Rage vibrated in my veins the entire drive to Allister’s place.

The high-rise was nicer than any special agent could afford. It touched the sky, all sleek lines and dark glass.

Since Allister wasn’t expecting me, I had to charm the woman at the front desk with every ounce of sweetness in me. I might have convinced her I was Allister’s long-distance girlfriend and that I suspected he was cheating on me. A tear made its way down my cheek.

Shaniqua sighed in sympathy. “Oh, honey, you go on up there. And if you don’t beat his ass, I will.”

Allister’s apartment was one of three on the forty-third floor.

My hand shook with anger as I pounded on the door. After the first three knocks came up empty, I raised my hand again, but the door opened before I could make contact.

Without looking at him, I marched past him and into his apartment. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I’d rather not do it in front of the security camera in the hall.

I didn’t take in a single detail of the space because all I could see was red soaking into my vintage rug. I tensed as the door shut with a small click, and then turned to see him leaning against it. His arms were crossed, white dress shirt pulled tight across his biceps. A single light above the kitchen island lit the space, and a shadow caressed the side of his face. Darkness loved him—I knew without a doubt they were on good terms.

I couldn’t help but think this was a man all other men aspired to be. He was the perfect prototype, and everyone else had just gotten the small details wrong.

As he watched me with a dark, half-lidded stare, I became abundantly aware that I stood in his domain. With his large form blocking the door. With the oxygen in the apartment burning up like fuel.

His eyes dropped, almost unwillingly, to coast the length of my bare legs, from the frayed hem of my shorts to my sparkly-painted toes. His attention came back up and, like the glide of a drop of sweat down my back, it brushed the diamond piercing in my navel, over my breasts and my throat, before reaching my eyes.

My heart raced with an edgy beat. I didn’t understand it—not him, or my reaction to him—and that made my blood flow with pure anger and frustration.

I strode toward him, and just as my palm was about to make contact with his face, he caught my wrist, spun me around, and slammed my back against the door. It rattled under the contact, and a breath of air escaped me.

Anger heated my cheeks, and I tried to fight him off, to twist out of his hold, but, calmly, he held my wrists in a vise grip against my chest and I couldn’t escape. The struggle was fruitless, and eventually I went still, my heavy breaths filling the room. And because I could do nothing else, I growled, “I hate you.”

Animosity felt heavy in the air, though I could almost hear the strike of a match as something else sparked to life.

“I warned you, Gianna . . .” It was soft and gentle but underlined with the slightest clench of his teeth. I knew he meant the warning he’d given me about being alone with him.

“You don’t scare me,” I breathed.

He pressed my wrists against the door on either side of me and slowly slid them above my head. I panted, a languid sensation pulling on my muscles. His grip was like fire, though his presence was intimidating and cold to the touch. A shiver rolled through me as his lips pressed against my ear.

“You never were very smart.”

His hands were like shackles holding my wrists above my head as he looked at me—from my eyes, to my lips, to my breasts that moved with each inhale and exhale. I became hyperaware of every breath. The slow, melodic puffs of air. Confusion battled with the warmth making a path beneath the waistband of my shorts.

His gaze met mine. Blue. Cool silk sheets beneath a darkening sky. Although, there was something else. A flicker of something bright and full of life. Like the reflection in a neurotic person’s eyes. It was madness. It was obsession.

A tremble rocked me as he pressed his face into my neck. Inhaled. And then made a low sound of satisfaction in the back of his throat. The deep, rough noise thrummed between my legs, and instinctively, I tilted my head to bare more of my neck. My ponytail skimmed across my bare shoulder as it fell to the other side.

His grip on my wrists tightened, and my eyes grew half-lidded from the pressure.

So, this was what it felt like to be touched by him . . .

Addictive.

He held my wrists with one hand as the other slid down to my throat. Stepping closer, he pressed his front to mine. Until we were flush with one another. Until my breasts burned under the heat of his chest. Sparks lit beneath my skin, sizzling every time he shifted enough to brush my nipples.

His heart, it was beating so hard. And it wasn’t from exertion. I wasn’t fighting him. I didn’t know what this was, but I didn’t have a single thought in me to analyze it. I’d never felt more alive.

He stepped away from me so suddenly my entire body screamed in protest. A draft hit my skin, but it couldn’t cool the fire in my blood. It was so quiet I could hear the thrum of my heart and the ticking of a distant clock.

His eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them, as though the black of his pupil was bleeding into the blue. He blinked like he was trying to clear his head.

It hit me in a rush.

This man was hot for me—the proof had been pressed against me a moment ago—but now I knew he hated it. He ran his tongue across his teeth, turned, and moved away from me, tension radiating from every inch of him.

I wasn’t like any of the women I’d seen him with. He preferred classy, composed, and docile. I was the opposite. He wanted me, and he hated it.

I was his own little game.

If he touched me, he’d lose.

I suddenly knew, this was a game I wanted to play with everything in me.

He moved into the kitchen. With white cabinets and gun-metal countertops, the area was cool and sophisticated, just like its owner. He grabbed a bottle of vodka from a cupboard and, in my humble opinion, poured a little too much into his glass.

The anger from earlier had drifted away under the heat of his hands on me, and while I wanted it back, I wanted to play with him more.

I pushed off the front door. “Why, yes. I’d love one, thank you.”

His shoulders tensed the slightest bit before easing into indifference. “I don’t remember offering.”

“I know,” I said, slipping my sandals off and making myself comfortable. “Which was rude, by the way, but I’m gracious enough to forgive you.”

He turned to lean against the counter. “I’m relieved to hear it. Now, get out.”

I strode toward him, and his gaze watched every step I made. It sent the fire in my blood sparking with electricity.

I ran my finger along the smooth marble counter as I walked around it. “Where are you from, Officer?”

“Iowa.”

I pulled myself onto the kitchen island to face him, and a small smile touched my lips. “Not this again. Iowa has never seen your pretty face.”

He stared. Drew his teeth across his bottom lip. Took a sip.

I leaned back on my hands. “Such a secretive man,” I mused. “Don’t you know, sharing is caring?”

“If that’s your new motto, then you’ll tell me if you’ve let that prick Vincent touch you.”

My smile faltered at the animosity in his voice.