Sophia Sullivan furrowed her brows and sank her teeth into his lips.
The metallic tang of blood bloomed between their mouths.
The kiss was both tender and savage.
Ethan Sullivan's lips bled, yet his grip remained unyielding.
His movements grew rougher, his breathing heavy as iron.
"Bang—"
Seizing his moment of distraction, Sophia twisted free and drove her fist into his abdomen.
Her knee came up in a vicious strike against his leg.
Ethan crashed to the ground, coughing up blood.
White-hot pain lanced through his organs as scorching heat spread beneath his skin.
He struggled to rise, but his body refused to obey.
The cold muzzle of a gun pressed against his forehead.
Sophia loomed over him, studying his face with sharp curiosity.
"Impressive skills. Pity they won't save you now."
Her shoulder throbbed, her clothes torn and disheveled.
It had been years since she'd faced an opponent of equal caliber.
Her fingers groped along the wall for the light switch.
The icy touch of concrete against her fingertips revealed how unnaturally high her body temperature had climbed.
Liquid fire surged from her stomach, igniting every nerve in its path.
That damned kiss had been drugged.
Sophia cursed her carelessness.
To be caught off guard in a place like this—
The heat consumed rational thought before her fingers could find the switch.
Her mouth parched as if stranded in a desert.
Through the haze, she vowed to force-feed the poison's creator ten bottles of his own concoction before tossing him into the ocean.
Ethan saw her sway and struck like a viper.
His hand locked around her throat, slamming her against the desk.
A knife flashed, its edge biting into the fabric at her waist.
Lethal intent seeped through the thin material into her bones.
Simultaneously, her gun pressed against his heart.
He looked down at the woman beneath him.
Sophia held his life in her hands with equal precision.
Both knew death could come in the next heartbeat.
The standoff hung suspended in time.
The drug's effects fermented in the darkness.
Their ragged breaths intertwined.
When their eyes met, sparks flew.
Sophia's gaze shimmered; Ethan's eyes burned crimson at the edges.
One looked down, the other up.
Their lips met briefly before crashing together again.
Two feverish bodies entwined in desperate passion.
The bloody kiss had merely been the overture.
As mouths clashed, it became another fierce battle—
Wild and consuming.