Convicted (Entangled Ignite) by Dee Tenorio

himself. Kept him able to ignore the spark between them. Ignore it until he resented it. He wasn’t so delusional that he didn’t recognize a universal fact he had no chance of escaping.
    Women as vital as Trina didn’t want men as dead inside as him.
    She deserved better, a truth that had kept his desires in check day after day for the last six months. She just didn’t seem to know it.
    His eyes closed, letting go of everything but the image of Trina in his shower. He sped his stroke, concentrating hard on it to quiet his thoughts. Just the water, her sighs, and the dream that he had something more to offer her than the body of a ghost who didn’t know how to die.
    …
    Katrina didn’t know what she expected to see, creeping back into Cade’s bedroom as quietly as she could. Maybe just a little proof that he was suffering as much as she was. She hoped, anyway. Cade could be as revealing as a sphinx sometimes. She’d learned to read his almost smiles, the quirk of his mouth before he’d look away. It was hard to miss his anger, given the way he handled brawls in town. But when it came to desire, all she had to go by was the heat in his eyes. For a delicious second, she’d bask in it… Then he’d take himself away.
    She drew in a breath. He wasn’t going anywhere this time. She watched his hand move beneath his blanket with a fluidity that couldn’t be mistaken.
    A smart woman would back away as quickly and quietly as possible. He couldn’t make his position against her any clearer. He did not want to be involved.
    But a logical woman knew that was complete bullshit. Not only was she not asking for anything beyond sex, they were already involved. They were involved the second she introduced herself to him. That was why she hadn’t been able to shake her curiosity of him. Or her concern for him. Kicking her desire for him was even harder. The more he pretended it wasn’t there, the more she felt the need to make him admit it.
    Maybe that made her a stupid woman, because she wasn’t about to miss this chance to finally taste what he’d been keeping from her for so long.
    Moving silently, she was already reaching to grasp him over the blanket when she found her wrist gripped in an unforgiving fist. She didn’t even have enough time to process that shock before he yanked her across him, onto the bed’s empty side. His blankets fell over her, pulling tight between their bodies. Cade pinned her arms over her head, his chest hard and hot against her. She writhed, wishing her breasts were free of the taut bedding.
    He shook her, rattling the headboard in the process. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
    “Copping a feel,” she replied breathlessly. The light from the bathroom glittered in his dark eyes, casting his stubbled jaw into stark contrast. “You were, why shouldn’t I?”
    “I could have hurt you.” Still could, he seemed to be adding.
    “No, you couldn’t.” He had it in his head that he was nothing more than a marauder, but Katrina knew the truth. Yes, he was fucked up. There was no use pretending the scars weren’t there. But she’d be damned before she let him go on believing his soul was gone. He was a good man and he’d rip off his own arms before he hurt her.
    To say nothing of what she’d do to him if he even tried it.
    He closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath and—she guessed, considering how often she drove him to it—pulling from his shallow well of patience. Not wanting him to get his wits now that she’d firmly discombobulated him, she made the only move she had left. Lifting her face to his, she closed the gap and kissed him.
    At first there was nothing. Those firm lips might have been steel against hers. And then she licked him, running her tongue over the seam. Surprise had him parting for her, and she finally tasted the heat of the man himself. She moaned at the flavor, her hunger for him surging in an instant. He must have felt the same because everything