Page 57 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

“That’s insane,” I breathed, shaking my head. The pain roared through my veins at his lack of empathy for what this would cost me. I understood it, but it still hurt.

“Then start prayin’ for a different outcome. If your brother kills me tonight,” he growled, “he lives. You can marry your Bratva prince, like you fuckin’ wanted, and be free of me forever.”

He turned his back on me again and splashed his face with cold water. And that was it. That was what did it. The way he carelessly spoke of a life without him, as if it would be so easy.

Closing the space between us, I grabbed his shoulders and wrenched him around to face me. Slamming my hands into his chest, I shoved him. Hard. Once. Twice. He stumbled back into the sink, his pupils dilating in surprise at my sudden attack. Then they narrowed in warning, and that only made me shove him again.

“Don’t you dare say that to me!” My voice didn’t sound like mine at all.

I hit his chest again. And again. I couldn’t stop.

“I’ll never be free of you!” I screamed, unleashing every feeling I’d been crippled by the last two days. Being stuck down here alone had built up into an avalanche of overwhelming emotion, and I was sick of hiding it. I’d done that all my life.

“Never!” I shouted, hitting his chest with all my strength.

He tried to grab my wrists, but I tore free and kept going, hot tears streaming down my face.

“You fucked me up! You don’t get to say I can live without you like none of this is real! You changed something in me that can never be changed back. And you don’t get to just die and leave me with it.”

I shoved him one more time, and he let me. He let me. He hadn’t lost control. He held back his own darkness so I could unleash mine. Until I had no fight left. My palms stayed on his chest, holding ‌him for support and to stop him from slipping away. His dark eyes stared into mine as I took a few ragged breaths, and for the first time since he walked back in, I saw a flicker of the real him.

“Whether you’re breathing or not,” I panted. “Even if you’re ash, I will carry you into every room I ever walk into for the rest of my goddamn life, and you know that. You know I’ll never be the same, so stop—stop pretending that whatever happens tonight won’t destroy me.”

The silence cracked open between us. His intimidating, rage-filled mask dissolved into a look so devastating as he placed his hands over mine on his chest. His eyes dropped to my mouth, then came back up to mine, no longer controlled by the anger and violence he used as armour. They were molten with need and glazed with vulnerability.

His hands tightened over mine.

“You want to know what destroys me?” he husked, his voice deep and rough, stripped of the iciness from before. I nodded and leaned into him, letting his warmth and solidity settle my ache for him. “You. Standing here, completely falling apart for me.”

Something moved through his expression, his brows tightening as he lifted one hand and wiped the dampness from my cheeks. It wasn’t quite guilt or desire, but a mixture of both. “But you want to know what’s really fuckin’ twisted? How sick in the head I really am?”

My heart raced, my skin igniting with that burn to be consumed by him.

“Tell me,” I whispered, letting desire burn away the fear, fury, and heartbreak that awaited beyond these four walls.

“That I’d rather have you like this, see you break for me like this, than ever let you look at anyone else this way. You belong with me. I can’t let you go.” His jaw tightened, a muscle twitching beneath his skin. “I know what that makes me. Because I know exactly how far I’ll go to keep you, even if you hate me for it.”

His gaze darkened as his thumb stroked my lower lip, and a tear slipped free from my eyes.

“I know.”

“Yet you still look at me as if I’m worth somethin’. That’s what destroys me.”

“You are worth—”

He kissed me before the words could leave my lips, unable to hear them. The kiss wasn’t soft or tender. It was rough, desperate, and wanting. Fury and desire merged into one.

As our tongues fought the ruinous thing burning between us, I felt every wall he’d built around himself shatter. His hands found my face, cradling me so tenderly, at odds with the force of the kiss. I melted into him, throwing my arms around his neck and threading my fingers through his hair.

I kissed him back with everything I had left. The raw heartbreak, the fear, and the suffocating love that had nowhere to go. He made a sound against my mouth that called to the desperate ache between my thighs, and he started walking us backward until my shoulders hit the tiled wall. Then his hands were in my hair, fingers twisting through my curls and pulling my head back. His mouth found my throat, kissing and biting my skin, leaving marks. God, I wanted him like this. So unrestrained and without boundaries.

“I hate you for this,” he panted against my skin. “It took two days to switch off my emotions so I could face you, and in minutes you break me apart. I hate you for makin’ me feel. Everythin’. I hate what you do to me. I hate that you’re the only thing that—” He stopped himself, pressing his forehead against mine and glaring into my eyes. He didn’t hate me at all. That had always been his problem.

“I know,” I moaned while his rough hands groped my tits beneath the hoodie. He dropped his forehead onto my shoulder while his hands continued to explore the curves of my body, memorising and worshipping.

“You were never supposed to be here,” he groaned when I unzipped his trousers and wrapped my hand around him, freeing his dick. “You were never supposed to be mine.”

“But I am.” I grabbed the nape of his neck with my free hand and tugged his hair back, forcing him to look at me. “I’m yours. Completely, stupidly, and against every logical reason not to be, I’ll always be yours. And you’ll always be mine.”