He was smelling me, a deep rumbling growling in his chest as he inhaled my floral perfume. The attention he was giving me was almost primitive… Neolithic. It was like Raze had been stripped bare of any manners, ripped from the Stone Age and stripped of any boundaries.

And I’d never been so captivated, so mesmerized by anyone in all my life.

Raze’s warm nose moved to the side, his warm breath ghosting over my face. The tip of his nose traced the shell of my ear before his full lips dragged over my lobe. Shivers of pleasure ran down my spine and into every cell in my body.

I had never felt this before. Never felt this overwhelming lust, this consuming level of instant attraction… this raw and insatiable need to be with a man. It was dangerous. It was haunting. It was forbidden. And although it was wrong, it felt so perfectly right.

Fanning my loose, long brown hair with his sharp exhale, Raze rasped, “You don’t belong in here. Why are you here?”

Like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over my head, I pulled back so quickly that the back of my skull hit the wooden door. Raze pulled back, but only an inch, refusing to give me any room to breathe. He loitered in my personal space, unnerving me beyond belief.

His dark gaze was cold, only made more severe by the Eye Black smeared below his eyes, though there was fire in his pupils as he stared me down. He wasn’t unaffected by me. Maybe… just maybe he felt this powerful strange connection to me too.

“I… I came to see if you were ready for your first fight,” I said nervously.

A small twitch of his cheek and the slight narrowing of his eyes told me my question was unwelcome.

“Always. I’m always ready. Always ready to kill.”

I summoned the courage to stare into his eyes. I knew it was impossible, but those eyes were so, so familiar, like I’d known them all my life. My mind became filled with confusion, with hope, with doubt, with the overpowering necessity to learn more about this man.

“Tell me your real name?” I blurted out.

Raze’s face instantly blanked, all feeling seeping from his features. He stepped back, and I immediately felt his loss, felt cold without the burning heat from his body.

Moving from the door, I asked, “Raze, please. It’s been haunting me. It’s stupid… but I need to know your name. You remind me… I just feel like I know you—”

Raze’s head snapped up and he said, “Eight one eight.”

My attention dropped to the large tattoo on his chest. Confused, I traced the numbers with my eyes… 818.

“Eight one eight?” I questioned under my breath, but Raze clearly heard my subtle whisper and strode toward me.

Gripping my hands, he selected my forefinger. My blue eyes fixed on his brown eyes, and he began to outline his large 818 tattoo with our joined hands. I lost my breath, heart beating like a drum, as if it were trying to break free and meld with his.

The air around us was electric, all my synapses firing like bullets. The ambient noise from the first fight slipped into silence as my flesh met his. Raze’s gaze became glassy, like he’d drifted off to another world. Then he leaned in and his nose was back in my hair, inhaling my scent, his stubbled cheek scratching my throat.

Hands still on his chest, my breasts heaved in need. “Raze…” I murmured, feeling on fire with lust, going out of my mind due to my ever-wayward hormones. I didn’t understand this pull. I didn’t understand why my wanting Raze was so strong, so very strong. So strong I could barely resist him.

Raze inhaled deeply and said, “All I can think of when I take in your scent is sand… and sun… and sea…” He shook his head and his face twisted up in disbelief, a momentary hint of vulnerability in his expression. “But I’ve never seen a beach, never felt sand beneath my feet or smelled the sea…” His eyebrows pulled down.

Every fiber of my body froze. All the air escaped my lungs. A suffocating tension built in my chest as I watched Raze’s face run rapidly through a gamut of emotions. I stood stock-still.

Was that hope or disbelief settling in my heart?

Impossible.

Impossible.

Impossible, I tried to tell myself, but…

Sand and sun and sea… Luka, me… Brighton Beach… God! The beach, the beach, the salty air, the scent of sand… It always reminded me of Luka. He always told me it reminded him of me… of our cove, of our first kiss…

My knees began to shake and I stumbled back, only to reach up and grip Raze’s cheeks, his huge body turning to stone as I looked into those familiar hypnotic chocolate eyes.