“You have a home now,” he insists. “I’m your home and you arela mia pace.”
“I think you might be a little insane, Angelo Amato.”
This time when he smiles, it’s genuine. And wide. And fucking breathtaking.
“I think I might be, too. Crazy for you.”
Laughter bubbles out of me as the man above me, the man feared by more people than I can comprehend, wiggles his eyebrows at me like a mischievous flirt. Who the hell is this man? What is he doing to me?
As we stare at each other, the past feels like it melts away. The abandonment. The pain. The lack of caring. The violence.
When his fingertips brush against one of the bruises his brother left behind, all levity vanishes. In its place is a fierce protectiveness that makes me shiver.
“Never again,” he promises.
His vow renders me speechless as something breaks inside of me. A wall. A dam. A shield.
I don’t even realize I’m crying until he leans down and kisses every tear away. He takes my past and the scars left behind and makes them his.
My arms wrap around his neck and when he pulls back to look down at me, the emotion in his eyes is soft to the point of terrifying. I’m not ready to admit what his look conveys.
Not yet.
Instead, I close the distance between us and press my lips against his. I hope he doesn’t push me away.
CHAPTER 4
ANGELO
This woman, my woman, has no idea how special or strong she is. Her strength has been in her survival, made of steel, violence, and trauma. Her past doesn’t make her less; it makes her more, so much fucking more.
I’ll show her.
When her pouty lips press against mine, I freeze for a moment. It’s everything I’ve wanted since the moment I saw her in my brother’s office. The pure fucking rage because of the way he was touching her tries to bubble up in my gut, but I push it down. Now is not the time to give into the feeling.
Romeo will get his. It’s just a matter of time. By the time he pays the price for his actions, he won’t see it coming.
Just the way I want it.
I’m momentarily stunned by Dove kissing me, but then I take over. I press her deeper into the mattress, giving her more of my weight as I pry her lips open with mine. When my tongue dives into her mouth, I dominate her.
The way she moans against my lips has my already hard dickstraining to get out of the boxer briefs I have on. And they are the only thing I have on. Leaving them on seems ridiculous now because I was always going to take the first opportunity to bury myself deep inside of my woman.
I don’t give a fuck about what her job was. It’s behind her. Now that I’m in her life, now that she’s mine, I’ll take care of her.
“Fuck, Dove,” I murmur against her lips.
I try, really fucking try, to savor this moment. It’s our first kiss and she’s the only woman I’ll be kissing for the rest of my life. Just like I’ll be the only man she kisses from now on.
My intentions are shattered as the need between us morphs into desperation.
When I grip the strap of the lingerie my woman has on, it only takes a flick of my wrist to snap it. She lets out a low groan. Whether she’s about to protest or not doesn’t matter because I’m right back there, kissing her harder until we’re a mess of lips, teeth, and tongues.
It’s dirty.
It’s messy.
It’s fucking glorious.
