Page 8 of Bound in Ashes

He curled his lips, his gaze searching mine. Then he slid his hand from my chin to the back of my neck and held me in place like I might run, his eyes daring me to try.

The next moment, he kissed me.

There was no tenderness in the press of his lips against mine.

It was rough, aggressive, punishing.

Claiming.

He nipped my bottom lip, and I tasted copper.

Jack didn’t pull back.

Didn’t apologize.

He kissed me like I was his.

Like he’d burn the world down—burn me down with it—if I ever did something like that again.

I huffed out a breath as I fought not to lose myself in Jack’s kiss, desperate to process what I saw in his eyes.

When Jack thrust his tongue between my lips and into my mouth, the shocking intimacy of this kiss came with a realization.

It was so uncommon from him that I didn’t even have a frame of reference for it.

I had only seen it once.

Fear.

Jack was afraid.

For me.

He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against mine.

“I told you not to do something that stupid again,” he whispered, his voice raw.

“I—”

My words were lost on the sound of a rifle cracking.

I flinched, forgetting we had an audience.

Jack didn’t.

I could tell by the way his grip tightened at the back of my neck. By the way he stepped even closer when the kiss ended.

Couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted them to see.

I turned around and looked at my uncle, but he wasn’t holding the gun.

“Looks like you got a mess to clean up, Levi.” I cringed, the reaction automatic at the sound of that voice. “But lucky for you, it seems you have some help.”

Before I could even speak to my uncle, Brewster Madison Hayes, sheriff of the town and my very first archnemesis, approached me.

He tilted his head.

Smiled.