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I glanced at the small screen. The private elevator was coming up.

Lachlan.

My pulse jumped.

I turned off the burner beneath the colcannon, lowered the music, and gave the kitchen one last quick look. Dinner was ready, the candles were burning, and there was nothing left to fix.

I wiped my hands on the kitchen towel and hurried across the living room.

By the time I reached the front door, the elevator had to be nearly at our floor. I pressed my palm to the scanner, waited for the lock to release, then pulled the door open just as the elevator doors across the entryway slid apart.

Lachlan stepped out, and I forgot every clever thing I might have said.

I’d seen him in expensive clothes before, but never quite like this.

The dark bespoke suit followed the breadth of his shoulders and tapered at his waist as though someone had designed it specifically to make women lose all sense of good judgment. His white shirt was open at the throat, with no tie. One hand rested against his face, forefinger at his lower lip and thumb beneath his chin as he studied me, a silver cufflink flashing at his wrist.

His hair was neatly styled, his beard trimmed, and the evidence of La Cruzona’s brutality had faded from his face, leaving only the scar cutting across his right cheek. If anything, it made him look fiercer, adding something even more dangerous to a face that had already been unfairly handsome.

He looked polished, powerful, and wealthy—the kind of man who could walk out of a boardroom and straight into a room full of armed criminals without blinking an eye. This was Lachlan Byrnes in his element, every inch the Irish mafia captain.

Good Lord.

His gaze moved over me with the same slow appreciation, beginning at my bare feet, traveling up my leggings, then lingering where the loose gray sweater had slipped off my shoulder again before finally returning to my face.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Hello, Mouse.”

Hearing that low Irish voice was all it took. I ran at him.

Lachlan barely had time to open his arms before I jumped. He caught me around the waist, and I wrapped my legs around his hips.

I caught his face between my hands and kissed him hard. Eleven days without touching him had been far too long, and now that I had him in my arms, I wanted every inch of him pressed against me. I tightened my legs around his waist, needing him closer even though there was nowhere left between us.

His mouth opened beneath mine as one arm locked around my back and the other slid under my ass, holding me securely against him. He took two steps and slammed me back against the wall beside the front door, a low laugh rumbling from his chest before he kissed me harder.

I buried both hands in his hair.

God, I had missed this.

I’d missed his mouth, the scrape of his beard against my skin, and the possessive way he held me, as though he owned my body as completely as he already owned my heart.

Something hard pressed against the underside of my thigh.

I broke the kiss just enough to look down.

The black grip of a gun showed beneath the open edge of his suit jacket, seated in a holster at his hip.

He was every dangerous fantasy I’d ever been smart enough not to admit I had, and he was armed.

Lachlan followed my gaze.

“Problem?”

“Not remotely.”

One brow lifted.