I was coming undone, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t participate. He held me down with his one hand still. My legs lifted to go around his waist. He shifted, so his hip kept me from closing the distance to bury his fingers in me, but I wanted that. I wanted him inside me.

He kept going, in and out. His mouth kept moving over mine. He was holding me prisoner to his touch. Right before I was going to come, he paused, and his fingers slid out of me.

“No.” I ripped a hand free and grabbed his. I pushed it back. “Do. Not. Stop.”

He lifted his head, gazing down at me in question.

I flashed him a warning. “I mean it.”

The corner of his mouth slowly curved into a delicious grin, but instead of thrusting back inside me, his hand slid under my hip, and he lifted me in one motion. My legs wound tighter around his waist. His left hand released my hands and caught the back of my neck. He held me rigid in his arms as he carried me to the bedroom. He laid me down onto the bed, and I was still panting.

I needed him.

He reached for my shirt but paused, looking at me again. A switch happened. He frowned. A flash of something—regret?—appeared in his eyes, dimming the fury, and he shook his head. He pulled back.

“Kian.” I grabbed his wrist. I was dominating him now. “No.”

“Yes.” His chest was rising up and down.

The need for him was clawing up my throat, but I recognized it in him. He needed me, too, but his hand gentled on my neck.

He stood away from the bed. “What did I do? What if I hurt you?” He began shaking his head.

I sat up and caught his arm. “Kian, no. I still want this. You wouldn’t have.”

He kept shaking his head. “No, I—no, Jordan. I…” He faltered. His eyes closed, and he rubbed at his forehead.

“Stop it, Kian.” I yanked on him. My pulse was still going. My blood was still buzzing.

Holy shit, I still wanted him, but he thought he had hurt me. It was the opposite.

“I could’ve hurt you.” His hand lifted in a helpless gesture before falling back to his side. “I wanted to fuck you. Hard.”

“Good.” I jerked my chin up. “The harder, the better.”

He frowned, and then a grin appeared. “What?” His hand rose to grip his hair, and he held it there. “My God, Jordan. You don’t get it. I don’t think you ever will.”

He wanted to screw.

I didn’t see the problem. “What are you talking about?”

“I could’ve lost control. Me? I can’t lose control. Ever. You don’t get it.”

“Losing control is the whole purpose of fucking. No, I don’t get it. I want you to lose control. I still want you—”

“I lost control once and went to prison.”

I stopped.

A chill went through me now, and I saw the desperation in his eyes. He was still trembling. I shook my head. No, it’s not the same.

“It wouldn’t be the same way.”

“You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

I advanced toward him, touching my chest. “I am the only one who knows what you’re capable of, just like you’re the only one who’s seen me at my most vulnerable. You’ve seen me stripped bare. He could’ve done whatever he wanted. I was the most helpless that I’ll ever be in my life.” A ball grew in my throat.

The words didn’t want to come. Hell, I didn’t want to say them, but this was important. Everything in me was screaming to let this out. It needed to be said, and somehow, I hoped it would help him. Somehow, it had to.

“Kian,” I murmured, moving with caution toward him. I was nearing a cornered wild animal, one that was wounded. I needed to go so carefully. “You lost control with Edmund because he was hurting me. You stopped him. Losing control that day and losing control with me—they’re two very different things. This is something else. It’s life. What you did to Edmund was to punish him. You saved me. You ended a life. Two completely separate things.”

“I can’t ever hurt you.” He shook his head. “I was in prison for two years. Thinking of you…I wanted to be with you even then. You were the first thing I thought about when I got out. I could finally see you. I realized you were hiding, and I had to find you. It felt like it did in high school—” He bit off his next words.

What? I frowned. My voice was hoarse again. “Finish that sentence.”

He didn’t. He waited, holding my gaze steady.

“It felt like it did in high school,” I started for him. This was important, whatever he was holding back. “What about high school? How was it like in high school?”

His gaze was lidded as he watched me. There was yearning there, but anger sparked, too. It flamed up, and his jaw clenched once again, but he still said nothing.

I had to know. “Kian.”

“Nothing.”

“Kian.” I reached for him.

He brushed me off, retreating from the room. He’d moved with such litheness that I stopped from going after him. It hadn’t been a big movement, but it was how he’d moved.

I remembered how fast he’d sliced Edmund’s throat. At one moment, Kian had stared at me. I had seen the intent in his eyes, but before I could register it and say something or even consider saying something, it had been done. He’d held Edmund in front of him, his arm paralyzing Edmund against himself, and then his arm had slashed in one smooth motion. It had been done. Edmund had watched me, too, his eyes wild and frenzied. He had tried to struggle against Kian’s hold, but Kian brought the knife across Edmund’s throat and then let him fall.