He should’ve known better. She was too young, too soft, all pouty lips and wide eyes — the kind of girl who wore short skirts without realizing what it did to a man like him. Or maybe she did know. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing when she called him “Javi” in that breathy, innocent voice, like she hadn’t been on her knees for him the night before.

Javier Peña was a man who'd seen and done too much. Blood on his hands, lies on his tongue, whiskey in his breath. But with her, everything slowed.

Everything burned.

"You're a goddamn brat, you know that?" he growled, hands gripping her hips, dragging her down onto his lap like she weighed nothing. “Walkin’ around my house like that, lookin’ for trouble.”

“I wasn’t looking for anything,” she lied, tilting her head back with a mock-innocent smile he wanted to ruin.

“You found it anyway.”

He had her bent over the couch before she could make another smart comment, her face pressed into the cushions, his hand spread over the back of her neck. She gasped when he pushed in—too big, too deep, too rough—but she never told him to stop. She never did. She loved the way he used her like he needed her to breathe.

And he did.

There was something filthy about the way she moaned his name—Javi, drawn out, trembling, reverent. Like he was some dark religion she’d thrown herself into headfirst.

“You like this, don’t you?” he muttered against her ear. “Like gettin’ fucked by a man old enough to know better.”

“Yes.”

He grinned against her shoulder, teeth grazing her skin. She was soaked, wrecked, clinging to him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

And maybe he was.

Because for all the sins he'd stacked like bodies, she was the one thing he couldn’t give up. Too young, too sweet—and too far gone for either of them to pretend this was anything but obsession.