She searches my eyes. "Dante. I don't belong in a mafia compound. I'm a chef. I serve tacos and cumin rice. I don't know anything about your world."
I drop my hands to her hips. I grip her curves. The lush, perfect flare of her thighs. The soft dip of her waist. I squeeze, branding her through the denim of her jeans.
"You belong with me."
"You're a terrifying man, Dante Costa."
"I am." I lean down. My face is inches from hers. "I am a killer and a weapon, completely fucked up in the head, and I check corners before I walk into rooms. But I am yours. Fully. Completely. You own every violent instinct in my body."
She shivers, but not from the cold.
"I don't need a guard," she whispers, her sassy edge softening into something deeply vulnerable.
"Good. Because you don't have one anymore." I brush my thumb across her lower lip. "You have a man. You have me. I'm notbringing you to my family as a problem to be solved. I'm bringing you as my fucking queen."
Her breath hitches. Her dark eyes shine in the dim light of the dock.
"Dante..."
"Say you're mine." The command rips out of me. Primal. Urgent. The need to hear it from her lips is a physical ache in my chest.
She doesn't hesitate.
"I'm yours."
I crash my mouth down on hers.
It isn't a gentle kiss. It's a branding. My tongue sweeps into her mouth, tasting the sweetness of her, the fire of her. She groans, her hands fisting in my shirt, anchoring herself to my chest. I devour her. I consume her. I pour every ounce of twenty years of silence and pain and newly found devotion into the kiss.
I grind my hips against hers. The aching erection pressing painfully against my zipper reminds me of what is coming. When we get to the compound. When we are behind locked doors. When the war is outside and the world is shut away.
I will worship every inch of her.
I pull back, breathing hard. Our foreheads rest together.
"We're going to rebuild your truck," I murmur against her lips. "Better than before. Bulletproof glass. Stainless steel everything."
She lets out a wet laugh. "Bulletproof food truck?"
"Non-negotiable."
Headlights sweep across the frosted glass of the loading dock windows. The low rumble of V8 engines vibrating through the concrete floor.
Extraction.
I step back, drawing my Glock again. Old habits die hard, but the tactical coldness is gone. The fire in my blood is for her.
The steel door groans and rolls upward.
Two black sedans idle in the alleyway. Armed Costa soldiers step out, forming a perimeter.
One of them steps forward. A younger guy. He takes one look at the blood on my clothes and pales.
"Dante. Boss sent us."
I nod. I keep Gemma tucked behind my left shoulder. Shielding her from the wind. Shielding her from the world.
We walk out of the Grand Continental. The abandoned hotel behind us holds twenty years of my ghosts, but I am leaving them there to rot with the velvet drapes.
