distraction. You are a distraction to me. I can’t focus around you.”
“I’m a distraction to you?” I asked. “You kissed me in the bathroom. That’s pretty fucking distracting.”
“I hoped that would remove the temptation,” he growled. “Because we’d know what it was like.” His voice was growing rougher and rougher.
“If you liked our kiss that much, are you pissed at me? Or pissed at yourself for making us even more distracted?”
We were glaring at each other now, the space between us shrinking with our combined irritation.
“I’ll give you real honesty since you won’t give it to me,” I continued. “I think you’re picking a pointless fight because you’re more comfortable arguing than you are expressing your feelings. You forget that we share the same personality attributes, unfortunately. Which means I hate failing as much as you do. I know how shitty it feels.”
I swallowed against a very real hesitation to be vulnerable in front of my nemesis. But he was staring at my mouth. I liked being stared at like that—like I was rare and delicious.
“I hate failing,” I repeated. “And I’ve wanted to kiss you since the day we met.”
His nostrils flared at that, but he didn’t say a word.
“Is that what you wanted too?” I asked.
He closed his eyes like he was in pain. His breath was coming fast, heavy. I worried that he’d flex his muscles and rip the car in half—he was that tightly wound.
“I have never kissed a woman like that before,” he said. “I’ve never needed to touch a woman like that before.”
Now I was panting, rubbing my thighs together to try and ease the persistent ache that appeared whenever we argued.
“So, yeah, I fucking wanted it,” he said harshly. “But wanting to fuck each other is exactly the reason why we failed.”
My jaw dropped open. “That’s that, then? We lose this case, you go back to the FBI, and we end things the way they began? Fighting with each other and never talking about what’s actually going on between us?”
Sam shrugged like it was no big deal. Even though I could tell. Could tell there were things he wanted to say and things he wanted to do. But he was holding himself back like he always did, tamping down any inclination for messy emotions.
“This was inevitable,” he said. “Our failure was inevitable. If you weren’t the most stubborn and irritating woman I’d ever known—”
“And if you weren’t the most arrogant and frustrating man I’d ever met—”
But I didn’t even finish the sentence. I grabbed his white shirt and dragged his upper body across the console at the same time as he crashed our lips together in a bruising kiss.
He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me across his lap.
It was our first real kiss in semi-private, and I didn’t hold back. I moaned, I sighed, I ripped his shirt, sending buttons flying, and scratched my nails down his perfect superhero chest. When I latched onto his lower lip and bit, Sam Byrne snarled like an animal. Speared his fingers into my hair and captured my mouth, groaning every time my nails bit into his skin.
“You wouldn’t be such a fucking distraction if you weren’t this goddamn beautiful,” he hissed, ripping the strap of my dress clean off my body. The fabric fell from my breasts, and he descended upon them with ravenous intent. “You used to sit next to me in class and slide that pen in and out of your fucking mouth. Are you kidding me, Evandale?” He yanked me higher, one palm spread between my shoulder blades, face pressed to my sternum as he sucked my nipples into tight peaks.
“What a little perv you were,” I gasped, yanking at his thick hair. “Must have been subconscious on my part.”
“You’re too smart for that.” He scraped his teeth across my rib cage, and I shivered. His thumb was stroking across my lower lip. I sucked it, felt his body tremble with restraint.
“Maybe I wanted to tease the hot guy next to me,” I said, arching again into his mouth, which was currently doing extraordinary things to my nipples.
“Which guy?” he demanded.
I picked his head up, kissed him hard. “You, you idiot.”
Our kiss this time lacked finesse but made up for it in passion. I was practically climbing him, and he was shifting away the fabric of my gold dress. When his palms landed on my ass, he squeezed hard. It felt amazing, to be handled roughly, to have serious, controlled