Page 181 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“You think I’ll be bad at it?”

“I think you’ve spent too long being obeyed.”

“Probably.”

“And I think I’d like to be asked.”

Asking is the point.

I had offered her a door. She gave me terms for walking back through it.

That is better.

That is everything.

Tamara stands in my study wearing my shirt beneath her cardigan, brave enough to love me and still demand a life that belongs to her.

“Dinner,” I say. “Tomorrow.”

“Ask properly.”

I make myself ask like the answer is not already mine.

“Tamara Kalinin,” I say, because that is the name she built before any man tried to make her smaller, “would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

The smile arrives slowly. “Yes, Sasha. I would love to.”

I cross the room slowly enough for refusal.

She gives me none.

My hand rises to her face, light against her jaw. Waiting.

She leans into my palm.

There is my answer.

I kiss her.

Control survives many things. It doesn’t survive Tamara’s hands closing in my shirt and pulling me closer. Her mouth opens under mine, and the sound she makes is soft and furious and alive. My other hand settles at her waist.

Not to hold her still. To feel that she is here by choice.

No cathedral. No contract. No threat. No buried lie between her body and her want.

She chooses this.

She chooses me.

I break the kiss because I have to see her face.

She’s breathing hard, mouth flushed, already preparing to deny the tears.

“And the sofa?” she asks.

“What about it?”

“It still needs to move.”