And if he knew that the woman on my arm was Adora Montoni, Don Agnello’s sheltered daughter? They’d chain her in a basement and ransom her back piece by piece. A Montoni princess is worth her weight in gold. There’s not a chance in hell he’d let us walk out.
We make it to the car without incident, though I feel eyes on us the whole way. The stolen phones press against my hips like hot coals. My face throbs where the mountain’s fists connected. Blood has dried in my hairline, cracking when I move.
The moment the car doors close and I turn the engine over, I get us the fuck out of there, slamming down my foot and just resisting the urge to burn rubber. I turn whichever way will put the most distance between us and the warehouse.
We did it.
We actually did it.
Beside me, Adora starts laughing. It’s not quite hysteria, but it’s close. High and breathless and tinged with adrenaline. “That was insane. I can’t believe we got out of there alive. No one could have saved us if they realized who we were.”
I force myself to drive normally as we reach a main road, compulsively checking the rearview mirror for a tail. “Doe, you were incredible. You saved my life.”
“What the hell were you doing stepping into that ring? I thought you were going to die. It felt like you were kissing me goodbye.”
A kiss for luck from the woman I adore. Turns out I fucking needed it.
“It was the only way I could think of getting close to thekryeand his men. Here. Quickly.” Digging the stolen phones out of my pocket, I hand them to her. “In the glovebox you’ll find a USB-C device. Plug it into each phone until you see the screens flash. The last thing we need is Dervishis tracking us down. They’ll realize any second now what we’ve stolen from them.”
Adora works quickly on the phones, using the device to simultaneously disable the tracking and GPS and unlock the phones.
“They’re asking for an email address,” she tells me.
“That’s the spyware wanting to know where to send the phones’ data.” I give her Matteo’s, knowing he’ll get to work right away sifting through the texts and emails for information about where they hid my guns.
Once the data has been sent, and I’m certain we haven’t been followed, I pull over next to a park on a heavily tree-lined street. I need a moment to pull myself together.
I need Adora. My control is hanging by a thread. When I kissed her back there, I felt her desperation and tasted her hunger. She kissed me back like she was starving for me, andnow every cell in my body is screaming to touch her, to pull her into my lap and finish what that kiss started. My cock is hard enough to hurt, and the memory of her whimper against my mouth is driving me insane.
She wants this. She wants me.
I felt it in the way she pressed herself closer to me. If we weren’t surrounded by people, I would have taken her right there.
She’s grinning, wild and beautiful, her makeup smudged, and her curls falling loose. “That was insane. That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”
“You were incredible.” The words come out rougher than I intended. “The way you walked up there and turned everything around. Doe, you were fucking amazing.”
She belongs with me. I know this with absolute certainty. This woman who thinks fast under pressure, who risks her life to save mine, who looks at danger and walks straight into it, she belongs at my side.
Not as my prisoner. Not for revenge.
As my partner.
My equal.
Mine.
Whatever shred of control I had left disintegrates. I need my hands on her right now. I need to claim her mouth and her body. I need to make her understand that she’s mine, I’m hers, and nothing else matters. The want is so fierce it’s almost violent, a possessive hunger that demands I pull her into my arms and never let go.
I push my seat back and reach for her. “Come here. I need to kiss you.”
The desire in her eyes matches the hunger in my soul, and she takes my hand with glowing eyes. Adora climbs into my lap and settles against me, her thighs bracketing my hips. Her bodyis warm through the thin fabric of her shirt, and I can feel every shift of her weight. She fits perfectly, like she was made for me, and she makes the fight, the blood, the danger, fade away to nothing.
“You’re mine,” I say, my hands finding her waist, thumbs stroking her bare skin. “Tell me you know that.”
“Make me yours.” Her voice is breathless.
I cup the back of her neck and pull her down to me. Our lips meet and she gasps, a needy sound that goes straight through me. I kiss her slowly at first, savoring the taste of her and the way she melts against me. But slow doesn’t last, not when she’s making those sounds and grinding down against me like she needs this as much as I do.
