Page 34 of Wicked Mafia Beast
My fist swings toward his face. A proper punch, knuckles aimed at that perfect cheekbone. No girly slap. A real hit, the kind my self-defense instructor taught me to throw when I meant business.
He catches my fist like it's nothing.
His fingers wrap around my knuckles, warm and rough and impossibly strong, stopping my momentum dead. I try to pull back, but he holds me there, my arm extended, my body off-balance, my heart pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
"Careful, ??????." His voice is a rumble that vibrates through my bones and settles somewhere low in my belly. "You might start something you're not ready to finish."
There’s no hiding the sexual undercurrent to his words.
I open my mouth to fire back something sharp, but the words die in my throat because he's moving.
He pulls me toward him by my captured fist, his other hand sliding around the back of my neck, and then his mouth is on mine.
The kiss hits me like a lightning strike.
There's nothing gentle about it. Nothing tentative. His lips claim mine with a hunger that steals the air from my lungs and the thoughts from my brain. He tastes like vodka and smoke and the promise of ruin, and I'm drowning in it before I can remember why I threw that punch in the first place.
His hand tightens on my neck, tilting my head back, and when he deepens the kiss I feel it cascade through my body like a wave. My lips go numb and tingling. My throat constricts around a pulse that's beating fast enough to kill me. My chest aches with the effort of breathing, and lower, heat pools between my thighs, liquid and urgent and impossible to ignore. A sound tears free from my throat, desperate and needy, caught somewhere between a whimper and a moan. I should be embarrassed by the noise, by my body's blatant surrender, but my brain checked out the moment his mouth touched mine.
My free hand finds his chest, curling into the fabric of his shirt. I don't know if I'm trying to push him away or pull him closer.
He anchors an arm around my waist, pulling me up until my bare feet leave the ground and I'm pressed against him with nothing but silk and cotton between us. His jacket falls from my shoulders, pooling on the rooftop, forgotten. The cold air hits my skin but I don't feel it. Can't feel anything except him.
He pulls back, just enough to meet my eyes, and what I see in those black depths makes my chest heave and my knees threaten to buckle.
Hunger. Raw and unfiltered. The beast, fully unleashed.
Then he gently sets me down. Like I'm made of glass instead of fury and confusion.
What the hell just happened?
He bends down and picks up his jacket, draping it over my shoulders with a tenderness that contradicts everything that just happened between us.
Then he steps back. His expression shutters. The beast retreats behind the mask.
"Stay in your cage, little flame."
He turns and walks toward the stairs, leaving me standing alone on the rooftop with the roses and the ghost of his kiss still burning on my lips.
I watch him go.
And I hate myself for the part of me that wants to follow.
Seven
Kon
She's been awake for twenty minutes and she's already asked me fourteen questions.
I know because I've been counting. Each one lands like a small knife sliding between my ribs, finding the gaps in armor I didn't realize I'd left exposed. The woman is relentless. A force of nature wrapped in borrowed clothes that fit her curves in ways I'm actively trying not to notice.
I'm failing.
The next morning my kitchen smells like butter and garlic and the herbs I grow on the rooftop, scents that usually calm the restless thing inside me. This morning they do nothing to quiet the tension coiling at the base of my spine, the ache that's settled into my shoulders from another sleepless night, the grit behind my eyes that no amount of coffee can wash away. Every time she shifts on that barstool, every time her thigh peeks through the slit in her borrowed robe, my muscles coil tighter until I feel like a wire about to snap.
"Is this Russian coffee?" She peers into her cup like it might hold the secrets of the universe. "It tastes like it could wake the dead from two centuries ago."
I raise my mug and take a long swallow, letting the burn settle in my chest before I answer. "That's the point."
