He’d been dangerous and everyone knew it, including me. Yet, that hadn’t kept me away. His tough guy act had only made me more determined to prove I wasn’t scared of him. Everyone else may have been intimidated, but me? Lucas didn’t scare me.

When I turned to face him, he turned to me too. I had to ask. It was going to drive me mad if I didn’t.

“Did you fuck her?” I said, my voice as crisp and disinterested as I could manage.

He reached for a packet of cigarettes on the dash, the joy I’d so briefly glimpsed on his face now stone cold again. He lit up and took a long drag before he hung the cigarette out his open window and said, “Does it matter?”

I folded my arms, turning to face straight ahead again and going rigid in my seat. Of course it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. The leather seat creaked as Lucas shifted his weight, leaning toward me as he took another drag. His face was unreadable, cast in shadow.

“Well? Does it matter, Jess?”

I shook my head. He chuckled softly as I faced him again, shrinking the space between us even further.

“I don’t care,” I said. “But you have terrible taste.”

“Mm, do I?” He rested one arm on the back of the seat, the smoke from his cigarette drifting out the window in a thin stream. He smelled like tobacco and cinnamon gum, dangerous and unbearably sexy. “I guess that’s fair. I’ll fuck almost anyone as long as I can make them scream.”

It was way too hot in here. How the hell did we get so close? My stomach turned with anger, but my thighs squeezed together as I watched his lips close around the cigarette again.

“That’s a gross habit,” I said, and he lifted an eyebrow at me. He opened his mouth, keeping his dark eyes on me all the while, and stubbed out the cigarette on his tongue. He didn’t flinch, his expression didn’t even change.

“I think you have terrible taste too,” he said, and I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but we were so close I could see the veins in the whites of his eyes and the pulse beating in his throat.

I grabbed his shirt, knotting it in my hands as I tugged him toward me, but he was already lunging forward, pinning me against the door as he kissed me.

I could taste the ash in his mouth, bitter and dark, but it felt so right. A kiss from Lucas Bent was supposed to hurt, it was supposed to drip with venom, and it did. His hand curled around my neck, his body pressing between my legs and spreading them open. My chest was heaving for air, but I couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. My heart was hammering, and I was so furious, so disgusted, so viciously turned on. His hand trailed over my body, rough and hard, when he pulled up my dress and pressed himself against me.