Page 59 of Damon

But I don't move toward the kitchen. I stand there looking at her, trying to memorize the way she looks in the warm light, the way she smiles at me like I'm someone worth coming home to.

"Damon? You're scaring me a little."

"Sorry. Just thinking."

"About what?"

About how I have one week before you’re taken away from me. About how I've compromised everything I've built my life on for a woman I've known for weeks. About how the thought of losing you makes me want to burn the world down.

"About how complicated this has gotten," I say instead.

She moves closer, close enough that I can smell her shampoo.

"Maybe complicated isn't always bad."

"Complicated gets people killed in my line of work."

"Then maybe we need to change your line of work."

I stare at her, surprised by the boldness of the suggestion. "You don't understand what you're asking. You don’t leave the family. Not alive."

"Then show me what it means to be all yours. Show me what I’ll be losing."

"Viviana—"

"I know you want me. I can see it in the way you look at me, the way you touch me. Stop fighting it."

"My family will never accept this relationship between us."

"Then we'll deal with your family."

"Your father will kill me if he finds out. He’s old school. There are rules about this kind of thing."

"He won't find out."

"Viviana—"

"Stop thinking, Damon. Just for tonight, stop thinking and feel."

And God help me, that's exactly what I do.

When I kiss her, it's with all the desperation I feel. When she kisses me back with equal hunger, equal desperation, I know we're both lost.

"Upstairs," I manage against her lips.

"Yes."

The sound of gunfire stops us before we make it to the stairs.

Chapter 18: Viviana

For a moment, my brain refuses to process what I'm hearing. The sharp crack-crack-crack cutting through the quiet sounds wrong, out of place in this peaceful house where I've felt safer than anywhere else in the world.

Then Damon is moving beside me, grabbing his gun from the table in one fluid motion.

"Stay down," he orders.

"What's happening?"