“Do you like bending the rules?” I asked, transfixed.
Abe slipped his own thumb between his lips—just the tip—sucking sticky sweetness from the end. Desire was a drumbeat between my legs. If I touched myself now, I knew I’d be wet.
“I am usually well-known for my integrity,” he admitted. “And my stoicism. Chaos, spontaneity, fun…” He paused. “These things aren’t in my repertoire. Makes integrity and conforming to the rules a lot easier.”
“Should fun become part of your repertoire?”
His thumb swiped across his bottom lip. “I never thought so before,” he whispered. “Perhaps I need to open myself up to being convinced.”
He wrapped his fingers delicately around my wrist. Just held it there. Tightly. “I’ve enjoyed bending the rules for Codex more than I’ve ever actually admitted. To anyone.”
“What would convince you to break a rule now?” I was fucking spellbound. Abe brought my hand toward his face. Turned it left and right. My index finger was still covered in sugar.
He stared at me, arched one brow. I knew what he was searching for—any signs of unease.
I had none. So I pushed my finger against his lips, granting permission.
He took the digit into his mouth.
My breath caught; my sex clenched. I felt his tongue, the light scrape of his teeth. In slow, dreamy motion, he dipped his mouth to my palm, tasted the sugar there. Kissed it. Kissed right below it. Kissed the pulse point at my wrist. Slid my thumb between his lips.
Bit down. He appeared savage in the most intoxicating way. I was burning up with lust and frozen in place—enraptured, entranced. He kissed my wrist again, an inch lower. Lingered, exploring me, inhaling me.
“Abe,” I said, voice a velvet plea.
“Ask me again,” he demanded.
“What would convince you to break a rule now?”
He scraped his teeth across my skin. And pinned me in place with a gaze full of dangerous things. “You, Sloane.”
25
Sloane
You, Sloane.
Every remaining rational, logical thought in my brain fled at the speed of light. The fire crackled next to us, surrounded by green, leafy privacy, enveloping us in electric heat and seductive darkness.
Abe’s lips continued their journey up the inside of my forearm, the crease of my elbow. His other hand slid around my waist, palm big, firm, confident. Held me close to him, so close my leg rose, curved against his body.
“When we… when we first met,” I whispered. “You told me I’d know when you were about to kiss me.” He scraped his teeth across the ball of my shoulder. I shuddered, skin buzzing.
“I’m about to kiss you, Sloane,” he said, the words rough, hot, vibrating with need. His mouth moved across my collarbone—each kiss sure. Hard. Singular. My hand flattened against his firm belly, slid up the planes of his chest. The other gripped the hair at the back of his neck.
And my leg rose higher. Higher still. His fingers left my waist, slipped confidently along the curve of my thighs.
“I knew you were a rule breaker,” I panted.
Abe’s mouth was on the front of my throat. I tipped my head all the way back, ends of my hair brushing the couch.
“Only for you,” he said. And since we weren’t meant to lie to each other, the brazen truth in his words had me holding him closer, a gasp slipping from my lips. “Because I didn’t know breaking the rules would feel like this.”
I clung to him now. His right hand was moving beneath my skirt, and his fingers caressed my ass, squeezing. But his left hand gripped my face hard, holding me still, fingers in my hair. Possessive as hell.
“What does it feel like?” I asked. His mouth had arrived fully at my ear, and desire detonated inside of me. Abe was tilting me back—back—back, pressing me onto the cushions of the couch. In this bar. Surrounded by people. Were we tailing someone? Did we have a case? Did I have a single need in the world besides the delicious sensation of his strong body on top of mine?
“I am utterly bewitched by you,” he whispered. “Spell-bound. Charmed. Whatever you’ve done to me, this electricity I can’t shake, don’t want to shake, I’m addicted to it now. There’s no other explanation for why I can’t keep my hands off you. Can’t stop thinking about you. For fuck’s sake, you’ve been in my dreams every goddamn night.”
He punctuated his dirty words with a brutal bite to my earlobe. A kiss at the corner of my jaw. More along my jaw. My cheek. My own mouth was wide open, waiting, desperate for his kiss. Instead of diving in, like I so desperately needed, he pressed our foreheads together. Our shared breathing came in short, hard pants.
“Why?” he demanded. “You’ve turned me into an animal when I’ve only ever been a man. How?”
Devastation.
I’d known it. Known it from the very second I’d first caught his eye. His lips hadn’t even touched mine yet, and I was already ruined for all other men, all other kisses. I tipped my lips up, seeking, but he kept us apart. Abe pinched my chin. Lifted my gaze to meet his. I knew what he wanted from me. We were no longer doing shots of vodka, but we were still playing truth or lie.
Abe wanted my next truth.
“You’re the first man to ever catch my dishonesty,” I said. His nostrils flared. “The first man to ever catch me tailing him. The first—” I swallowed hard, scared to reveal the final one. “The first man to ever make me feel so out of control. And trust me when I tell you I don’t let myself lose control. Ever.”
He blew an angry breath through his nose. “Then why is this happening to us?”
“Because we’re the same,” I said. “Don’t you see it?”
Slowly, so slowly, he dipped his mouth toward mine. Not like we were in the middle of a bar. Like we were lying on his bed, with hours of pleasure ahead of us. When our lips met, a bolt of ecstasy shot right through my core, brought actual tears to my eyes. Not tears of grief or sadness—I didn’t cry—but a sensation more primal than that, a consequence of consuming lust, finally freed. Abe kissed me. Sweet at first, only a brushing of our lips, like he was again testing for hesitation.
I had not an ounce of it.
His mouth grew shockingly strong, firm, confident, like every other part of him. My hands slid through his hair, and my tongue slipped between his lips. I deepened our first kiss, opening for him like a bouquet of flowers. And with a possessive groan, he released the final latch on his restraint and devoured me.
I was more than happy to be his for the taking.
26
Abe
We’re the same. Don’t you see it?
For the millionth time since meeting her, Sloane Argento had bested me. Cutting through my best defenses and scaling my walls with ease. Maybe my fortress-high walls were there for a reason. Maybe Sloane was the woman meant to climb them—her and only her.
Besides the overpowering desire, the fraught lust, the total pleasure of finally kissing her was a deeper emotion. Deeper, troubling, and absolutely complicating.
My heart.