Page 12 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

“Thank you, Leo,” she says, breaking the silence when the giggles die.

“What for?”

She sighs heavily. “This.”

I nod solemnly. “I wanted to see you happy again.”

“Why?” she asks.

Because you are precious, a gift any man will be lucky to have.

And I’m not that lucky bastard.

Rage powers through me, shredding its lance of fire all over my chest, my guts, my loins.

Nobody else should have her but me. Bianca should be mine.

I can’t think this way—it’s a ticket to the underworld of damnation. Though everything inside me right now wants to channel reckless Pluto, come what may, to grab his Proserpina and take her down with him, damn the consequences, damn the Earth burning from her disappearance.

I risk a glance at her, but she’s looking at her lap.

All I want is to drown in her eyes again. Maybe in their depths, I can find salvation, I can find reason…

It’s insane, what I’m about to do, yet I can’t stop myself. Looking into her eyes feels as vital as needing air inside my lungs.

So I reach out and lift her chin with my fingers.

Her dark gaze collides with mine, and I have to swallow, hard, because I can feel myself falling again. She’s drawing me in, and I don’t want to resist. I can’t.

I refuse to…

This woman…

“You deserve to be happy,” I say, softly.

“Do I?”

The sound is like a small puff of air from her full lips. I want to drink it so bad, my entire body is hurting with need. Her world should be put right, by any means. Bianca is everything good on this planet, the epitome of what any man should expect from life—softness, gentleness, beguiling beauty both inside and out, a body to be worshipped, to be made love to everyday so she can find completion in his arms, from his touch and mouth and cock, so he can thump his chest like a proud, victorious primate thathe’s the one getting to pleasure her so well, to make her world perfect.

“Of course you do.”

You of all people.

Silence settles between us. One beat. Two. My fingers are still on her chin, my thumb slowly caressing the small cleft there. She feels so dainty, so fragile. Her skin is like satin, and I’m growing hypnotized by the movement of my thumb as her eyes pull me in further, deeper, and I willingly fall. If this is all I can get, I’ll take it.

I don’t see the split-second when she rears toward me—I can only feel the press of her lips against mine. So like the first time she kissed me on that pier, yet so different, too. Her mouth is lush, pillowy, a woman’s and not a girl’s.

Is this God’s answer to my plea? Can she be mine, even if just for one kiss? One glorious moment when I get to drink from her lips, to breathe her into me so life can sustain me for the rest of my days I’ll spend without her?

Before I can return her kiss, she’s pulled away. I’m reeling, confused, denied. It feels like a man dying from thirst in a desert having the oasis disappear just as he was about to dip his hands into the cool, life-sustaining water.

“I…I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

“What for?”

One beat of silence. Two. I can feel the regret growing inside her. It’s obvious in the way she lowers her gaze, tries to look away.

My hand is still on her face. When she came at me, my fingers unfurled to clasp her jaw.

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