Page 63 of Wicked Mafia Beast
"Freedom." She reads the word aloud, slowly, turning each syllable over on her tongue. "That's the end goal? I just... vanish?"
"Isn't that what you want?"
She doesn't answer. Her fingers rest on the page, the pad of her index finger pressing against the word, and her throat works as she swallows. Her lashes dip, hiding whatever storms are gathering behind those blue eyes.
The silence is her answer. And it is enough.
She picks up the pen. Signs her name at the bottom in a decisive, slashing script that matches everything about her.
"There." She sets the pen down and meets my eyes. "We're officially bonded as bodyguard and whatever I am or whatever this is."
"Whatever this is," I repeat.
She stands. Moves around the desk, her skirt shifting against her thighs with every step. I track her the way I always do, predator awareness mapping her trajectory, her speed, the subtle sway of her hips. Except she's never been prey. She's been a predator too, hunting different things.
She stops in front of my chair. Looks down at me with those blue eyes, and the expression on her face is one I haven't seen before. No anger. No fear. No transaction being calculated behind the sharp gaze.
Wanting. Just wanting.
"We should celebrate," she says.
"Celebrate."
"The contract. The deal. The fact that I haven't tried to kill you yet."
"That's a low bar."
"I'm an optimist." She leans down and her lips brush mine, light, testing, the barest whisper of contact. She smells like the coffee we've been drinking all day and the olive oil from lunch and underneath, that honey-musk scent that makes my pulse stutter.
This is different. No anger driving her toward me. No fight preceding this. She's not wielding sex as currency or as a weapon.
She's just... wanting me. And offering that want without armor.
"Are you sure?" The question scrapes out of my throat. I need to know this is real. That she's not playing a game I haven't decoded yet.
"I'm sure I want you." She traces my jaw with her fingertips, her thumb dragging across my lower lip. "Is that enough?"
It shouldn't be. It is.
I grip her hips and pull her down onto my lap. She comes willingly, straddling me in the leather chair, her skirt riding up her thighs until the fabric bunches at her waist. My palms slide over the bare skin above her knees, calloused fingers against smooth warmth, and the contrast makes us both inhale.
I kiss her. Slow. Thorough. None of the usual warfare. My mouth moves against hers with a patience that surprises us both, my tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opens for me, her hands fisting in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer.
She rolls her hips against me and I groan into her mouth, my fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs. She does it again, grinding against the hardness straining beneath my trousers, and a breathy moan slips from her lips that sends electricity crackling down my spine.
"Here?" she whispers against my mouth.
"Here."
Her fingers find my belt, working the buckle open with a dexterity that makes me wonder what else those journalist hands are capable of. She frees me from my trousers and her fingers wrap around my length, stroking once, twice, her thumb circling the slick head in a way that makes my hips jerk.
I slide my hand up her thigh and find her panties already damp. I push them aside, my fingers dragging through her slick folds, and she gasps against my lips, her forehead dropping to mine.
"Ready for me already." My voice is gravel. My accent has abandoned any pretense of English pronunciation. "Always ready."
"Don't be smug." But she's smiling against my mouth, a real smile, unguarded and warm.
She rises with my help and positions me at her entrance. For a moment she hovers there, the heat of her barely touching the swollen head of my cock, her eyes locked on mine. Blue on black. No walls. No armor. Just her.
