"“You need to go,” Chayot growled. He didn’t backpedal, didn’t cower, but damn if he didn’t want to. One touch of Aslyn’s slender musician fingers, and that fractured armor that encased his emotions would shatter into splinters. In this second, she threatened him more than a counselor’s couch or demons he couldn’t beat back.

Ignoring his warning, she pressed on. “What’s wrong?”

“Aslyn.” He narrowed his eyes, hardened his voice to stone. “Go. Now.”

“No.” She moved forward again, eliminating the space between them. Compassion and concern radiated from her gaze, but underneath glinted something more worrisome. Determination.

Shit.

The therapist had poked the beast within him, but Aslyn stirred it. Excited it. It reached out to her with eager, greedy claws, wanting to drag her closer, gorge on her sweetness. Satisfy the voracious need…quiet the relentless craving.

If he let the darkness loose, he didn’t know if he’d be able to cage it again. If she wouldn’t be collateral damage left in its wake.

“Aslyn, damn it. Get out.” The words rumbled from his chest on a tide of desperation.

“No,” she repeated. And then more softly, “No.”

She moved too fast or maybe he’d moved too slow. But before he could dodge her, she infiltrated his personal space, pressed her chest to his. Cupped his face. She murmured his name and he tasted the sweet scent of strawberries on her breath. He wanted it in his mouth. Wanted to taste it directly off her tongue. Lust, blistering and heavy, poured through him in a thick, molten molasses. It pounded in his chest. Pooled and throbbed in his cock so the hard length pressed insistently into her belly. No way she didn’t notice. No way she didn’t feel it damn near nudging her, begging for her attention.

But if he expected her to be appalled, he should’ve known better. Most women would’ve spun away or played coy. She cuddled closer, applying a teeth-gritting pressure to his dick that had him two seconds from pinning her against the wall, dragging down her jeans and panties, and pounding into a pussy he knew would be hot and tight like a vise grip.

“I don’t want—” he gritted out, squeezing his fists until his fingers pulsed in protest. The moment he removed them from his pockets, all bets would be off. He’d touch her, and there would be no going back from that.

“What?” She whisked her thumb over his cheekbone, under his bottom lip. “You don’t want to use me?” she breathed. “That’s what you said, right?” She drove her fingers through his hair, her nails scraping his scalp and arrowing tremors of pure need down every nerve ending and synapse in his body. He groaned, snatching his hands from his pockets and grabbing her hips, prepared to thrust her away from him before the tenuous leash on his control snapped beyond repair. “Use me, Chay. I’m right here. I’ll take you into the dark and promise not to leave you alone. We’ll go together.”

Then she kissed him.