Page 20 of His Little Angel

His hands are poison.

This entire moment is toxic enough to kill something inside me.

“Sir,” I choke out, “this is inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?” he spits. “You stayed with me until dawn. You memorized my life. You never told me no once. And now suddenly you care about boundaries?”

I would have given this man the world if he asked—and he knows it. He’s always known it. That’s what makes it humiliating. Despite knowing how much I would give up for him, he still saw me as nothing more than an assistant.

“I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t do for any other man I work for in the future,” I lie, tasting blood from biting down on my shame. “Veronica will handle it now.”

Absolute darkness flashes through him.

“And who is that man you’ll work for in the future, Mila?” he demands. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“I told you, no one—”

But I don’t get to finish, because his mouth crashes into mine.

It’s not a kiss. It’s a punishment. A claim. A war.

There’s nothing gentle or hesitant. He devours me, consumes me, crushes every rational thought in my skull until there’s only heat and hunger and the way his lips feel like something I’ve waited my whole damn life for.

I kiss him back for one second. One treacherous, stupid, oxygen-stealing second.

Then I shove him away.

Because he’ll regret this. He already does—I can see it on his face.

Disgust. Rage. Something that almost looks like fear. But Enzo Morelli is never afraid. I must have read him wrong.

“This was a mistake,” he says. “A mistake we shouldn’t have made. Forget it.”

He breaks whatever hope I had left inside me.

Chapter Nine

Enzo

Akiss.

The most idiotic, meaningless act two people can commit. I always thought it was disgusting—swapping breath, spit, germs like animals. I never understood why people made a goddamn spectacle of it.

There was nothing enjoyable about it.

Nothing sane about it.

And yet—

The second my mouth touched hers, something ancient and wrong ripped through me. It wasn’t me leaning in. It wasn’t even a choice. It felt like something with claws grabbed the back of my skull and dragged me straight into her. Like shadows I’ve spent my whole life outrunning finally decided to catch me.

Now I’m ruined.

Because fuck me—there is nothing in this world that has ever tasted like her. Her mouth was heat and sin and damnation, and for one suspended second, every nerve in my body bowed to her.

What the hell is she carrying between her lips? What kind of dark, ancient voodoo did she slip under my skin?

My bloodstream crawls with her.