“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “We still have thirteen days.”
Her lips curved. “Thirteen days to prove you’re not crazy?”
“Thirteen days to show you what love can look like.”
I stood, offering her my hand. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
We walked back to the car, where my driver was waiting, and I opened the door for her. She slid in, and I followed, settling beside her.
I had thirteen days.
Thirteen days to break down every wall she’d built.
Thirteen days to make her see what I saw.
And I was going to use every single one of them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zara
The car door closed behind me with a soft thud, sealing us inside the plush leather interior. The driver was up front, the partition already rising, giving us privacy I hadn’t asked for, but suddenly, I couldn’t breathe without it.
Lorenzo settled in beside me, close enough that I could smell him: expensive cologne, the lingering salt of the harbor, all warm and masculine that made my stomach flip.
I should have looked away.
I should have stared out the window, let the city blur past, kept my walls intact.
But when I turned my head, his eyes are already on me.
Thick with desire. Dark, hungry, claiming.
And something inside me snaps.
One second I was sitting there, my heart pounding from the kiss on the bench, my lips still tingling. Next, I was leaning forward, my hand fisting the fabric of his shirt, pulling him toward me until our mouths crashed together.
Not soft like the kiss by the water.
I kissed him as if I were drowning and he was air. Like every broken piece of me was reaching for something solid, something real, something that wouldn’t leave.
His hands found my hips, gripping them roughly, his fingers digging into the flesh through my sundress.
A sound escaped me—a whimper, a moan, I didn’t know — but he swallowed it, his tongue sliding against mine.
I climbed onto his lap without thinking, my knees bracketing his thighs, my dress bunching around my waist. The leather was cool beneath my bare skin, but Lorenzo was hot; his body a furnace that burned through his dress shirt.
“Zara.” His voice was a growl against my lips. “Are you sure you want to do?—”
“Shh,” I breathed.
I kissed him again, my fingers working at the buttons of his shirt, clumsy and impatient. He groans in response, his hands sliding up my thighs, pushing my dress higher, his thumbs tracing the edge of my underwear.
I could feel the slick heat pooling between my legs, soaking the cotton of my panties. My body was betraying me, responding to him in ways I couldn’t control, didn’t want to control.
He pulled back just long enough to yank his shirt open, buttons scattering across the floor. I took in the dusting of hair on his chest, the muscles. And then my mouth is on his throat, his jaw, his collarbone; tasting, biting, claiming him back in return.
“You’re shaking again,” he murmurs, his voice a low rumble against my ear.
