Page 30 of Possessive Mafia Bodyguard

“I could’ve killed you before you even knew I was here.” She waits by the passenger door.

I pocket my gun and circle the car to join her, my heart beating a crazy tune that I’m already starting to realize belongs to Tamara, like a ringtone chosen to reflect the caller. Is it a subconscious thing, or is my heart operating separately from my brain since I met her twenty-four hours ago? Even time has been manipulated into something unrecognizable. Twenty-four hours that simultaneously feels like an eternity and the blink of an eye.

“But you didn’t.” I cup her face with both hands and kiss her, and she stands on tiptoes to return the kiss, pressing her slender body against mine.

And hello again, hard-on. I need to get this under control before it interferes with the rest of my life.

“Lucky for you.” She stands back when I release her, and stares into my eyes as if searching for something important. “I could’ve been the enemy.”

She makes my heart sing. It’s the only way I can describe how she makes me feel because I get the sense that jokes don’t feature regularly in her world, and yet she delivers the punchline with a dryness that many comedians would be proud of.

I fold my arms around her before she can protest and pull her into a hug, resting my chin on the top of her head while I wait for my pulse to settle down.

She came back.

She could’ve walked away, but she made the conscious decision to come back to me tonight. There’s so much that I want to do to her, so much that I want to say, but I know I need to rein it in because charging in like an army on horseback will scare the fucking life out of her, and those shields will be back up before she’s even buckled into the passenger seat of my car.

“Noted,” I say, releasing her and opening the front passenger door. “I’ll be more careful in future.”

Tiny lines appear between her brows as she studies me. “Are you always this careless?”

I smile. “Only around you.” Fuck. I realize how it sounds the instant the words leave my mouth. I’ve never been great at making conversation with women, but she has me overthinking everything I say because I don’t want to hurt her unintentionally. “And that’s my bad, not yours,” I quickly add.

She nods once and climbs into the car.

Adrenaline is pumping around my veins when I climb into the driver’s seat and start the engine. It feels wrong to discuss what comes next, but I don’t want to assume that she’ll come back to my apartment with me. Bizarrely, this felt a whole lot easier when our paths crossed unexpectedly.

I face her in the gloomy interior, the car’s headlamps casting golden tunnels across the unused land around us.

“Yes,” she says before I can speak.

I smile. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to ask me if I want you to fuck me again, and the answer is yes.”

My smile turns into a chuckle. “That wasn’t exactly how I would’ve worded it…”

“Why not? Why wouldn’t you say what you mean?”

Because I don’t just want to fuck her. I want so much fucking more than that I’ve already imagined us old and gray, sitting on a wraparound porch overlooking a stream with a tire swing for our grandchildren, the perfect picnic spot under an old oak tree, and two golden retrievers sitting between us with their tongues lolling out of their mouths.

Here goes. “Because I do want to fuck you, Tamara. I want it so badly, I could tear your clothes off you now and bury my face between your legs, and I’d be a very happy man.”

She chews her bottom lip, and it’s an invitation to kiss her right there.

So, I do.

“But this isn’t just about me wanting to fuck you.” My thudding heart is literally making me feel nauseous.

“What is it about?”

“It’s about me wanting you.”

For several long beats, she peers into my eyes, our faces so close our breaths are mingling in the darkness. Then, she says, “Okay.”

I tug her jacket off her shoulders before the elevator doors in my apartment building close behind us. Her T-shirt is next. My mouth closes around her pierced nipple, my tongue flicking the silver post while I suck her nipple into a solid swollen nub. She fists my hair, holding me against her, demanding more without words.

I kneel in front of her and make tiny red patterns with my kisses across her ribs, crushing her naked breasts with one hand, and unzipping her skirt with the other.