spell when it comes to you. And I am perfectly okay with that.”
He moved to turn away and my heart twisted, not wanting him to leave. I lunged forward and caught his hand, placing it on my cheek where he’d intended to put it and his eyes widened in surprise. I turned my face into his palm, placing a kiss against it, the gesture more powerful than words could ever be even if I’d had them to give.
His throat bobbed and he remained still, his thumb grazing my cheek as a low noise rumbled through his chest.
I pushed his hand aside and moved into the arc of his body, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck and tracing the edges of his hairline. He didn’t push me away and I smiled wolfishly as I tip-toed up and followed my instincts as I touched my mouth to his. He stilled, letting me take the lead as I pressed my body flush to his, his powerful muscles flexing beneath his shirt. My fingers roamed into his hair and my heart begged for more. So I traced that very word on the back of his neck. More.
His arms closed around me and I opened my lips in an invitation as my eyes fluttered shut. He clutched me tighter and a growl escaped him as his tongue met mine and my entire body arched against him. I lost myself to the movements of his mouth, kissing him back as hungrily as he kissed me. My pulse pounded everywhere in my body. I was in utopia, being held by a man who’d pledged himself as my warrior. He was the only person in the entire world who’d offered me kindness, but it was more than that, as his teeth grazed my bottom lip and a deep, unknown shiver ran down the length of my spine, I knew he was all I could ever have dreamed of for myself. Maybe I was still back in my cell, my mind conjuring the sweetest of fantasies, offering me my heart’s greatest desire to escape the hell of my real world.
Whether that was true or not, I wanted all he had to give and I wanted to give all I had in return. But even as I thought it, I stepped back and broke the electric contact between us.
I was breathing too heavily as my heart began to sink and I turned my gaze to my feet. This was real. And as wonderful a reality as it was, that didn’t mean it was going to last. I had nothing to offer him. I was just a shell. A girl with no name, a girl with secrets even she didn’t know. I was never going to be enough for Nicoli. Because my body was a desert. And it was far too barren a place for love to grow.
I took the long route through the bay, chasing the water’s edge and enjoying the view from the comfort of my Maserati GranTurismo while knowing that Aunt Clarissa was going to be pissed by the time I made it to her estate. I just found it hard to care a whole lot. I knew that I was drawing the short straw by being put on whatever job she had going on. Papa was pissed at me over the whole Devil Hearts escapade, but really, I blamed Enzo for that shit show. The mark I’d selected was perfectly good. And if I’d just been allowed to kill him cleanly like I wanted to, then none of this would have been an issue. But of course Enzo wanted his screams heard across the docks before he died. He wanted every biker in Sinners Bay to know what happened when you stepped out of line. And in true Enzo fashion, he hadn’t considered the fact that those assholes only had six brain cells between all five hundred of them so a few of them had taken it upon themselves to launch a damn rescue mission. Which effectively equated to partially starting a war right down by the water over some lowlife stronzo who I would have just executed and forgotten.
Twelve of them had turned up, guns blazing, threats flying. It had taken us by surprise and the two of us had come damn close to being overwhelmed at one point. Of course, we never did things the dumb way and I’d had more than enough men close by to pen them in from behind.