SILAS POV
Did I want to kiss her against the kitchen counter?
Yes.
Not the soft kind. Not the careful kind. Not the kind that asks permission or pretends to be something it isn’t. I wanted the kind of kiss that shuts someone up, that leaves no room for doubt, that reminds a woman exactly who she belongs to even when she is fighting it.
Did it take every ounce of control I had not to do it?
Also yes.
And not the polite restraint people like to imagine when they talk about self-control. This was the kind that made my jaw lock and my teeth ache, the kind that required conscious effort not to reach for her, not to pin her there, not to remind her body of things it clearly hadn’t forgotten.
She had been right there, trapped between me and the stove, warm and unsteady, her pulse loud enou
