#Chapter 24: Thinly Veiled Promise

Aurora POV The kiss changes everything. One moment I’m standing in a quiet park with the man I was supposed to blackmail back trying to protect my own and the next I’m falling into him, letting his hands slide down my sides, gripping onto his jacket like it’s the only thing anchoring me to the earth. I should stop this. I know I should. But the second his mouth moves to my neck and his breath is hot against my skin, reason slips further and further away. There’s no softness to any of this, no pretense of romance. Just desperate urgency and that maddening electricity that’s always buzzed between us ever since we first met back at that damn club, building toward this moment like pressure behind a dam finally cracking open. I gasp when his hands dip under my shirt, a trail of fire following the pattern he traces up to where my bra strap is. He pauses just long enough for me to push him away if I wanted to but I don’t. Instead, I tug him closer. He groans, low and wrecked