Rocco’s mouth twitched slightly. “What makes you think that I ever stopped planning it?” Her breath caught. It was a tiny sound, barely there, but he heard it. Hell, he felt it down in his core and stored it away like something precious.
Christ. He was getting attached, too fast—dangerously fast. But when Luna looked at him like this—with heat and curiosity and something softer underneath it—he couldn’t bring himself to care about any of that. Her hands slid higher against his chest slowly, deliberately. Not pushing him away, but pulling him closer.
“You know what your problem is?” she whispered.
Rocco huffed out a quiet laugh. “You’re gonna have to narrow that down.”
“You think too much,” she said. Yeah, she wasn’t wrong, but thinking kept people alive. It kept him from spiraling and kept him in control. But around Luna, control got slippery. It became hard to hold onto when she looked at him like temptation wrapped in black leggings and attitude.
“And you don’t think enough,” he shot back quietly.
She grinned. “That’s what makes me fun.” Before he could answer, Luna tugged him down by his shirt and kissed him again—hard with no hesitation whatsoever. Rocco’s restraint snapped clean in half. One second, he was trying to keep himself under control, and the next, his hands were on her waist, pulling her flush against him while he kissed her back like he’d been starving for her. Maybe he had been, because nothing had felt this good in a long damn time.
Luna made this soft sound against his mouth that nearly wrecked him completely. The kiss deepened, hotter now, rougher around the edges as weeks of tension finally boiled over between them. And the craziest part was that he still couldn’t stop being careful with her, even now. Even when she was gripping his shirt like she wanted more, and when every instinct in him screamed to take it.
Rocco forced himself to slow down, breaking the kiss just enough to rest his forehead against hers while both of them tried to breathe. “Jesus, Luna,” he muttered roughly.
She smiled against his mouth. “That sounded a little desperate.”
“You make me desperate,” he admitted. That shut her up for half a second, and then her eyes softened in a way he wasn’tprepared for. There it was again—that dangerous feeling in his chest. It wasn’t lust, or just attraction. It was something deeper—something real.
Rocco swallowed hard and stepped back slightly before he forgot where they were completely. They were at his gym, in public. There were eyes watching them. Luna looked mildly annoyed by the distance he put between them, and that made him grin despite himself.
“You’re enjoying this,” he accused.
“Immensely,” she admitted.
“Menace,” he breathed.
“Control freak,” she countered. He barked out a laugh at that because yeah, fair enough. Luna peeled the wraps from her hands slowly while watching him, and he had a feeling she knew exactly how distracting that was.
“You hungry?” he asked suddenly.
One brow lifted. “Are you asking me on another date?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Look at you,” she teased. “Getting bold.”
Rocco shook his head. “Not bold. I just know I’m not ready to go home yet.” The teasing expression on her face faded slightly at the honesty in his voice. That happened a lot between them. One of them would joke, and then the other would say something real enough to crack right through it.
“I’m not ready to go home either,” she admitted quietly. His chest tightened again. He was beginning to have a love/haterelationship with the way she made him feel things he’d spent years trying to bury.
He climbed out of the ring first, then turned automatically to help her down. Luna paused before taking his hand, and he knew that she didn’t need his help. She was taking his hand because she wanted to touch him again, and that realization hit him hard enough to almost stop his breathing. The second her fingers slid into his palm, something warm settled in his chest. It felt steady and seemed to ground him in a way that he felt safe, and Rocco honestly couldn’t remember the last time another person made him feel safe. Luna stepped down in front of him but didn’t let go of his hand right away, and neither did he.
“You know,” she said softly, “for someone who claims he didn’t want to hit me?—”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Don’t start.”
Her grin came back instantly. “You seem pretty comfortable manhandling me now.”
Rocco laughed under his breath and stepped closer again. “Careful, Doc.”
“Or what?” she asked.
His gaze dropped to her mouth one more time before meeting her eyes again. “Or I’m gonna stop being polite.” It wasn’t a promise that he wasn’t willing to keep. Because playing the gentleman was easy for him, but the things that he wanted to do with Luna were definitely not gentlemanly.
LUNA
