Page 16 of Mafia Pregnancy

His hand drops to his side. “You do.”

Yet neither of us moves to create distance. The air between us feels charged with electricity and heavy with unspoken desire and four years of unresolved tension. “This is insane,” I whisper.

Radmir nods slowly. “Completely insane.”

“We don’t have time for this.” I can’t do this. That’s what I mean to say, but the words die in my throat.

His jaw tightens. “No, we don’t.” He steps closer anyway, close enough that I’m pressed against the sideboard with nowhere to retreat. “Tell me to stop,” he says quietly. “Tell me to walk away and let you finish your work.”

I press my back against the sideboard. “You should walk away.”

“Should I?”

My breath comes faster. “Yes.”

“Then why aren’t you pushing me away?”

Because I can’t. Despite everything rational and logical, my body remembers his touch, and the time pressure somehow makes this more urgent and desperate. “I hate that I want this,” I whisper.

He holds my chin lightly. “I know. I hate it too.”

“Then why?—”

“Because I’ve spent four years trying to forget you, and seeing you again made me realize I never stopped wanting you.”

Before I can protest, he’s kissing me. The contact is electric after four years of suppressed longing between us. I should push him away. I should remember his dinner guests and my job and all the reasons this is dangerous. Leo… Even that’s a fleeting thought as he deepens the kiss.

I kiss him back with desperate hunger, pouring my anger and hurt and unwanted desire into the press of our mouths. He tastes exactly as I remember, like danger and possibility and everything I should want to resist. The kiss turns frantic quickly. He grasps a handful of my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me, and I melt against him with a sound that might be surrender.

When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard, and I can hear the distant sounds of preparation echoing through the house. I gasp against his mouth. “Your guests…”

His forehead rests against mine. “They’ll be here in ninety minutes. More than enough time.”

“Time for what?” As I ask, I already know the answer.

“To finish what we started four years ago.”

The suggestion sends heat pooling low in my belly, but practical concerns intrude. “Here? Now? With your entire staff preparing for dinner?”

He glances around the formal dining room with its expansive windows. “You’re right. This is too exposed.”

My pulse races as logic goes completely by the wayside. “Where?”

His thumb traces my lower lip. “Follow me.”

He takes my hand and leads me from the dining room, and I follow him through hallways filled with the sounds of dinner preparation. Staff members move efficiently around us, too focused on their own tasks to pay attention to where we’re going.

His office is exactly as I remember from my cleaning assignments, being masculine and sophisticated, with a view of the ocean that takes my breath away. Today, I’m not here to dust or vacuum. I’m here because four years of denial finally cracked under the pressure of proximity and desire.

He closes the door behind us and engages the lock, the soft click echoing in the sudden silence. When he turns back to me, his expression is intense enough to make my knees weak. “Last chance,” he says quietly. “Once we do this, there’s no pretending we’re strangers.”

I look into his eyes and see the same desperate need that’s been eating at me for days. It’s the same longing that makes me dream about hotel rooms and promises whispered in the dark. The truth slips out despite one last-minute urge for caution and to think this through from a small voice in the back of my mind. “We were never strangers.” That voice fades to silence once the words are out.

That’s all the permission he needs. His control fractures completely, and suddenly, he’s working at my polo shirt urgently. I help him, tugging at his buttons and pushing open his shirt until I can get my hands on the warm skin beneath.

He’s broader than I remember and more muscled, with new scars that tell stories of dangerous life I don’t understand, but his skin is still warm beneath my palms, and it still makes me feel powerful when he responds to my touch with sharp intakes of breath.

When he has my uniform shirt off, he stops to look at me in the afternoon light. “You’re so beautiful. Even more than I remembered.”

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