A humming energy started to vibrate between them, the air molecules in the space between their bodies and their faces agitating.

He leaned in even closer. “I’m more the type to eat you alive.”

Her breath exhaled in a rush and he felt it fan over the skin of his neck in a tickle.

And then she floored his ass.

“So do it,” she bit out.

Isaac frowned and pulled back a little.

Her eyes were burning, a sudden anger suffusing her beautiful face with a passion he was shocked and titillated by.

“Do it,” she growled, grabbing at one of his arms.

She yanked his hand up and put it to her throat. “Go ahead—do it. Or are you just trying to scare me, huh?”

He snapped his wrist out of her grip. “You’re out of your mind.”

“That’s it, isn’t it.” Her anger really shouldn’t have been a total turn-on again. Really. Truly. “You want to try to bully me into getting scared and letting you off the hook. Well, good luck with that. Because unless you’re prepared to follow through on the threat, I’m not backing down and I’m not scared of you.”

His lungs started to burn . . . and whereas it would have been a hell of a lot smarter for him to step off and use one of her doors, he ended up putting his hand right back where it had been on the granite . . . so she was once again stuck between his heavy arms.

He liked her right where she was, all but blanketed by his body. And he respected her show of strength; he really did—even as it made him worried about how reckless she was.

“Guess what,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.

She swallowed hard once again. “What.”

Isaac moved in close, putting his mouth right to her ear. “Killing you isn’t the only thing I could do to you . . . ma’am.”

It had been a long time since Grier had felt every square inch of her body—at the same time. Good God, though, she did now, and it wasn’t just the skin she was in. She felt every bit of Isaac Rothe, too, even though nothing of his was touching her.

There was just so much of him. And maybe she should have been turned off by the raw, masculine thing he had going on . . . but instead, the brutal reality of his power just drew her in tighter and tighter. Separated by mere inches, with both of them breathing hard, she was utterly unhinged, her emotions unleashed sure as if he had in fact popped her head off her body and let it roll on the floor.