My mouth needs his for one last moment that doesn’t end in betrayal. For one last moment where I’m his.
The kiss is everything it should be. It’s wet, and delicious, and sinful. My kiss says everything I’m about to say and everything I’m not.
When he kisses me harder, I whimper louder, pretending the kiss hurts me because I know how Enzo will react. He won’t let me suffer a single second of pain.
He spins us around, holding me to him as he slows his thrust. His strong arms hold me up as I reach behind him carefully, and then I drop my truth.
“I love you, Enzo Black.”
He doesn’t answer with words. He doesn’t clarify if it is a truth or lie—he knows. He’s always known this is my truth. He knows it’s why I’m not free. Because a piece of my heart belongs to him. And I will never be able to get it back.
We orgasm together in one powerful moment. The moment is everything. Because for the first time we made love instead of just fucking. And it happened when we were half dressed, standing in a dark and dirty alleyway where people caught glimpses of the moment.
Maybe it should have been in a bed with clean white sheets, champagne, and flowers. But that isn’t who we are.
We are dark.
We are dirty.
We are filthy.
We aren’t hearts and roses people. I’d always rather be fucked in a bathroom in a moment of passion than in a soft bed. And I will always want the love of my life to be a little bad than a flawless good-doer who has never been wrong.
Because I’m not a good girl, I’m the girl who used to steal to survive. And I’d rather be bad with a man than fall for a good man. Maybe my heart is darker than I thought.
And my heart is going to break with what I’m about to do next. Enzo is still inside me. His release is filling me as his orgasm still escapes him. He didn’t wear a condom, and even if I thought I could get pregnant, I wouldn’t care. This was too perfect a moment to stop with any barrier between us.
“I love you,” I say again, because I know it makes him vulnerable. It makes me vulnerable too. It opens my heart for him and if last time I left a piece, I’m about to give Enzo every-fucking-thing.
I don’t expect Enzo to say it back. So I don’t wait for him to. Even if he feels that emotion, he would never say it. He can’t.
And I can’t let him sacrifice everything for me.
I need him safe. I love him. Nothing else matters to me. We both decided Milo Wallace couldn’t be defeated with guns and weapons and storming men. And despite how strong the Black empire is, when Milo gathers all our enemies to fight, we won’t be strong enough to defeat them all at once. And we won’t let our men die for our personal drama.
Our empire is vulnerable. And one of us has to save it. One of us has to get to Milo. One of us has to be on the inside, distracting him while the other finds a chink in his armor. One of us has to sacrifice themselves, so the other can win. But isn’t that what the fight for Black has always been?
One loses, sacrificing the job so the other can rule.
I kiss Enzo hard, telling him goodbye with my lips, and then I do it. I don’t know if I will get away with it before he realizes what I’m doing. But the glaze over his eyes, the heavy breathing of his chest, and his cock still resting inside of me says this is my last chance to save the man I love.
I grab th
e handcuffs while still kissing him. Then I attach one to his hand and then the other to the metal pipe running up the brick building.
Enzo’s eyes fly open when he realizes what I did.
I dig into his pocket, finding the key. I toss it quickly away so he can’t force me to give it to him.
And then I slide off his cock.
His dangerous eyes darken, and I see the fear behind them he’s masking with anger.
“Stingray,” he says softly. “What did you do?”
I take a step back as I pull my jeans up, covering my body. “The same thing you planned on doing—I saved you.”
He exhales, and the anger is gone.