and turn towards her. ‘What you just saw wasn’t enough for you?’
Even in the restricted light Miranda could see his gaze burned with anger. Having faced it before—and with the recent addition of visible proof—she realized how much constraint he exercised when she pushed him. What she found more difficult to understand was how he made her feel and how swiftly it returned to the same unwavering constant over and over again.
She was drawn to him—had been from the start—and even after seeing him at his most dangerous it hadn’t changed.
‘That didn’t look like you,’ she replied.
The man she’d seen in the alley wasn’t the one who had been watching over her.
‘You think you know me after less than a week?’ He jerked his brows. ‘Is this the part where you tell me danger does it for you—that you’re into bad boys and want to be taken on a wild ride?’
Yes, but there was wild and then there was suicidal.
He took an ominous step forwards. ‘That’s what you were looking for from that dance floor. It’s why you responded the way you did when I kissed you. Do you know what happens to women who go looking for trouble? I do. But maybe what you need is a little taste of what you’re getting into.’
Miranda’s breath snagged in her throat as he took another step forwards, her eyes widening as she took a reciprocal step back. ‘Tyler, don’t.’
‘Too late, princess.’
The man obviously had a thing with pinning people to walls because the next thing she knew Miranda had her back to one, the cold dampness of the bricks through the thin material of her blouse making her jump forwards. The move literally played her directly into his hands. Grasping her wrists, he lifted her arms above her head and pushed her back into the wall with his body.
Hard, he was hard everywhere, muscular and tight, his grip on her wrists unyielding as he trapped them in one large hand to free up the other. Miranda struggled against him, the movement merely adding to her problems when her traitorous body responded with a gush of heat to her core. He angled his head, his lips hovering above hers, tempting, teasing, the muscles in his torso so tense they rippled with each harsh breath.
‘You think you can stop me now?’ When he spoke his mouth whispered across hers. The hand he’d freed smoothed into the dip of her waist on the side of her body before lowering to her hip and squeezing tight enough to make her feel the imprint of each finger. Moving lower, he fisted a handful of skirt material and slowly dragged it upwards. ‘Go ahead and try.’
It was pure hell not to give in to temptation and kiss him. If there was trust between them she wouldn’t resist; might even have encouraged him not to stop. But no matter how desperately she clung to the belief he wouldn’t hurt her, Miranda couldn’t deny her desire was woven with a thread of fear. Her heart pounded painfully against her breastbone, her body shaking from the inside out. He was both stronger and bigger than her—there was no way she could fight him off. She’d never been made so aware of the weakness of her body before.
As the skirt slid higher he forced a leg between her knees and nudged them apart. ‘I could take you in this position whether you want me to or not.’
She drew in a ragged breath as she stopped struggling and swore he wouldn’t make her cry. ‘This isn’t you.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said harshly. ‘You could have been sidling up to a monster with that little game of dress up you played. I could have brought you here because I know it’s a place where people ignore screams after dark.’ His voice lowered. ‘I could be inside you right now—taking what I need without caring if you get any pleasure out of it. And when I’m done I could leave your broken body for someone else to find.’
‘You wouldn’t do that.’ The crackle of emotion in her voice was impossible to disguise. Swallowing the sob she didn’t want him to hear, she forced her gaze upwards to the fire escape on the wall opposite them, willing her mind to detach from her body so he couldn’t touch a part of her that might never heal.
When her vision blurred she blinked rapidly but was unable to stop the tears that spilled over her lower