Page 44 of Ruthless Claim

“Fine,” I tell him. “Rules and boundaries. Nothing more.”

He nods once. We regard each other across the quiet room.

“Good,” he offers.

“Good,” I return.

I pick up my bag and walk to the bedroom. I close the door and lean against it in the dark for a moment, eyes closed, listening to the apartment settle around me.

That is, I think, the single worst idea either of us has ever had.

We are going to do it anyway.

I know myself well enough to know I’m right and knowledge isn’t going to stop me.

6

CILLIAN

The rules last a week.

I know they’re done on the eighth morning when Valentina comes into the kitchen in a green silk robe and I snap to attention.

Valentina has many robes and I know for a fact that she wears nothing except for lacy underwear underneath.

My dick twitches as she reaches past me to the coffee machine.

Yeah. So much for that.

“You made it wrong again,” she says, not looking at me, already assessing the machine like it’s personally disappointed her.

I raise a brow. “I made coffee.”

“You made hot brown water.” She takes the mug directly out of my hand, pours half of it down the sink, and turns back to the machine. “You’ve been doing it wrong for however long you’ve been making coffee, which I’m guessing is your whole life, and at some point someone should have told you.”

Now she’s criticizing the way I make coffee? “No one’s ever complained before.”

She glances back at me over her shoulder, a dark brow raised. “No one who mattered,” she says pleasantly and turns back to the machine.

I seize my cup and lean against the opposite counter, drinking what’s left of my apparently very bad coffee and watch her.

The robe.

The hair.

The way she stands when she’s focused on something—weight on one hip, chin slightly forward, like she’s about to argue with it.

I last about forty minutes after she goes back to the bedroom before I follow her, which is forty minutes longer than I managed yesterday.

Progress.

But that’s the problem.

I proposed the rules with the same logic I use on operational problems—identify the variable, contain it, and prevent escalation.

What I apparently failed to account for is that the variable is Valentina Santoro, who doesn’t stay where she’s supposed to.

It’s not just that she’s the most responsive woman I’ve been with—though she is—and I think about it constantly.