For one heartbeat, he is completely still.
Then his hand slides beneath the hem of my sleep shirt.
The touch of his palm against my bare skin steals the breath from my lungs. He does not rush. His fingers move over my waist, my ribs, the curve beneath my breast, learning me with a patience that feels more intimate than hunger.
I kiss him again because I do not know what to do with tenderness from a man who has built his life around control.
His mouth leaves mine and moves along my jaw. My neck. The place beneath my ear where my pulse betrays every thought I try to keep hidden. His lips brush there, and my fingers tighten in his shirt.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
The words are quiet. Almost lost against my skin.
I shake my head.
“Use words.”
“Don’t stop.”
His hand closes around my waist.
The kitchen disappears after that.
There is only his mouth, his hands, the heat of his body pressing me against the counter. He lifts me easily, setting me on the edge of the island, and steps between my knees. My legs part for him before I can think better of it, and the look in his eyes makes something reckless pulse through me.
I reach for his face, my thumb brushing the bruise beneath his cheekbone. “You are going to Boston tomorrow and refusing to tell me what happens after.”
His mouth tightens.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is mine.”
For the first time that night, Stefano laughs.
It is quiet. Brief. It makes him look younger and more dangerous at once.
Then he kisses me again.
His fingers find the hem of my shirt and lift it slowly. I raise my arms, and he pulls it over my head, leaving me exposed beneath the kitchen light. His gaze moves over me without shame or haste, and I should feel vulnerable.
Instead, I feel seen.
That is worse.
He touches me like he has been holding himself back for days. Not rough. Not gentle. Certain. His mouth follows the path of his hand, and the sound that leaves me is too honest to take back.
“Maya,” he says against my skin.
I look down at him.
His eyes darken, accompanied by a low feral growl. He lifts me from the counter and carries me upstairs without another word. I should protest that I can walk. I should make some joke about kidnapping. Instead, I wrap my arms around his neck and let him take me back to his room because there are too many things waiting for us tomorrow, and tonight I want one thing that feels chosen.
He doesn't set me down gently. He drops me on the bed and follows me down before I bounce, one hand already fisted in my shirt, and the look on his face isn't memorizing anything — it's staking a claim.
"Boston cannot have this," he growls. "This is mine."
The shirt tears. I hear stitches give somewhere near the collar, and the sound goes through me like a lit fuse. He strips the rest off me in rough, efficient pulls, and then his mouth iseverywhere at once — my throat, my breasts, sucking marks into the curve of them that will last past tomorrow. Meant to. Marking me for a city full of people who'll never see it.
