Page 99 of The Darkest Chase

“Because you think I’m fragile?” My eyes slit. “You think I can’t handle this.”

“What? No, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” I snap. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that even Micah Ainsley sees me as this broken little girl who can’t do anything, who has to be sheltered for her own good. I shove at him, scowling. “I can handle the Jacobins. I can handle Xavier flipping Arrendell. What I can’t handle is you patronizing me—”

The only warning I get is Micah’s lips thinning.

His eyes flashing.

His feral grip on my arms.

Then he seizes my mouth and shuts me up with one brutal kiss.

For a single breath, I freeze.

I don’t know how to process what’s happening.

I remember his lips on mine that day in the square, remember how my mouth tingled, but it was nothing like this.

Nothing like this force of a man’s naked desire, all fire, his mouth hot and firm on mine, coaxing my lips apart.

The heat sears me in the space of one breath.

I’m melting.

My entire body turns into hot honey, leaving me clutching him to keep standing as I stretch on my toes and lean into him.

I’m so greedy it scares me, taking that kiss I’ve wanted for what feels like a lifetime, as his tongue flicks against my mouth.

Holy shit!

When I was a girl, I used to daydream about falling in love. In those dreams, kissing was always this nebulous thing with a vague sense of forbidden pleasure, but the reality?

Pure inferno.

And Micah baptizes me with flames, dragging me in roughly, growling heat into my mouth.

I’m deliciously crushed against his body until I feel every inch of him.

I’m too aware of him, from the hot texture of his lips to the wetness of our mouths gliding together to the roughness of his tongue.

His powerful height.

His arm, as hard as steel across my back.

His fingers, strong and controlling as they fist my hair.

My head falls back in surrender.

There’s a demand in the way he seeks deep inside me with slow taunts, sweet plunging caresses, searching strokes.

God.

I’m about to spontaneously combust.

“Micah,” I moan against his lips, and he groans.

There’s a faint clatter past the haze of my perception—my inhaler hitting the floor, I think—and suddenly Micah’s fingers touch the small of my back with nothing between us.