Page 45 of Bound to the Crime Lord

“Exactly.” I pecked her lips again. “Gorgeous.”

I was used to women coating their faces in makeup. They wore the most revealing clothes for the male gaze and left all sense of self-respect out the door. She was a breath of fresh air in my otherwise perverted world.

When I pulled away, her cheeks were tinted pink and her eyes moved to the mattress, breaking our gazes.

I had seen this woman bare-butt naked, and I had plunged my dick into her like a drill machine. And yet she still shied away when I said things like that to her.

I moved my files to the side and pulled her to my chest.

“Manuel,” she whined as if she didn’t like me holding her this way. “I have work to do.”

“Work can wait a minute. If I’m going to be forced to have a sick day, then I’m going to make you have a sick day too.”

“Whatever.” Her tone screamed annoyance, but she still burrowed her way into my neck and draped her legs over mine in a tight cuddle.

If my men could see me now…. They would never believe that I was cuddling with a woman. They would never believe that a woman would have the capabilities of entrancing me the way Juliette Ballard had.

“Tell me something you never told anyone before,” she hummed into the crook of my neck.

I was a large vault of secrets. No one really knew who I was beyond what I portrayed to them. I didn’t trust anyone well enough to let them in. But for some rather terrifying reason, I trusted her. So, it was no real surprise that, when I opened my mouth, the first thing that came out was the very secret that had thrown off my entire equilibrium.

“I had a meeting with Savina and Andres Valdez. They’re part of the New York syndicate. They run things on that side.”

She stared up at me, but I kept my eyes trained on the ceiling. I rarely got vulnerable with people, let alone a woman I had only met three months prior.

“They told me that my mother was assassinated by The Triad.”

Saying those words with my own lips made it all the more real. My father had never remarried, as he was too grief-stricken by my mother’s betrayal. But now, to learn that she’d never cheated on him and instead was killed by the very people after me…

I was not an emotional man, but the revelation of this did move something within me.

“Manuel,” she called my name, wanting to draw my attention, but my gaze stayed firmly on the ceiling. “Look at me.”

Her delicate hand cupped the side of my face. She pulled my jaw in her direction with a soft strength that I didn’t fight.

My eyes connected with hers and I could see the shine in her beautiful blue seas. There was something about this woman that was so captivating. It was more than just her beauty; it was herpure essence. She exuded the kind of warmth that eradicated the cold that riddled my world.

She was a drug.

Addictive. Powerful. Lethal.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Not only your mother, but your father as well.” Her thumb stroked the side of my cheek. “I don’t know much of your world, but I have seen more loss than I care to think of, and I know what grief looks like. It’s painful, it's heart-wrenching and life-altering. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this pain all on your own. No one deserves that.”

My throat tightened, my voice shrinking back into its box. Her words threw me.

Never in all my life had anyone ever looked at me with that much sincerity and honesty.

“Thank you.”

The tips of my lips tilted up ever so slightly into a small smile. Her eyes radiated light and warmth like I had never seen before.

“Thank you for trusting me with your pain.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet her words echoed loudly throughout my silent room.

One word in particular stood out to me.Trust.

It was such a simple word, yet so costly in my world. I had been taught not to trust anyone, and yet here I was, trusting her.

We stared at each other, the air between us growing thicker.

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