“What?” I growl. “Don’t play games with me, Juliana.”
“You’re so freaking hot and cold, you know that?” she says, smiling.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re complaining,” I grunt. “And anyway, you’re wrong. With you, I’m not hot and cold. With you I’m hot—and then I’m burning, on fire, fucking boiling.”
She reaches up and touches my hand, pressing it against her face, turning her cheek toward my palm as though savoring the warmth of my body.
“That’s just it,” she murmurs. “That’s what I was going to say. It sounds crazy, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both our parents died in fires. I know I’ll sound like a melodramatic silly girl, maybe, but I don’t care. I think—”
“Fate led us together,” I growl, pushing my body up against hers, causing her to step back to the balcony windowed doors.
I push her up against the glass, my manhood driving through my pants and lying solidly against her belly, as though my seed is directing it to her womb, trying desperately to fire my life essence inside of her.
“I feel the same,” I tell her. “It’s not silly. It’s not naïve. It’s a fact. We’re bound by fire, by fate, by our bodies. By everything.”
I lean down and take her lips, claim them for my own like I will every day for the rest of our lives. She whimpers through the kiss, but I push brutally on, plunging my tongue into her mouth and tasting her nervous tongue.
I grab her hips and pull her even closer to me, growling through the kiss.
Then I feel her falter, our teeth clicking together.
“Something’s wrong,” I rumble, breaking off the kiss, our noses touching as I stare intensely into her eyes.
“No—yes,” she sighs. “I’m sorry. But I don’t think I can. Not tonight. You know.”
“Sex,” I smirk. “It’s okay. You can say it.”
She giggles. “Okay, yes. Fine. Sex. I want to, but … I can help you if you want? If you show me how? In other ways.”
“No,” I snarl, taking a step backward.
“Are you angry?”
I laugh. “Angry? Only sad pathetic losers sulk if their woman wants to take a break – a short break, mind you – from the inexorable lust of their bodies. I don’t want to explode all over you now because I want to wait. Soon, very soon, I’m going to fuck you until your pussy is raw and aching from the pommeling. But tonight, if you ask me politely like a good girl, I might be willing to just hold you.”
“And how’s that, hmm?” she says, her sass causing my balls to swell, my seed making them heavy. “How do I ask like a good girl?”
“On your knees, with your hands behind your back, softly like the prey you are like you’re getting ready for me to fuck your throat. That’s how you ask like a good girl.”
I almost erupt when she does, slowly lowering herself to her knees, putting her hands behind her back, and sticking her chest out so that her breasts bulge.
“Pretty please, big scary hitman, will you hold me tonight?”
I take a deep breath, summoning every ounce of self-control I have.
“Y-yes,” I growl.
“Did you just stutter?” she teases, climbing to her feet.
I turn my head away, hiding my smirk.
“Nope. You must’ve misheard.”
“I don’t think so,” she teases, making to prod my abs.
I let out the kind of laugh I never dreamed a man like me would offer a woman, carefree and full-bellied, the sort of laugh I can imagine us filling our home with one day when all this madness is done when the Bratva and the past are just distant memories.
I snatch her hand and tackle-dance her over to the bed, both of us laughing like loons as we fall onto the bed. I pull her into my arms and kiss her again, but then I have to break it off, a volcanic rumble moving through me at the taste of her.
“I swear your womb sends me secret messages through that fine body of yours,” I snarl.
She giggles sweetly, musically, the best goddamn sound in the universe.
“You know, that’s the sort of crazy thing that should make me question your sanity, right?” she says, laying her cheek against my chest. I bet she can hear how heavily my heart is pounding. “But I don’t, because I feel the same. I think the same sort of crazy thoughts. I think you’re right, Jett. I think our bodies know we’re destined for each other. Though, I have to say …”
“What?” I growl when she trails off.
I find myself making patterns in her hair with my fingertips, enjoying the way she moves her head toward the movement like she can’t stand to be apart from me even for a few moments.
“That feels so good,” she whispers. “It’s making me all sleepy.”