I didn’t necessarily speak the truth, but my wounded pride wouldn’t let me yield to my heart’s desire.

He stepped forward, his heat radiating through me. I took a step back toward the bannisters.

“Why do I have a feeling you are playing me, Aisling?” he asked.

Low. Calmly. Deadly.

I swallowed, stepping backward for the millionth time. “Who said I wasn’t?”

“Your doe-like, please-don’t-eat-me eyes. But I’m starting to see there’s much more to you than I initially thought.”

“Your opinion of me wasn’t very high in the first place, so that’s not saying much.”

I retreated again. He advanced toward me. This terrible tango of wills.

“I checked your IRS file. You don’t have an income. Whatever you do is either voluntary or paid under the table. With your family going through audits every single year, I doubt you are stupid enough to meddle with money.”

“What?” I gasped, scandalized. “How dare you—”

“Easily. That’s how. Now it’s your turn to answer a question. What is it that you do in this clinic, Nix?”

I felt my back hitting the edge of the bannister, the stone digging into my spine.

I lost my balance and tipped over, my arms thrashing in the air. My torso flew right over the balcony, but Sam grabbed me by the waist, the only thing to keep me suspended in the air, six floors above ground, from sure death.

A thin crust of ice covered the stone, making it even more slippery.

My heart lurched, beating wildly and hysterically.

“Pull me back!” I cried out, my hands desperately trying to clutch onto his tux. “Please!”

He dodged my attempts, pinning my waist harder against the stone but not letting me touch any part of him.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart. First, you owe me a few truths. You’ll start by telling me what you did outside my apartment a week ago. Because looking back, you couldn’t have come there just because you needed a shoulder to cry on.”

“I did!” I gasped, swallowing air. “I—”

“You took one of my bullets,” he snapped, loosening his grip on my waist. My body dangled between life and death, hanging on the balance between his fingers fluttering against my middle.

He did this on purpose.

The realization hit me more violently than any slap would.

He cornered me, made me walk backward to try to get away from him, and got me right where he wanted me. At his mercy. Now he was threatening to kill me if I didn’t tell him the truth.

The worst part was he could get away with it, too. It was going to look like a sure accident. I had more than a few drinks throughout the night, and Sam could easily slip out of here undetected.

“Let me go!” I wheezed.

“You sure about that?” I heard his grave chuckle. I couldn’t see anything other than the black velvet sky above me, the stars shimmering like fairy dust, watching intently to see how my night played out. “Why did you take the bullet, Nix?”

“Sam, please—”

“Answer me.”

“I’m scared,” I whispered, my voice cold and low.

“Tell me the truth and you’ll have no reason to be.”

“Because I knew it was from the man you killed at the carnival!” I screamed, getting it out of my system. “My obsession with you started right after that damned carnival. I checked the news to see who was killed there, guessing correctly that they’d found the body. I found his name—Mason Kipling—and read that he was a human trafficker who had been wanted by the FBI. I put two and two together. Realized you had some beef with the guy. When I saw the bullet, M.K., I couldn’t help myself. I took it. Happy?”

He was quiet for a few seconds. I was scared he’d get tired of holding my waist and would let go. A shiver ran through my body from head to toe. My tears flew downward, trickling from my forehead, as they landed somewhere under the ballroom. Probably in the empty hotel pool.

“Now tell me why you came to my apartment.” His voice was silk and leather, traveling over my skin like a whip, promising both pain and pleasure.

“No.”

“Tell me what you do in that clinic.”

“No.”

“Aisling …” He began to loosen his grip on my waist even more, and I sucked in a sharp breath, telling myself that he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let me die. Not because he had a conscience but because I meant something to him.

That was why he couldn’t touch other women and not for lack of trying.

That was why we kept coming back to each other over and over again, drawn together like magnets.

Whatever we had, it was screwed-up and poisonous and destructive, but it was there, and it was ours. It had a pulse and a breath and a soul.

We couldn’t walk away from it, and it was too late to pretend as if nothing happened, but at the same time, we both had no clue where to go to from here.

“You’re going to fall,” he whispered, his hot breath wafting over the column of my throat, causing goose bumps to rise on my skin. On instinct, I wrapped my legs around his waist, my limbs everywhere, folding myself around him like I wanted to swallow him whole.

My mouth found his ear. “So are you. I’ll be taking you with me, Monster.”

“I’m not afraid of falling, Nix.” His teeth dragged along my neck, nibbling at the sensitive hollow along my shoulder blade.

“Yes, you are. That’s why you’re torturing me. That’s why you’re here.”

Suddenly, his mouth was on mine, hot and hungry and demanding, and he pulled us backward, stumbling unevenly as he pried my mouth with his tongue, thrusting it inside harshly. I kissed him back, deep and raw, his scent dripping into my body. Cigarettes and man and expensive clothes. Not a trace of Becca in his system. My mouth was full of his kiss, and my bones felt brittle and hot as I murmured, “Next time you pull a Becca stunt on me, I will cut your balls off.”

“I’d like to see you try.” His fingers dug into my ass roughly, and I moaned, desperately rubbing against his erection. “Fuck,” he growled. “Why can’t I stay away from you?”

I licked a path down his throat, and he yanked my head back by my hair, peppering the edge of my cleavage with intoxicating kisses.

“You really need to quit smoking. You smell horrible,” I taunted.

“Never heard any complaints before.”

“They were all scared of you.” I sucked on his throat while he mauled the edge of my breasts. I was desperate to leave a love bite. To make him think of me tomorrow morning. And the mornings after that.

Because who knew when would be the next time we’d see each other? A week? Two weeks? A month? For all I knew, Sam could die in one of his street fights tomorrow. This could be the last time I saw him, touched him, felt him.

It was true for any person you were in love with, but especially for Sam, which made him even more precious to me. I was always on the verge of losing him, and sometimes at night, when I thought about what kind of dangers he was exposed to out there, I could barely breathe.

“No one wants to put a mirror to your face because they know you won’t like what you see there. Everyone is afraid of your wrath,” I continued.