My heart pounds so hard it almost aches.
I look away first, because I cannot stand the possibility that he might be right.
His hand lifts. Not to grab me. Not to corner me. Just the backs of his fingers brushing lightly beneath my chin, turning my face back to him with a gentleness that feels more dangerous than force ever could.
“Let me help you take the edge off.”
The words slide through me like sin.
I should say no. I should laugh in his face. Slap him again.Remind him of the church, the gunshot, the ruined altar, the life he ripped apart with his bare hands.
Instead, I hear my own voice come out soft and shaken.
“I need something good in my life.”
For one suspended moment, neither of us moves. Then Lorenzo exhales like the answer cost him something, his thumb tracing once along the line of my jaw.
“You have no idea what you just agreed to.”
“Then tell me.”
That finally does something to him. A crack in the iron control. A flash of hunger so hot and stark it makes my knees feel unsteady.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, not pulling, just holding. Anchoring. Claiming.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
I do.
I hate that I do.
I love that I do.
The first kiss is slower than the one on the plane. Not softer. More deliberate. Like he’s savoring the fact that this time I came to him awake, with my eyes open, knowing exactly who he is and what I should fear and stepping into him anyway.
My hands fist in his shirtless shoulders as his mouth moves over mine, unhurried and devastating, until all the anger in me starts to melt at the edges and turn into something molten and reckless. His other hand settles at my waist, then glides lower, spanning my hip through the hoodie, drawing me closer until I can feel every line of him.
I make a sound into his mouth that I don’t mean to.
His answer is a dark, satisfied hum.
“That’s it,” he says against my lips. “Stop thinking.”
I almost laugh at the arrogance of that.
Then his mouth finds the hinge of my jaw, the sensitive placebeneath my ear, and whatever smart thing I might have said dissolves into air.
“Lorenzo—”
“I know.” His hand strokes slowly up my side beneath the hem of the hoodie, warm against my skin now, his voice a low command against my throat. “I know exactly how much you hate this.”
My breath catches as his fingers drift higher, then pause, letting the anticipation do its own cruel work.
“And I know,” he continues, lips brushing my pulse, “how much worse it is that you want it anyway.”
The truth of it hits so hard I could cry. Instead, I grip him harder.
His mouth curves against my skin like he feels that too.
