I could die a happy man, a fulfilled man, a man that accomplished all he had ever set out to do. This tiny kiss, that little taste of her, was more of a victory than surviving anything in my youth or adulthood had been. She was my endgame. She was what had given my life meaning, and now she was breathing that very essence back into me and it felt perfect. She was everything.

My hands ached to touch her. My fingers twitched so hard they hurt as I latched them on to the edge of the marble counter behind her. I settled my hips into hers so that there was no mistaking what was happening between us. My dick throbbed, my heart pounded, and all I could do was brush my lips over hers and beg her to let me inside.

She wanted to control me. She wanted to call the shots and make the moves so this game was hers to win, but I stopped playing with her the instant she took a bullet and nearly bled out in my arms. I wanted her forever, on my terms, and I knew the only way to make that happen was to make her want to surrender. She had to give herself up to me and to the kind of life I could offer her. I knew she didn’t want to belong to me, but she did. I could tell by the way her hands shook when she plowed them into my hair and by the way she whimpered when she opened up to let me inside the warm cavern of her mouth. I felt her nipples peak against my bare chest and the tremor in her long legs as I forced a knee between them. I might not be able to touch but I sure as fuck could feel her. Taking away one sense had heightened the others to the point of almost painful sharpness.

It was more than a kiss. It was so much bigger than her challenging me. It was the start of something that had been simmering under the surface for years. The seeds had always existed in the ground, tiny and immature, and this kiss, this simple touch of the tip of my tongue to hers, was the rain they needed in order to grow. The way she pulled at me, the way she moved her hips restlessly against the insistent bulge in my pants as it pressed into her, was the sun that those tiny bits of nothing needed to flourish. It was the best goddamn foreplay that had ever existed.

I twisted my tongue around hers. I tasted every part of her I could, and as I leaned in closer, my hands began hurting with the effort it was taking to keep them off of her skin. It had been a long time coming, this first volley between us, and it was everything I had ever hoped for where this tricky, stubborn woman was concerned. She didn’t stand still and let me kiss her, she kissed me back with everything she had, and soon our lips and tongues were engaged in an aroused battle and I swallowed down a moan as her teeth roughly abraded my bottom lip. I could have her but she was going to make me fight for it.

The kiss lasted for what felt like an eternity, and I only pulled back when my lungs started to scream that they needed air. I felt hot. I was beyond turned on, and as much as I wanted to drag her off to bed or hoist her up on the counter and make a space for myself between her legs, I knew that I couldn’t do that. I wanted all the parts of her that made her match me in so many ways, not just her body.

I pushed off the counter and shoved my hands through my hair as I struggled to catch my breath. I watched her as she rubbed her thumb across her damp and swollen lips and smirked up at me in seductive victory.

“How bad do you want to put your hands on me right now, Nassir?” The taunt had no heat behind it because she knew I wanted it more than I wanted to live.

I blew out a breath and took a second to shift my focus off of her heaving chest and onto her light-colored eyes. The tempest that was always raging in the center of those gray depths had calmed and instead was sharpened and honed on me like a weapon. She knew just how easy it was to get to me and she was going to exploit this knowledge every chance she got. She wanted something, wanted me to understand why she was here now, why she was letting this happen between us finally. I considered myself a man of above-average intelligence. I wasn’t a genius like my business partner but there wasn’t much that slipped by me. Whatever was behind her change of heart and return home was as much a mystery to me as how my mother had been able to sell her only child out to the highest bidder.

“I’ve wanted to put my hands on you since the very beginning, but once they’re there they’re never coming off. You’re going to have to ask me, Key. You’re going to have to make me believe that you understand what it means when you ask me to touch you.”

She scoffed at me but I could see my words made her uneasy. “What does it mean?”

I narrowed my eyes the slightest bit and exhaled slowly. She made it hard to breathe in the best way. “It means forever.”

Something that looked like fear flashed across her gaze and the angry storm was back swirling at the center. “Forever doesn’t seem to last very long in the Point.”

“Forever is what you make of it.” Forever could be a lifetime trying to right a wrong and wasting a life because you were filled with vengeance and hate, or it could be a youth wasted because of other people’s ideals and beliefs. It could be a single second with the right person or an eternity lost chasing the wrong one.

She rolled her eyes at me and scooted around to where I was standing in the center of the kitchen. “This is going to end so badly between us, Nassir. You’re going to have to share everything you’ve pillaged and plundered over the years and you’re going to hate me for it. I want to get my hands on all of your shiny toys.”

I lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Thinking about it ending in any way, shape, or form means you’re admitting something finally started, and that’s all I care about. I can learn to share, Key.” It might take some time. I was used to be being greedy and selfish with my things and with my time.

She tucked the longer part of her hair back behind her ear and muttered, “I’ll believe it when I see it, Gates.” Her eyes darted around the kitchen and landed on the massive double doors that led to the back deck that virtually hung off the side of the mountain we were perched on. “Why do you live in a cabin out in the middle of the woods? I mean it’s obviously more than a cabin, but seriously? A log house in the sticks? What’s up with that?”

I turned my back on her and walked to the fridge to get a bottle of water. “It’s the last place on earth anyone would ever look for me. Kind of like you in that diner.” And that was the God’s honest truth. “I have a suite built into the back of my office in the club so I can stay in the city if I need to, but this is home.”

“It’s beautiful, but not what I expected.”