Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,93

and shiny and clean thing and mess it up. Just a little. Just so she could hold it in her hand.

She got another beer and I watched her circle the tables. Making tense small talk, leaving people in her wake looking at each other with worried expressions. When she got back to me I had a plan in place.

“You ready to go?” I asked her, wiping my hands on a leftover Easter napkin. I dropped it, crumpled on the paper plate of vegetables.

“Go where?”

“Back to the condo.”

I ran my eyes down her body, nice and slow. Insulting a little. Because it was something she would recognize.

I took the bottle from her hand and tipped a sip into my mouth. The glass rim was warm from her mouth but the beer was still cold. A combination so like her.

“End it with a bang?” She smirked. “Really, Max?”

I didn’t smile. I didn’t feel like smiling. I felt like throwing her over my shoulder and carrying her back to the condo so I could burn my hands on her body. I used to try and control a group of criminals with the power of my will. My intent, if I wanted it to, could be broadcast over a room.

I let my intent, my will, fall over her and I watched as that smirk fell from her face. She glanced around as if she wondered if other people were feeling what she was feeling. If they could sense what was playing out in our little corner of this lobby.

I didn’t give a shit. I would fuck her here if that was what she wanted.

Her eyes met mine and it was over. No more games. No more pretend.

“Let’s go,” I said. I turned and walked out of the lobby.

Joan followed.

Chapter 24

Joan

Every hair on my body was standing up. It was as if all the warning systems I’d accrued over the years were blaring their alarms and flashing the red lights. It was dangerous, following this guy back to our condo, for a whole truck full of reasons.

And—I’m not kidding—that’s why I went.

Our footsteps were loud in the hallway, against the painted cement floor. But our silence was even louder. It pounded. It pushed against my chest. I wanted to scream just to break it, just to find some relief.

We’d been fucking each other for months without touching. And the last few days had this thing between us strung so tightly it was amazing we could move.

He was going to wreck me. Break me.

And I’d never needed anything more.

He stopped at our door and unlocked it with the key Fern gave us. He pushed open the door and stood there, holding it for me. His face was still. Calm. Like he wasn’t feeling what I was feeling. Like his heart wasn’t pounding in his throat and his dick wasn’t hard at the thought of what we were going to do to each other.

It made me want to punch him.

Hurt him.

I wanted to snarl and bite and claw my way past that calm face into whatever he had for a heart.

He must have seen it because he smirked. “Get inside before I fuck you against this wall.”

Yeeeeees.

I walked past him, through the open door, and into the dark condo beyond, but my fingers brushed his cock, hard as a rock beneath his jeans.

I heard the door slam and then he was behind me. Not touching me, but there. Solid and warm against my back. I stopped moving, bracing myself for some kind of impact, but he stopped just short of touching me.

There was no pretending anymore. I wasn’t going to put on some kind of game face. I didn’t want to play. I wanted him to put me right. To smooth these broken and jagged edges that were slicing me to ribbons.

So, I stepped backward and our bodies fell into each other in pieces. My ass against his cock. His chest against my back. My head against his shoulder—we were like magnets that had been flipped and as hard as we’d repelled each other—that’s how hard we came together.

His hand touched the bare skin of my thigh and I felt it like electricity all through my body. He was breathing hard in my ear and I was holding my breath, waiting for more. Wanting more.

But his hand stayed there, on my thigh, spread wide, like he was cupping the muscle. The callouses at the base of his fingers and on his thumb were not enough. Not close