“Lucia,” he says, and my name on his tongue feels like a hand closing around my throat in the best and worst way.
My chest rises too fast. My pulse stutters.
I should step back.
I don’t.
I lean in. I kiss him. It isn’t polite. It isn’t careful. It’s the kind of kiss that happens when you’ve held something back too long and your body decides it’s done asking permission.
His hand comes up fast, cradling my jaw, thumb pressing under my cheekbone like he’s memorizing me again. I gasp into his mouth. He answers with something low and rough, a sound that vibrates through me and makes my knees go weak.
My fingers clutch his shirt. He pulls me closer, and the contact snaps something in my spine. Heat rushes through my stomach, sharp and dizzying. I don’t think. I climb into his lap like I’m trying to erase all distance between us. His hands grip my hips, strong enough to steady me, strong enough to leave marks I’ll feel tomorrow.
“Is this okay?” he murmurs against my mouth, the question wrecking me more than the force.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes.”
He kisses me again. Harder. Desperate. Like he’s been suffocating and I’m the first thing that tastes like air.
My shirt shifts under his hands. Buttons give under fumbling fingers. Not careful. Not patient. His mouth moves down my throat, teeth grazing, and I make a sound I hate myself for because it’s need, it’s surrender, it’s mine.
His hand slides under my waistband, and I jolt, breath catching sharp. I grab his face, force him back up. Look at him.
His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the dark until his eyes look almost black. Not cocaine. Not Marco. Something else. Something just as dangerous.
Want.
Grief.
Relief.
“Lucia…”
My fingers move on instinct, finding his belt, tugging. Undoing. The sound of the buckle is obscene in the quiet room. He inhales like it hurts.
His hand slips lower, inside my underwear now, and my whole body arches off his lap, heat flooding through me so fast I go dizzy.
“Turo…”
He swallows my name with his mouth, his lips crushing mine, and I grind against his thigh, desperate and reckless and furious at myself for how badly I need this.
Papers on the table shift with the movement. A folder slides down. Court documents spill like we’re knocking the world apart.
Good.
Let it fall.
Let it scatter.
Because I can’t hold it all anymore.
His hand closes on my hip, and I feel him, hard and undeniable, against me through fabric. My brain goes blank with want.
“I need you,” I whisper, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
His mouth brushes mine. “Yes.” His voice breaks on the word like it costs him.
His hands slide under my thighs like he’s about to lift me, like he’s about to pull me fully onto him.
