My body dissolves under the swell, strained muscles giving in as I’m being pulled under the current. His grip on my wrists loosens, and I link my arms around his neck as my mouth moves in time against his. My heart thunders as his tongue expertly sweeps inside the hollow of my mouth to tangle with mine.

I’m achy and starved and furious. Every emotion on the red spectrum burns through me as I fist my fingers in his hair, a desperate sound emanating from deep in my throat.

Alex groans as his hand collars my throat, holding me in place against the mirror. Fear only serves to heighten the arousal, and I know it’s wrong, only I can’t shut off the flood of emotions. Painfully, he pulls away from the kiss. His thumb rests heavily against my pulse as his gaze tracks my distressed features.

He removes one hand from my waist to gently touch my temple. He traces the scar, the one he put there from the electrodes when he shocked me with more voltage than a person should sustain. “Our scars define us,” he says, “inside and out.”

He presses a kiss to the scar. A tender ache lodges in my throat and my sinuses flare, threatening to unleash a torrent of livid tears.

“There is no one else like you, Blakely. You’re that rare. You’ll never be able to live an ordinary life, simply because you’re extraordinary. That kind of significance is isolating, but we don’t have to be alone.”

A serrated edge rises up between us, severing his mental hold. I lift my chin, swallowing against the pressure of his hand around my neck.

“I’m not alone,” I say.

Alex moves in, but halts inches from my lips. A coy smile tugs at his mouth to make that infuriating dimple deepen in his cheek. “Why do you sleep with my shirt?”

My pulse trips. “To keep the fury burning.”

“So much passion.” His head shakes slightly. “Do you really want to be rid of it? That fire that lets you know you’re alive?”

I steel my features. “I would tear it out with my bare hands if I could.”

He feathers a finger down the side of my face, his hold around my neck cinching tighter. “You can fight it, even physically fight me, but you know what it feels like to make a deeper connection now. Even if it was possible, you can’t go back to that numb state. You’ll always crave me in your system.”

“God, I fucking hate you.”

“Show me how much you fucking hate me.”

The dare hovers—charged and volatile—in the sliver of air separating us. Waiting for one of us to move, to submit, and topple the first domino. Letting every wall and barrier crash down.

Since the day I ran from the fire, I’ve been trying to escape a blaze of emotions. Make them stop. Bury them. Do anything other than feel them.

Sex is a drug, and like all drugs, it can deaden the pain. And all I want is one moment of relief.

I grab Alex’s shirt and drag him forward. We collide in a blistering inferno of lust and loathing and pure, unadulterated need.

I dig my ankles into his backside as my fingers fumble his shirt open. “I hate your stupid glasses,” I say, pulling away to tear his sleeves down his arms.

“I’m wearing contacts.” He tosses the garment to the floor and yanks his white undershirt off.

“I hate your pretty blue eyes.”

He fists the hem of my tank top and pulls it up over my head. “I love your stormy green gaze.”

My hands slip over his shoulders, my blunt nails raking down his back, as Alex grabs my ass and hauls me off the counter. He kisses me until I’m breathless, then drops my feet to the floor and spins me around.

I latch on to the rounded edge of the basin, chest aching, the pulse of the music competing with the pounding thump of my heart. He slips his hands to the front of my jeans and works the clasp open, lowering the zipper too agonizingly slow.

I slam my eyes shut against our reflection. “Just fucking do it.”

His movements stall. Then, with a fierce groan, he tugs the waist of my jeans down and spins me around, forcing my eyes on him.

Fire and ice clash in the depths of his eyes, an unhinged conflict of yearning and fury fighting for dominance.

Jaw clenched, he thrusts his hand down the front of my panties. His fingers rub over me with hot friction, and an ache pinches inside my core, buckling my knees. He spreads me open with two fingers, and I can sense how wet I am, how slick his fingers feel as he circles my clit before pushing inside me.

“Goddamn,” he mutters on an uneven breath. “Punching me gets you this wet…”

A flame of humiliation licks over me, and I don’t realize I’ve slapped him until my palm smarts with the sting. Alex licks his lip, gathering the fresh bead of blood, before he grabs the back of my neck with his bandaged hand and draws me closer.

I reach behind and grip the counter, arching my back as he furiously fucks me with his fingers. My nipples harden against the sheer material of my bralette, seeking the rough plane of his chest. The ache plunges deeper, snatching my breath, my hips undulating as I ride his hand shamelessly.

I rock my hips in desperate need to rub my clit against the heel of his hand, and Alex stops.

I open my eyes, my gaze meeting his through a haze of lust and crushing yearning that threatens to break me if he doesn’t touch me again soon.

“Tell me to taste you,” he says, his voice gravel with the harsh demand.

Breaths ragged, I match his intense stare. “No.”

Before I lose my mind to him, I embrace the surging anger and shove his chest, breaking his connection. His effort to capture my arms is thwarted as I jab his wounded ribs. I shoulder past him, so close to escaping, until his arms lock around my waist.

He crushes my back to his chest. “Is a fight what you need?”

“Go to hell.” But I can’t deny it, unsure of my own feelings—these fucking excruciating emotions that beg me to surrender and fall into Alex, to just lose myself completely in the pleasure.

He picks my feet off the floor and carries me toward one of the stalls. With what fight I have left, I plant my foot to the cinderblock wall and kick off, smashing his back into the stall.

The hinges creak, and the flimsy divider gives a fraction. I struggle to free one of my hands and claw my nails down his forearm. He stumbles back harder into the stall. It splinters, cracking until the bolts clink to the tile.

“I’ll tear the world down with you, if that’s what it takes,” he says, his heavy breaths an erotic sound at my ear, our chests rising together in sync. “Shatter for me, baby. I’ll let you break against me.”

A violent tremble takes hold of my body. I hate every word from his mouth. I hate the pressure building in my chest. I hate the ache that threatens to rip me in half.

“I hate you—”

Alex pushes away from the divider and releases me, but only to turn my back flat to the broken surface of the stall. His gaze is molten, a blazing blue that steals my breath.

“You can hate-fuck that pussy against my mouth until I suffocate,” he says, his hands taking hold of my jeans. He shoves my jeans down, towing my panties with them, and drops to his knees.

My lungs threaten to burst as I breathe through the devastating sensation of his mouth surrounding me. My eyes fasten shut as I let him strip my shoes and pants off so he can bring my leg over his shoulder. He sucks my clit between his teeth, and I press my palms to the cool stall, needing to be grounded.

The arousing sensation of his stubble grazing the sensitive skin of my inner thighs sends me reeling, and I undulate my hips, begging for more friction.

Alex latches on to my thigh as he licks a hard seam up my slit. His tongue skillfully plunders between my lips as he works my clit harder, making me shiver. The yearning to crest is overwhelming, and the edges of fear bleed into euphoria. I’m so close to losing all control.