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“Maybe I should. Maybe I’ll go into his room right now and get the information I want.” I hold her gaze. “Start cutting pieces off you. Do you think he might tell me then?”

She should be afraid. It’s not a bluff and nothing I haven’t done before. Lazarus, of course, would be unhappy with the attention that would draw, but I wouldn’t kill her. I’d keep her alive to ensure the chief’s silence.

It’s what I should have done in the first place, but Enzo wanted me to follow Lazarus’s orders, and his orders were to stay under the radar.

Astrid, though, is not afraid. She’s furious. Her whole body is singing with tension like a bow string drawn too tight. “He wouldn’t tell you,” she says flatly. “He doesn’t give a shit no matter how many pieces you cut off.”

“Care to test that theory?”

“Sure.” Quite suddenly she closes the distance between us until we’re toe-to-toe; me against the door, her in front of me, staring up at me. The top of her head barely reaches my shoulder. “You can start cutting me now. I could use some pain.”

Her cheeks are flushed and there’s a fierce look in her eyes. So much emotion and so close to the surface, and she doesn’t seem to care that I can see it. That I could use it against her if I wanted, use it to manipulate her. I’m doing that already, yet she’s still blazing at me, showing her temper.

Pain. Why does she need it? Is this how she deals with all that fire inside her? She uses a knife to let it all out and the pain washes her clean? And why am I interested? Why do I even care?

A thin thread of anger laces through me, and even though it’s more at myself than at her, I move, reaching out to wrap my fingers around her throat. Then I turn and shove her up against her bedroom door. “You think I won’t do it?” I murmur. “You think you’re safe?”

She stares back, meeting my gaze head-on. “Do it, then. The anticipation is killing me.”

Fuck, she’s pushing me, and I’m not sure why. She knows what I’m capable of, what I could do to her if I wanted to. I showed her tonight in the parking lot.

“Do you want to find my line?” I step even closer, crowding her against the door. “Is that what you want?” I lean in, my mouth against her ear, breathing in her scent. “You want to push me until I break?” She shivers, her breath panting, but she doesn’t move. “I won’t break, Tinkerbell.” I brush my mouth against the shell of her ear and feel her tremble. “But you might.”

“Go on,” she says huskily. “Break me. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

I lift my head and look down into her flushed face, and there’s still no fear there, only anger. For a moment we stare at each other, the air around us thick with aggression and fury, and a seething tension that grabs me by the throat and won’t let go.

But it’s Astrid who moves first, rising suddenly on her toes before pressing her mouth against mine.

Chapter Fifteen

ASTRID

I must be insane. I must be certifiable. Kissing the man who just threatened to cut pieces off me in front of my father. He’d do it, too, just like he slit that man’s throat in front of me, with no doubts or hesitations.

But somehow, he’s here in my house, in my bedroom, and he has me by the throat, and I’m tired.

I’m tired of being at the mercy of my fear. I’m tired of feeling like I have no choice. I’m tired of holding up a façade that’s crumbling, no matter what I do to keep it in place. And I’m tired of him messing with my already complicated life, just because he can. Just because he’s bigger and stronger, and more deadly than I am.

After Wolf left, the panic inside me was so intense I could hardly breathe, and all I wanted to do was to grab my knife and let it out, let the pain come. But then fucking Lucien appeared, demanding the information that I don’t have, and that was the last straw.

I didn’t care what he did to me. It couldn’t be worse than the balloon in my chest that inflates and shifts around my insides, making it hard to breathe, hard to eat. Hard to even exist. So yes, I did push him. I wanted to. I wanted him to hurt me, so I didn’t have to do it myself.

But he didn’t move, just kept his hand around my throat, and I lost patience. He kissed me in the parking lot, sunk his teeth into my lip, so all I wanted was to pay him back in kind.

But I forgot how good he tastes, and how his fingers around my throat make me hot. And how I don’t know anything about kissing. I just want to kiss him harder, so I push my tongue into his mouth, tasting the raw heat of him. He’s delicious, rich and dark, and I shudder when he makes a rough sound in his throat, shoving me up against the door again and pinning me there. There’s a moment where I think he might pull away, but he doesn’t. Instead, his tongue meets mine, demanding, dominating, taking everything, leaving me with no choice but to surrender.

I make a desperate sound of my own, and he slides a thumb up the side of my throat, lifting my jaw, tilting my head back against the door to give him better access to my mouth. It’s a wild storm, this kiss. A hurricane. And there’s only two things you can do in a hurricane. You either run from it or you become one with it.

I want to touch him, so I lift a hand as he kisses me deeper, harder, and I reach for his throat the way he’s holding mine, slipping my fingers around the strong column on his neck. His skin is hot, pulse beating against my palm the way mine is beating against his. I’m not a threat to him. There’s no way I can choke a grown man with one hand, but I feel the sudden tension that goes through him at my touch.

He lifts his head, leaving me panting and trembling, staring down at me, and a strange satisfaction fills me. Because there’s nothing cold or empty about his eyes now. There’s no ice there at all. They blaze with a flame so intense that steals the remaining breath from my lungs. All I can think is, yes, I did that to him. I put the heat in his eyes. That was all me.

“You’re going to choke me, Tinkerbell?” His voice is a rough growl. “You want to turn the tables?”

I don’t look away, my breathing getting faster and faster. “Why not? You might like it.”

His attention drifts to my mouth and back up again, as if he can’t help himself, and his hand around my throat is heavy. His fingers flex, pressing against my skin and as I shudder in reaction, his gaze flares even hotter.