“You want me to trust, but—” I’d given up my life for a guy rotten to the core. Was I falling for another?

“What’s your gut tell you? You’re an expert on assholes. Think I’m like all the others?”

Did I? I ached for him to be better than other men. The best. But what I’d read, the fact that he worked for Marshall…

And yet I’d let him touch me within minutes at the wake. I’d let him inside me earlier. I was on my knees. Now I was questioning?

“You and me, we can be broken together. Two pieces put together to make a whole.”

He stroked my hair as I processed what he was saying.

“You’re it, princess. I’m here for you. Trust.”

I shook my head, because I desperately wanted to believe his words.

“You’re on your knees, but you can get up right now. Kick me out. I’ll go. But I know me taking charge makes you hot.”

“Jed,” I breathed. He was right in that. I loved it. Needed it. Craved the blank mind. The pleasure.

He adjusted himself and the thick crown of his dick appeared in the open fly of his jeans, as if it couldn’t be contained.

I wasn’t the only one that craved.

“What makes you hot makes me hard. You’re my woman. Whatever you desire is mine to give.”

“I’m not your woman,” I said right away, although hearing him say that was like a balm to an open wound. I wanted to believe him, to belong to someone. But I barely knew him, knew the bad things he’d done to be kicked out of the FBI. Did I replace one demanding man with another trying to rule my life?

“You are. The second I saw you again you were mine. When you handed me those panties in your father’s office at the house surrounded by all those fucking animal heads, you gave yourself to me.”

I stared up at him, leaned into his palm. The eyes were dark, fueled by all the secrets I unburdened. By the truth he seemed to be trying to get across to me over and over. He was so rugged and fierce, that calm intensity the opposite of Macon’s wild rages. He showed me that he could remain in control no matter what happened, that I didn’t have to fear him. Or this between us.

“It’s time to make your choice, North. Either stand up and kick me out or suck my dick like a good girl.”

9

JED