Page 40 of Ho Ho Mafioso

“You don’t have to pretend with me, Enzo.”

The tone of her voice unsettled me. She was too close, too aware of the things I was trying to keep hidden. I could feel the walls I’d built around myself starting to crumble.

When she’d almost fallen into the gorge, I’d never been more scared. The thought of losing her affected me more than I wanted to admit, and it didn’t make sense. She shouldn’t mean anything to me given the circumstances.

I stood abruptly, moving to the window to give myself a moment to breathe. The wind had picked up again, howling through the trees. Our reprieve from the storm was up, and it had come back with more force.

The silence in the cabin felt suffocating. I could still feel her eyes on me as I watched out the window, her presence like a weight that wouldn’t let me up.

“You should get some sleep,” I suggested, my voice more firm than normal, like I could somehow push the tension out of the room with a few words.

But she didn’t listen. She stood, slowly, as if she had already planned what she was about to do. She crossed the room to where I stood by the window, her steps light on the wooden floor. When she stopped beside me, her presence was overwhelming. Her scent, soft and floral, wrapped around me, chipping away at my resolve. “Look at me, Enzo.”

I turned to face her, even though I knew I shouldn’t. We were heading down a path we couldn’t come back from, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to anymore.

Her gaze held mine, unwavering, like she was waiting for me to make the next move.

She took a step closer, her petite frame almost pressed against mine. “You don’t have to keep pretending,” she said, her voice lower this time, almost like a confession. “I can see it in your eyes, Enzo. I know what you’re feeling. I feel it too. We don’t have to pretend.”

My heart hammered in my chest. It was forbidden. Everything about this was wrong. My job was to protect her. Keep her alive. Nothing else mattered. But there was something in her eyes that made me question everything.

“Gia,” I whispered, my voice rough. I couldn’t breathe. The distance between us was gone. She was too close now.

She reached up, her fingers brushing the edge of my jaw, sending a shock of warmth through my body. My breath hitched, my hands clenched at my sides. She could feel it too. The electricity between us, the weight of the forbidden.

Closing my eyes, I fought the urge to pull her closer. But she didn’t. She leaned in, her lips soft against mine, tentative at first, as if she was testing the waters.

It was a kiss that set fire to everything I’d tried to bury—my desire, my restraint, my need. I kissed her back before I could think, before I could stop myself. My hands found her waist, pulling her flush against me, the heat of her body against mine a stark contrast to the cold outside.

The kiss deepened, and I could feel the walls I’d spent so long building collapsing, piece by piece. She wasn’t just a capo’s daughter. She wasn’t some fragile thing I had to protect. She was a woman, and she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.

When we finally pulled apart, gasping for air, she was looking up at me with that same quiet intensity, her breath ragged, her face flushed.

“This is wrong,” I whispered gruffly, my forehead resting against hers.

She shook her head, her hands still on me, as if she couldn’t bear to let go. “It doesn’t feel wrong.”

I closed my eyes, my heart pounding in my chest. It was wrong. But God, it felt so right.

I had no idea what would happen after this; what would happen when we stepped out of the cabin, when the danger passed and the storm finally ended. But for that moment, I didn’t care.

In that instant, there was no mob boss’s daughter. No wolf. No rules.

Just two people, lost in the storm together.

“Whatever happens between us… it doesn’t leave this cabin,” I stated, needing to have some sort of control over the situation.

“I know,” she replied, tugging at the hem of my shirt.

“Say it,” I demanded, needing her to be on the same page before we went past the point of no return.

“It doesn’t leave this cabin,” she whispered, her eyes full of desire and need.

Then, I lost it, succumbing to the desire that had been building from the first moment I saw her. Crushing my lips to hers, I picked her up and carried her toward my old room; the room that had now become hers.

I laid her on the bed, tearing my mouth from hers to take off my shirt and kick off my boots. As I looked down at her, I almost stopped.

Almost.