Page 84 of The Kingpin’s Bride

Camilla’s breathing evened out within a minute. Asleep. In a bed that belonged to me, under a roof I controlled, with her sister close enough to touch.

I straightened. Morena was watching me. The cut on her cheek had stopped bleeding. My jacket hung off her shoulders, far too big.

The silence between us was heavier than anything I had carried all night. I nodded once toward the hallway.

“Come with me, please,” I said quietly. “She’ll sleep for a while. We need to talk.”

She looked at her sister one more time, pushed herself out of bed, then followed me out of the room. I left the door open a few inches behind us.

For the first time, both of them were inside my walls. And one of them had just trusted me enough to fall asleep.Morena stood in the middle of the hallway like she was deciding whether to run. My jacket hung off her shoulders. Blood was still drying on her cheek. She looked like she had crawled through hell and somehow managed to drag her sister out the other side. I wanted to put my hands on her so badly my fingers ached.

“You left the jacket on purpose,” I said.

“Yes.” She nodded.

“You knew I’d find it.” I took a step closer. She did not back up. “You could have called me. You could have let my men take you in.”

Her eyes flashed. “I was afraid.”

“You walked into a gunfight with a four-year-old in your arms, Rena.”

“And you couldn’t stay out of it, could you?” she hissed. The words landed clean and hard.

“I know what I did,” I said.

“Do you?” She laughed once, sharp and tired. “Because from where I’m standing you bought me, collared me, fucked me on a schedule. And somehow I’m the one who has to explain why I didn’t wait politely for you to finish working rather than focusing on saving my sister. Which is all I asked for.”

I closed the last of the distance between us. She had to tip her head back to hold my stare.

“You were starving yourself in an alley,” I said, voice low. “You left me a breadcrumb like a challenge. You crawled through a window and pulled that child out while a man held a gun on both of you. Do not stand here and pretend you were only running from me.”

Her breath hitched. “I was running toward her.”

I lifted one hand and set it against the side of her neck. Her skin was hot. She shivered under the touch but did not pull away.

“You walked out with a knife to your own throat,” I said. “You put yourself between that child and a bullet. Tell me, Morena. When I put my hands on you right now, are you going to stop me?”

Her eyes were dark and furious and hungry all at once. “I should.”

“But you won’t.”

I kissed her to test my own theory.

It was not gentle. I took her mouth the way I had wanted to since the moment she threw the ring at my chest. She made a broken sound against my lips and then she was kissing me back just as hard, fingers fisting in the front of my shirt. I crowded her against the wall, one hand on her throat, the other dragging down her side until I could grip her hip and pull her against me.

She gasped when she felt how hard I was. I squeezed her hip, then slid my hand lower, over the curve of her ass, possessive and open. She arched into it even as she made an angry sound into my mouth. I groped her openly, roughly, like I had every right, and her body answered before her pride could catch up.

“Matteo!”

“I know,” I growled against her lips. “We shouldn’t. Not yet. Not like this.”

I couldn’t and didn’t stop.

I kissed her deeper, hand moving on her, thumb stroking her collarbone like I needed the reminder that she was mine. She trembled. Her fingers were tight in my shirt. She was kissing me like she hated how much she wanted it. I forced myself to pull back just far enough to speak.

“Camilla’s asleep twenty feet away,” I said, voice rough. “You’re hurt. You’re exhausted. And if I take you right now I’m not going to be careful.”

“Then don’t be careful,” she whispered.