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For the briefest moment, I see him—not Alessio the enforcer, not even Stefano the vengeful son, but the lost boy who watched his world burn. The wound that never healed, only festered beneath the surface for decades.

I step into his space, drawn by a need I can’t explain or resist. “And after? When Giancarlo falls and Luca discovers the truth—what happens to us?”

His hand slides to the nape of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. “That depends on you,principessa.”

“On me?”

“On whether you still want there to be an ‘us’ when the dust settles.” His voice drops lower, a rumble that vibrates through my body. “On whether you can love a ghost with blood on his hands.”

Love. The word hangs between us, unspoken yet deafening. Is that what this is? This desperate, consuming need that makes me risk everything for moments with him? This fire that burns away reason and caution? This ache that only his touch can soothe?

“I want you,” I admit, the words dragged from somewhere deep and honest. “I’ve wanted you since that night in the club. Before I knew who you were. Before I understood what we were risking.”

His pupils dilate, darkening those amber eyes. “Careful, Isadora. I’m not a safe man to want.”

“I don’t want safe.” My hands find his chest, feeling the steady thunder of his heartbeat beneath expensive fabric. “I’ve had safe my entire life. Safe and suffocating.”

The control he maintains—that iron discipline that makes him so lethal—fractures visibly. His mouth claims mine with bruising intensity, hands gripping my waist to pull me flush against him. I meet his hunger with my own, fingers tangling in his hair as I pour everything I can’t say into the kiss.

He tastes of coffee and danger and forbidden promises. My body remembers his with startling clarity—the hard planes of muscle, the scars that map his history, the way he moves with deadly precision, even in passion.

“We shouldn’t,” he murmurs against my lips, even as his hands slide beneath my blouse, tracing fire along my spine. “Not here. Not now.”

But neither of us stops. We’re beyond caution, beyond reason—two people balanced on the knife’s edge of destruction, stealing whatever pleasure we can before the fall.

His teeth graze my lower lip, drawing a gasp from me that he swallows with another searing kiss. I arch into him, desperate for more contact, more friction. Anything to ease the ache building between my thighs.

“Tell me to stop,” he growls, his hand finding the curve of my breast, thumb brushing over the nipple until it pebbles beneath the thin fabric.

“Don’t you dare,” I breathe, nails digging into his shoulders.

The sound that escapes him is primal, possessive. In one fluid motion, he lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carries me to the nearest wall. My back hits it with controlled force, his body pinning me in place.

I’m trapped between cold plaster and hot male, and I’ve never felt more alive. His mouth leaves mine to trail fire down my neck, teeth scraping sensitive skin before soothing with his tongue. My head falls back, giving him better access as pleasure spirals through me.

“Someone could come looking for you,” he warns, voice rough with desire. “Your father. Luca.”

The names are like ice water, a stark reminder of our precarious situation. But instead of cooling my desire, the danger only intensifies it. I want him more fiercely for being forbidden. Need him more desperately for being temporary.

“I don’t care,” I whisper, dragging his mouth back to mine. “Make me forget them all.”

His hand slides between us, deftly unfastening my jeans. When his fingers slip beneath the lace to find me already wet for him, his groan vibrates against my throat.

“So ready,” he murmurs, circling my clit with maddening precision. “Always so ready for me.”

I bite my lip to stifle a moan as he slides one finger inside me, then two, stretching me deliciously. My hips buck against his hand, seeking more friction, more pressure, more of everything he can give me.

“That’s it,” he encourages, his thumb pressing perfectly against my clit. “Take what you need,principessa.”

The endearment—once irritating, now precious—sends another rush of heat through me. I cling to his shoulders, riding his hand with shameless abandon as tension coils tighter in my core.

“Look at me,” he commands.

I force my eyes open, meeting his gaze. What I see there—hunger, possessiveness, and something deeper, more vulnerable—pushes me over the edge. I shatter around his fingers, my cry muffled against his shoulder as waves of pleasure crash through me.

He works me through it, relentless in his pursuit of my pleasure, until I’m trembling and oversensitive. Only then does he withdraw his hand, bringing his fingers to his mouth to taste me with deliberate provocation.

“I need you inside me,” I tell him, reaching for his belt. “Now.”