but he’d started it and now I was on a roll like a runaway train. “So I thought to myself, why would a man with your opportunities become a hired killer? It could happen if you were an adrenaline junkie. There probably comes a point when the cars, yachts, and women no longer provide enough of a thrill. Perhaps taking the life of another human being is the only way you feel alive.”
His expression was flat, but his eyes were drowned in orange fire. “So that’s how you see me?”
“A man like that would be fundamentally selfish, Alessandro. He would put his enjoyment above the lives of other people. He wouldn’t give a half-starved dog a treat. He wouldn’t pose for a picture for an elderly woman just to make her happy or comfort a teenager lost in guilt and grief. He wouldn’t fight his way through an assault team to save a girl he barely knows. He wouldn’t promise her that he would stay with her to see things through. Because a man like that only cares about himself. Why are you doing this, Alessandro? What is it you want?”
He just looked at me.
“Will you answer the question for once in your life?”
His face was resolute. “You have family obligations. I do too.”
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer.
“I hate you.” The emotional dam broke and words tumbled out. “You walked into my life and screwed it all up. I’ve wanted you for so long, and now you show up, and you flirt with me, and you hold me to protect me, and you tell me things like ‘I’ll stay with you as long as it takes,’ and all the while I have to constantly check myself because I’m scared to death that if my control slips, I’ll turn you into a lovesick zombie. I know you’re trapped somehow, and all I want is for you to be happy, Alessandro. Tell me what’s going on, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to help you. Tell me. It’s driving me insane . . .”
His big body braced mine against the wall. I saw his eyes, amber and heated from within, he bent his head, his lips touched mine, and I tasted the faint hint of champagne . . .
He kissed me.
It felt like lightning. It tore through me in one blinding jolt and then I was on fire. There was nothing hesitant or gentle about it. He kissed me like he needed me to breathe. I grabbed his jacket and pulled him closer, fierce and desperate, my body screaming for more of him. It was reckless and stupid, and I knew we had to stop, but nothing in this world could make me let go.
His tongue licked mine, his strong arms gripped me to him, his hand slid into my hair, and it felt so good, all of it. So impossibly good.
His magic boiled around him, the searing flashes of orange dancing, the power churning and twisting. There was no going back. There was life before this kiss and there would be one after, but they wouldn’t be the same.
He broke away and looked at me, his amber eyes full of lust and a searing need. That hint of the terrifying edge I’d glimpsed in him before was out now, dangerous and glaring right back at me from deep inside him. It took my breath away.
He should’ve never kissed me. He was mine now and I wanted him.
I threw my arms around his neck and sealed my mouth to his. Touching him was like coming home. I’d wanted to do that since the moment he put his arms around me on that roof. I tasted his mouth, trying to feed the howling need. He growled low in his throat.
His hands slid over my back. The wall behind me gave. I stumbled back, but he caught me, and then we were in a small room and he shut the door behind him. He kissed my lips, my neck, my throat. It felt like I had shattered, and he was putting me back together with every touch of his lips.
There were too many layers between us. I clawed at his jacket and he let me go for a torturous second to shrug it off and toss it to the side. We came back together like two fighters about to grapple. He cupped my butt, picked me up, and hoisted me onto something, a counter, a sink? I didn’t care. I threaded