Page 55 of Dirty Game

"How many dead?"

My blood cools.

He steps back, helps me sit up, his touch gentle now despite the crisis on the phone.

"Twenty minutes," he says and hangs up.

"What happened?"

"Warehouse fire. Three of my men are dead. Corsinis are retaliating for their broken bones." He's already moving, checking weapons, and grabbing his jacket. "Stay here. Jensen will?—"

"Be careful."

He pauses at the door, looks back at me, still sitting on his desk, clothes disheveled, skin marked by his mouth.

Something soft flashes across his face, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it.

"Lock the door behind me," he says. "Don't open it for anyone but me or Jensen."

"Varrick—"

"We'll finish this conversation later."

Then he's gone, and I'm alone with the ghost of his touch and the taste of his desperation on my lips.

I slide off the desk on unsteady legs, try to smooth down the shirt, fix my hair.

In the reflection of his computer screen, I can see marks on my neck—darker now where he bit over last mark, claiming me again, marking me as his for anyone to see.

I touch each mark, remembering the way he said "mine".

Last night, he kissed me in a way that transformed everything.

This morning, he gave me a distance that cut deeper than cruelty.

And just now, he kissed me like he was dying and I was the only cure.

I don't understand him.

I don't understand the push and pull, the way he controls himself and yet has desperate hunger, the way he treats me like I'm precious and dangerous simultaneously.

But I understand myself.

I understand that I want him—not just his protection, not just the safety he provides, but him.

His broken pieces and sharp edges.

His careful hands and violent heart.

The man who burns people alive for crossing him, but brings me soup when I can't sleep.

I want to belong to him completely.

I want him to take what Uncle Enzo sold him, but make it mean something different.

Not payment, but choice.

Not debt, but desire.