobs tightly against his hand as glare up at him, trying to ignore the way his masculine scent teases through my system.

“And what predicament do I find myself⁠—”

“Let’s call this my fault,” he growls in a freakishly hushed, rumbling tone. “For not being clear enough to you that if you have any sense at all, you will steer the fuck clear of me, not pester me, not fuck with me, and certainly not piss. Me. Off.”

His voice is pure ice and steel as I tremble under his grip, his sheer bulk grinding me into the ground, my legs splayed around his grooved hips.

My chin juts defiantly.

“Look, I don’t know who you’re used to bossing around, shit-head,” I snap back, my eyes narrowing to slits. “But no one tells me what to⁠—”

The hand around my throat squeezes.

Tightly.

My pulse spikes alarmingly, slamming through my veins. A violent tremor rattles through my pinned body, and a breathless gasp catches in my throat.

Black dots swim in my vision as Damiano slowly leans down closer, until his lips are against my ear and my mouth is brushing the neck of his t-shirt.

“It would be so easy to kill you,” he breathes, the heat of it rippling over my skin. His hand tightens another tick as my pulse slams through me.

Holy fuck.

My whole world twists on its axis. My nervous system resets as my brain short-circuits.

Damiano’s hand around my throat tightens, and I choke out another breathless whimper.

“I could take your life right here, little nightmare,” he hisses quietly.