Page 37 of Heart of a Villain

“But you made the brigadeiros for me.”

“Maybe.” She made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “Now, what do you want to try first?”

“You.”

“I’m not on the breakfast menu.”

“What about the lunch menu? Dinner? Midnight snack?” He lowered his voice. “I’ll eat you for all three.”

“I probably shouldn’t give you anything warm or hot,” she said, and he spotted a subtle hint of mischief in her eyes. “But here, try this.”

She managed to eke out a few inches of breathing room between them, turned, and raised a fork to his mouth. Without taking his eyes off hers, he let her slip a piece of spinach omelet between his lips. Then, he momentarily forgot about flirting as a moan crawled up his chest. This woman could do with food what a magician couldn’t with a wand.

“Good?”

“Incredible.”

She fed him another bite. “I was a sous chef in Brazil. It’s probably one of the few things I’ll miss about my life back there—my position and the country itself. Brazil is beautiful.”

“So are you, Sayeda. My heart hasn’t stopped racing since you showed up. I’m pretty sure you’ve shaved years off my time on Earth, but I will accept the years lost as long as you leave me with enough life to spend the rest of it with you.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “Stop it.”

“I’m still able to charm you? If not, I can keep going. I have some unused moons and stars and ‘skin like rose petals’ that I’ve been sitting on for a while.”

“You still think I’m beautiful? Like this? I look like an angry scarecrow who hasn’t slept in years.”

“Did you not hear me say rose petals?”

“Adrían. Be serious.”

“I am.” He erased all the playfulness from his voice. “Sayeda, give me your bones, and I will still cherish them.”

In many ways, he had.

Before yesterday, he’d believed that it was her bones he’d had buried in a private mausoleum in the United Kingdom. As often as he’d tried to return to the site where the van caught fire, he could never bring himself to do it. So, he’d paid for the retrieval, the transport, and the fee for her interment.

She fed him another piece.

While watching the fork enter his mouth, she graced him with what he would accept as a smile for now—a quick tug on the side of her mouth he might have missed had he remembered an environment existed that wasn’t solely comprised of her face.

“By the way, how did you know it was me?” she asked.

“Your eyes, the sound of your voice,” he slid his gaze down to the coral polish on her toes, “and I have touched every inch of your skin, your body. Inside and out.”

“You recognized my body even though much of our acquaintanceship was in the dark?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Querida, I came down your throat. We were not acquaintances.”

For the first time since the start of their tête-à-tête, she reacted.

She stiffened.

Mentally, he kicked himself.

Without knowing what she’d gone through, he needed to be more careful about re-traumatizing her. Instead, he wanted her to trust and confide in him until he peeled back the layers and helped her destroy what was attempting to destroy her. Arguably, murdering the person who brought her terror would be a jumpstart on the road to recovery. Still, it was hard to control himself when she was this close to him, giving life to a scenario he never thought he would have ever been able to experience again.

“Have I made you uncomfortable?” he asked.

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