I shoved the thought of that awful day away before nausea could creep in. I wouldn’t allow any dark thoughts to distract me from Allie. Not when she was trusting me to enter her private sanctuary again.
As we walked through the foyer, memories of the last time I’d been here played through my mind. I’d shoved her up against that wall and claimed her mouth; I’d been challenging her, trying to remind her of the night I’d kidnapped her. She’d refused to be scared of me. She’d invited me in and made herself completely vulnerable with me. She’d let me touch her in ways no man ever had before.
My fingers tingled with the remembered warmth of her supple body melting beneath my hands. The craving to claim her again set my teeth on edge.
I sucked in a breath and forced down my dark desires. It was a miracle that she’d invited me in. I wouldn’t risk scaring her away for good by giving in to my maddened need to possess her completely.
I didn’t allow myself to think about all the factors that should separate us. I didn’t contemplate the impossibility of possessing her. All I knew was that she needed me, and I couldn’t resist her.
When we reached the living room, she paused and turned to face me. Her head tipped back, and her eyes shone. Her white teeth sank into her lower lip, and the fingers of her free hand twined around her locket in an anxious gesture I was coming to recognize.
I didn’t want her to be anxious around me.
I remembered the night she’d shared her deepest vulnerability with me: that she felt responsible for her mother’s death. She’d shared the secret of her locket and the guilt she kept locked inside along with her mom’s picture.
We were bound by that pain. I felt guilty for my own mother’s death. But Allie was completely innocent, whereas I was truly damned for my failure.
I pressed my hand over hers, trapping her anxious fingers over her heart. It beat fast and hard beneath my palm, as though she was under physical strain. Her eyes tightened with some emotion I couldn’t understand.
“I’m sorry I called you a monster, Max,” she breathed. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did,” I countered harshly, but I couldn’t bring myself to break contact with her. “And you should. Because it’s true.” It was no longer a powerful enough reason to keep me away from her, but that didn’t change the facts.
She shook her head, her shining hair swaying around her delicate face. “You hurt me, and I lashed out. I don’t know everything you’ve been through, but I knew it would make you hurt too. And I’m sorry for that. You don’t deserve any more pain.”
I deserved to go to hell for what I was doing to her: pulling her into my dangerous world. I should suffer every day for the rest of my life for condemning her. There’d been no going back since the night I’d chosen to kidnap and interrogate her. Even on that dark night, we’d formed a strange and forbidden bond. She’d peered past my twisted, vicious mask and seen the open wound that had never healed after my father had branded me. She made me vulnerable in a way that should terrify me, but I craved more of her sweet trust too keenly to be scared away.
“I don’t deserve you.” The words left my chest on a low rumble, rough with need and a bite of something like regret. But it was too late to go back now. She’d sealed her fate when she’d called me to protect her from Gavin. She’d chosen me over all others to keep her safe.
She’d chosen me, and now she was mine.
“Max, you do—”
I threaded my fingers though her hair and crushed my lips to hers, sealing my claim with a fierce kiss. After tonight, I would possess my Allie in every way.
ALLIE
As soon as Max’s lips collided with mine, the heat that’d been simmering beneath my skin ignited into fiery passion. This maddened chemistry we shared defied all reason, and it obliterated all niggling doubts about how this could work between us. In this moment, I didn’t care about all the obstacles that separated us. I just wanted him. I wanted to surrender to the intoxicating connection we shared and forget about all my worries for a few blissful minutes.
All my fears about my father’s possible Bratva ties and my residual anxiety over Gavin’s aggression faded to nothing. The heavy burdens that’d been weighing on my mind didn’t matter now.
I could lose myself in him. In us.
He thought he didn’t deserve me, but I didn’t care about his darkness or the danger that pulsed around him like a menacing shadow. He would never hurt me. He’d protected me so many times, and that mattered far more than his concerns over his unworthiness.