my hand to the gunshot wound and pressed my finger, slowly and firmly, to the flesh.
Tanner hissed as I pressed harder. “You’re covered in the blood of my enemies.” I smiled. “It suits you, White Prince. Tell me . . .” I ran my fingertip up over his arm, slowly, gently . . . tenderly, until it reached the blood-covered pulse that was beating wildly in his neck. “How many times has it been Mexican blood on this skin?” I tipped my head to the side, watching the anger rise to redden his skin. “Blood like mine? Of my people?”
Tanner lurched forward, catching me off guard. My words and breath were cut off as he launched from the chair, hand around my neck, and drove me back into the nearest wall. My back hit the concrete, but all I could see was Tanner. See the dark tattoos of hate glaring at me, offending me. Then his face was in mine.
“Why do you keep getting in the way? Why are you always fucking in the way? Always here? Near me, with that fucking scent you always wear?” His teeth were gritted, and his mouth was so close to mine. His grip on my neck wasn’t tight, but it held me in place, showing me he could kill me if he wished it. The blue of his eyes looked like ice in the dim light, the pupils blown from anger.
And I smiled. I smiled with his fingers around my neck and his chest pinning me to the wall. His hands tightened.
“What the fuck do you find amusing—?”
“Why did you save me?” Tanner froze as I interrupted him. His blue eyes widened. I pushed my chest harder against him, my breasts scraping the bare skin of his chest. The hand around my neck started shaking, his face reddening. But I pushed harder. I kept speaking. Kept going. Kept pushing the White Prince. Because now I’d started I couldn’t stop. This man ignited the very blood that traveled through my veins. Made my heart race, not with fondness, but with anger and hate and something that gripped hold of my arteries and made me think of nothing but him and his tattoos and muscles and the unreasonable hatred he held for me in his heart. Tanner’s breathing was as heavy as mine. He shook. I shook. “Why did you kill the gunman before we had a chance to interrogate him?” I pressed my forehead to his. My breathing hitched as his warm flesh touched mine. “Because he insulted me? Because he hated me? Because he wanted me to die?”
“You piss me off,” Tanner snarled, pushing closer. So close that no air could pass between us. He could feel the heavy beating of my heart as much as I could feel the pounding of his. And I could feel the heat from the words he pushed out of his mouth. The lies that he so tragically wanted to believe were true. “I fucking hate this country. Everything about it.” His fast, anger-ridden breath splayed over my face. “But most of all, I hate you. You more than anyone I’ve ever met. You repulse me.” Tanner’s nose moved up my cheek, and I could barely breathe at the touch. “I hate your eyes, I hate your face, I hate your body.” My body, which heated so much I felt like I was on fire. I gripped his biceps, my nails stabbing into the already bloodied flesh. “I hate that motherfucking smile.” Squeezing my neck tighter, he hissed, “But most of all . . .” He took a deep breath. “Most of all . . . I fucking hate that I want you so much.”
Tanner’s lips smashed to mine. They were hard and punishing and searing. I moaned as his taste invaded my mouth—smoke and mint and leather. My hands moved up his arms until they were hooked around the back of his neck. I should have pushed him away, thrown him from me and found the gun my father gave me permission to use. I should have pressed the barrel over his heart and pulled the trigger, doing the world a favor by sending a bullet through this devil man’s black-blooded heart.
Instead, I pulled him closer. I felt his muscled body next to mine. Felt how hard he was under his jeans. “I fucking hate that I want these lips,” he growled in between kisses, never once moving his mouth away, his lips dragging across mine