He only smiled.
“Why are you so determined?”
“I’m giving you options, Sofia. You can still take my first offer. Be mine. Let me in. And you won’t have to work at all.”
I shook my head, angry that what he claimed couldn’t be true. That I couldn’t just be with him. That I couldn’t have an easy life and do what I wanted for a change.
He tossed his napkin to the table. “Why are you so proud?”
I gaped at him. “Proud?” I felt like I was barely hanging on to my sanity near him. And he thought I was being difficult because of mypride?
“Why do you have to be so damn independent?” he demanded.
“I’m not!” I was so cruelly and sadly dependent. On my uncle who’d pay for my cousin’s treatment. On my cousin’s survival so I would have one person to call family.
When she passed, I’d have no one, and it was too heartbreaking of a fate to accept yet. It was inevitable. She wouldn’t last long, but I tried my best to tell myself I was doing all I could to make her remaining days as good as possible.
“I’m not…” I blinked rapidly to stem the tears that threatened to spill. He had no grounds to accuse me like this. “You don’t know me, Andre.”
He stood, coming around the huge table toward me. I shot to my feet too, ready to run. To hide. Screw eating with him and pretending I wasn’t a maid here but someone he’d consider as much more.
“I want to, Sofia. Goddammit, Iwantto know you. I want you to let me in.” The frustration thickened with every word he growled. He lifted his hand to grip the back of my neck as he implored me to budge for him. “I want…” He let out a heavy breath and held me closer, wrapping his other arm around my back. “I’ve warred with wanting you from the first second you told me to take it easy.”
I shook my head, tormented with this pull to hug him, burrow my face against his chest, and give up on this desire. To let it consume me and bliss me out all so I could return to my responsibilities and worries later.
“I have fucking wanted you since the second you frowned at me when I was bleeding out in my office.” This time, he shared the sentiment with more of a gruff tone as he lowered his hands to pick me up and hoist me onto the edge of the table. One swipe of his arm cleared the dishes out of the way as he leaned me back. His lips latched on to mine. That same hunger and desperation fused me to him.
Oh, God.
Oh, my God.
Andre…
Closing my eyes and holding on tightly, I clung to him and kissed him back. To show him with the frantic energy I couldn’t hide from him how badly I wanted him too. How this craving to hold him and let something other than Mafia politics and family rivalry burn so hot between us.
Oh, Andre.
I wanted him too, even if I couldn’t say it, even if I couldn’t stand by my desire for him.
“Fuck.” He wrenched his mouth from mine and pressed his forehead against mine. Panting and breathing so hard, he was like a raging, wild animal barely under control for me. “Sofia. I want you to surrender to me.”
I frowned, keeping my hands around his neck and feeling his pulse racing. “I want to erase every goddamn reason you keep falling back to that keeps us from exploring how else it can be.” As he gripped my ass, he slid me over to the very edge of the table as he devoured my mouth again.
Under his lips, I came apart, whimpering with need and kissing him back like I’d wither away into nothing if I stopped.
With his hands sliding up under my skirt, I caved to needing him just as badly. Parting my legs, I gave him more access to slant me over the table. To welcome the heavy bulk of his body hovering over me as he addled my mind with his lips, his tongue, even his teeth as he nipped at me.
“Look what you do to me,” he growled after a hungry kiss.
I cried out at his fingers yanking my panties aside. Closing my eyes at the naughtiness, at the forbidden nature of submitting to him at all, I dismissed how wrong this was.
It couldn’t be when his fingers pushing into my throbbing pussy felt so good.
It had to be right when his mouth rendered me breathless for more of his demanding kisses.
Nothing was wrong about him pushing my dress up and pistoning his fingers in and out of my slickness.
“Look at how you fit with me. How you—” He growled as I cried out again, so close to the sweet pinnacle of an orgasm already. Between his big hand where it didn’t belong, his long fingers stroking my cunt, and his tongue chasing mine as we kissed, I was so close to exploding. All the pent-up frustration reached a peak. Every second of denial flew to the extreme of combusting.
