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“I see you.” He says it low. His thumb tracing the ridge of my collarbone. His other hand finding my hip — not pulling, not directing, resting. The weight of his palm against the curve where my body meets his is patient, and that patience is more devastating than any urgency he has ever aimed at me. “Liana Maritz. Emiliano’s daughter. The woman who picked every lock her father ever built. I see all of it. I am not looking away.”

My hands are shaking. I do not kill the tremor. I do not perform the steadiness I have performed my entire life—the composed, controlled, architecturally precise discipline of a woman who learned to hide her hunger behind observation because showing hunger in my father’s world meant showing the cage where the weakness lived.

I am shaking, and I let him see it.

His mouth finds the spot below my ear. The breath first — warm, ragged, the evidence of a man whose restraint is dissolving in real time. Then his lips. Then the edge of his teeth brushes my neck, and the sound I make is unmanaged. Not calibrated. The raw, involuntary noise of a woman whose armor just dropped to the floor and landed on top of twenty years of locked doors.

“Eyes open,” I say. My fingers in his hair. Pulling. Not gentle. “You look at me. You don’t get to disappear into the fucking margin. Not with me.”

“I’m here.”

“Prove it.”

Taking me by the hand, we leave the den. Pulling me into his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

His hands move. My shirt rises. His palms against my bare skin — the ribs, the waist, the dip above my hip where his fingers press hard enough to leave marks, and I want the marks. I want the evidence written on my body tomorrow that this happened with no locked doors between us. No asymmetry. No shadows.

I pull his mouth to mine.

The kiss is not defiance. Not fury dressed up as desire the way every kiss before this one was — the weaponized heat of two people who wanted each other so badly the wanting felt like violence and the violence felt like the only honest language they had.

This is different.

The air between us crackles, charged with something unspoken, something that’s been building since the last time his hands were on me—since the last time I let him pin me down and remind me just how little control I actually have when it comes to him.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing my bare skin. The touch is light, almost hesitant, but his eyes burn with certainty.

I catch his wrist and hold it there. “Then do something about it.”

His breath hitches for a second before his other hand snakes around the nape of my neck, pulling me flush against him. The hard ridge of his cock presses into my stomach, and I arch into it, a quiet gasp escaping me. He’s already half-hard, and the knowledge sends a thrill through me.

“Fuck, Liana,” he growls, his lips grazing my ear. “You drive me crazy.”

I tilt my head, giving him better access, my pulse quickening as his teeth scrape against the sensitive skin of my throat. “Then…Prove it.”

His grip tightens, fingers tangling in my hair as he yanks my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze. There’s a fire there, something raw and possessive, and it makes my breath catch. This is the Guido I crave—the one who doesn’t ask, who takes what he wants because he knows I want it just as badly.

Without another word, he drags me toward his bedroom, his steps purposeful, almost predatory. The door clicks shut behind us, sealing us in a world of shadow and need. The room is spacious, dominated by a massive bed with rumpled black sheets, the scent of his cologne—cedar and something darker, muskier—lingering in the air.

He doesn’t waste time. His hands are under my shirt again. His palms are on my skin, calloused and warm, sliding up to cup my breasts over the lace of my bra. I moan, my back arching into his touch, my nipples already hard and aching for more.

“You like that?” he murmurs, his thumbs circling the peaks through the fabric, his voice rough with desire.

“You know I do,” I breathe, my fingers working the buttons of his shirt. I need to feel him, all of him, his skin’s heat against mine. The fabric falls away, and I push the shirt off his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. His chest is all hard muscle, a light dusting of dark hair trailing down to where his pants sit low on his hips.

I drag my nails down his torso, relishing the way his muscles twitch beneath my touch. He chuckles, low and dark, then drops his hands to my waistband. The zipper of my skirt rasps open, and he shoves it down my hips, letting it pool at my feet. I step out of it, leaving me in nothing but my bra, panties, and the heels I kicked off earlier. His eyes rake over me, hungry and appreciative.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he says, his voice thick.

I reach behind me, unclasping my bra and letting it fall, my breasts spilling free. His breath catches, his gaze locking onto my hardened nipples. Before he can react, I hook my fingers into the waistband of my panties and push them down, stepping out of them with a slow, deliberate sway of my hips.

His nostrils flare, his cock straining against his pants. “You’re going to pay for that,” he growls.

I smirk. “Make me.”

That’s all the invitation he needs. He lunges, his hands gripping my wrists and pinning them above my head as he shoves me back onto the bed. The mattress dips beneath his weight as he looms over me, his body a solid, muscular cage trapping me beneath him. I buck against him, testing his hold, but it’s useless. He’s so much bigger, stronger, and the realization sends a shiver through me.

“You don’t stand a chance,” he murmurs, his lips brushing mine. “No matter how hard you fight me.”