Page 3 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
I wanted to ask for his name, but he spoke first.
“Dance with me.”
It wasn’t a request or a command. It was something else. A pull. A force of gravity I wasn’t strong enough to resist.
My body obeyed before my brain could argue.
His hands found my waist, firm but unhurried. His touch wasn’t hesitant, nor was it demanding—it was deliberate and calculated like he had every right to hold me, like he already knew exactly how I’d fit against him.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, melting into his touch as we moved to the slow rhythm.
The contact sent heat licking up my spine. He smelled like cedar and champagne, something expensive, dark, and intoxicating.
My hands rested on his shoulders, the crisp fabric of his shirt warm beneath my fingertips.
This was a mistake.
“This is a bad idea,” I murmured, more to myself than him.
His fingers traced slow, lazy circles against my waist, setting my skin ablaze. My breath hitched.
“Then, why do you feel so good in my arms?”
The way he said it—so confident, so sure—sent a wave of heat down my spine.
I let out a breathy laugh, trying to shake off the intensity of his gaze. “You don’t even know me.”
“But I want to.”
His voice was velvet and sin, dark and smooth, slipping beneath my skin and sinking into my bones.
I should have pulled away. I should have said something sharp reminded him that this wasn’t real, that this was only for tonight.
But I didn’t.
Because the way he looked at me…it felt right. Not in the obvious sense but in the way a fire draws you closer even when you know you might burn.
His mask covered the upper half of his face, but it didn’t hide the intensity of his gaze.
Sharp. Penetrating. Calculating.
There was a stillness about him, an effortless control that made it clear he was used to power and to people listening when he spoke. His slow, purposeful movements gave him away.
Then, there was the tension, the kind of aura that had nothing to do with what he was saying and everything to do with what he wasn’t.
That should have been my first clue that he was the kind of trouble I wasn’t prepared for.
His lips brushed my ear, just barely. A whisper of warmth.
“I want to know you,” he murmured again, his voice deep and rich, each word wrapping around me like a slow caress, “to master you, touch you, and master every nape and curve of you.”
A shudder ran through me so violently that I had to grip his shoulders to steady myself.
I forced a smirk, ignoring the way my body betrayed me. “Isn’t that a little much for someone you just met?”
His hand slid up my back, fingers barely ghosting over my spine, sending electricity straight to my core.
“This might sound like a cliché…” he paused as if measuring his words and then exhaled, “but you feel familiar. Like I’ve known you my whole life.”
