Page 85 of My Wedding Night Massacre

"Because you looked at me last night like you wanted to climb me, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since."

The blunt honesty steals my breath. Most men would dance around it, play games, pretend the attraction isn't screaming between us. But not him. He just puts it out there, raw and real, and waits to see what I'll do with it.

One week. You have one week left before you go home and become someone's wife.

"The feeling was mutual," I hear myself say.

His eyes darken. "Was?"

"Is."

He chuckles darkly, the sound finding its way through my spine down to my core, and I almost shiver. This man is dangerous.

Too dangerous.

His eyes narrow. "Why are you still here?"

"At the gallery? My father's associate is hosting. Obligation."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"Then ask what you mean."

He's quiet for a moment, studying me like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve. "This is either very brave or very stupid, us talking."

"Maybe both." I reach out, run my finger down his tie. His whole body goes rigid. "Or maybe you and I just know what we want."

"And what do you want?"

You. Your hands. Your mouth. Your everything.

"Everything about you."

"Aurora." He says my name like he's tasting it, and heat floods through me. "You shouldn’t play with fire, Aurora."

"Why not?"

"Because you’ll get burnt. Because I'm not a good man. Because—" He stops himself, shakes his head. "Because you're too young for this."

"I'm twenty-six."

"I'm forty-three."

"So?"

"So you should be talking to someone your own age. Someone who hasn't spent the last seven years in a cage. Someone who—"

I kiss him.

Just lean up and press my mouth to his, cut off whatever warning he's about to give me. He freezes for a second—one heartbeat, two—and I think he's going to push me away.

Then he's kissing me back.

Oh my god! This is insane. I am insane.

Wait, maybe I really am insane!

I just initiated a kiss with a man at a freaking art gallery with possible eyes on us, and he is kissing me right back.