Page 10 of Mafia Pregnancy

“Because it changes the dynamic and makes me dependent instead of just employed.”

He studies my face with an intensity that makes me fidget with the polishing cloth. “And you prefer independence.”

I lift my chin. “I prefer not owing anyone anything I can’t repay with work.”

“Admirable, though unnecessarily difficult given your circumstances.”

My jaw tightens. “My circumstances are my responsibility.”

“Are they?” He moves closer, circling the table slowly. “What if those circumstances were created by choices someone else made?”

The question catches me off guard. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He stops directly across from me, the polished table the only barrier between us. “Don’t you? Four years ago, someone made a choice that affected your life in ways you couldn’t have anticipated.”

My breath catches. We’re venturing into dangerous territory, acknowledging the connection we’ve both been pretending doesn’t exist. I busy myself with the polishing cloth. “I should focus on the table setting.”

“The table can wait a moment.” He moves around to my side, close enough that I can smell his cologne. “We need to address what’s happening here.”

I keep my eyes down. “Nothing’s happening here. I’m doing my job.”

“Are you? Because it seems like you’re avoiding looking at me. Avoiding acknowledging who I am.”

I finally look up at him. “I know who you are. You’re Mr. Vetrov, my employer.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “Try again.”

The challenge in his voice makes my pulse race. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

He steps closer. “I want you to say my name. My real name.”

The word comes out breathless, loaded with four years of suppressed emotion. “Radmir.”

“Better. Now tell me you don’t remember.”

I swallow hard. “Remember what?”

“ The hotel room in the Gaslamp Quarter, or the way you challenged me about wine selection and made me forget every rule I’d set for myself.”

The careful control I’ve maintained finally cracks. “You mean when you lied to me about your name and disappeared without explanation?”

He moves another step closer. “When I tried to protect you from getting involved with a man who could destroy your life.”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Protect me? You think abandoning me was protection?”

“I think giving you my real name would have been cruel.”

My voice rises slightly. “Crueler than waking up alone wondering if I’d imagined the entire night?”

He reaches out slowly and touches my face with fingertips that feel exactly like I remember. “Yes. After that night, you would have wanted more than I could give you.”

I should pull away from his touch and remember that his business guests are arriving in less than two hours. Instead, I close my eyes and lean into his palm for just a moment before jerking back. “Your guests will be here soon.”

He doesn’t step back. “They will.”

“I need to finish preparing the dining room.”

His hand drops to his side. “You do.”

Yet neither of us moves to create distance. The air between us feels charged with electricity and heavy with unspoken desire and four years of unresolved tension. “This is insane,” I whisper.

Radmir nods slowly. “Completely insane.”

“We don’t have time for this.” I can’t do this. That’s what I mean to say, but the words die in my throat.

His jaw tightens. “No, we don’t.” He steps closer anyway, close enough that I’m pressed against the sideboard with nowhere to retreat. “Tell me to stop,” he says quietly. “Tell me to walk away and let you finish your work.”

I press my back against the sideboard. “You should walk away.”

“Should I?”

My breath comes faster. “Yes.”

“Then why aren’t you pushing me away?”

Because I can’t. Despite everything rational and logical, my body remembers his touch, and the time pressure somehow makes this more urgent and desperate. “I hate that I want this,” I whisper.

He holds my chin lightly. “I know. I hate it too.”

“Then why?—”

“Because I’ve spent four years trying to forget you, and seeing you again made me realize I never stopped wanting you.”

Before I can protest, he’s kissing me. The contact is electric after four years of suppressed longing between us. I should push him away. I should remember his dinner guests and my job and all the reasons this is dangerous. Leo… Even that’s a fleeting thought as he deepens the kiss.

I kiss him back with desperate hunger, pouring my anger and hurt and unwanted desire into the press of our mouths.

He tastes exactly as I remember, like danger and possibility and everything I should want to resist. The kiss turns frantic quickly.

He grasps a handful of my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me, and I melt against him with a sound that might be surrender.

When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard, and I can hear the distant sounds of preparation echoing through the house. I gasp against his mouth. “Your guests…”

His forehead rests against mine. “They’ll be here in ninety minutes. More than enough time.”

“Time for what?” As I ask, I already know the answer.

“To finish what we started four years ago.”

The suggestion sends heat pooling low in my belly, but practical concerns intrude. “Here? Now? With your entire staff preparing for dinner?”

He glances around the formal dining room with its expansive windows. “You’re right. This is too exposed.”

My pulse races as logic goes completely by the wayside. “Where?”

His thumb traces my lower lip. “Follow me.”

He takes my hand and leads me from the dining room, and I follow him through hallways filled with the sounds of dinner preparation. Staff members move efficiently around us, too focused on their own tasks to pay attention to where we’re going.

His office is exactly as I remember from my cleaning assignments, being masculine and sophisticated, with a view of the ocean that takes my breath away. Today, I’m not here to dust or vacuum. I’m here because four years of denial finally cracked under the pressure of proximity and desire.

He closes the door behind us and engages the lock, the soft click echoing in the sudden silence. When he turns back to me, his expression is intense enough to make my knees weak. “Last chance,” he says quietly. “Once we do this, there’s no pretending we’re strangers.”

I look into his eyes and see the same desperate need that’s been eating at me for days.

It’s the same longing that makes me dream about hotel rooms and promises whispered in the dark.

The truth slips out despite one last-minute urge for caution and to think this through from a small voice in the back of my mind.

“We were never strangers.” That voice fades to silence once the words are out.

That’s all the permission he needs. His control fractures completely, and suddenly, he’s working at my polo shirt urgently. I help him, tugging at his buttons and pushing open his shirt until I can get my hands on the warm skin beneath.

He’s broader than I remember and more muscled, with new scars that tell stories of dangerous life I don’t understand, but his skin is still warm beneath my palms, and it still makes me feel powerful when he responds to my touch with sharp intakes of breath.

When he has my uniform shirt off, he stops to look at me in the afternoon light. “You’re so beautiful. Even more than I remembered.”

The admiration in his voice makes my chest tight. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

He lowers his head to trail kisses along my collarbone. “I’ve never meant anything more.” When he closes his lips around my nipple through the lace of my bra, I arch into him with a cry that echoes in his office. His breath is warm against my skin. “Shh. The staff is preparing for dinner.”

I thread my fingers through his hair. “I don’t care.”

But I do care, and he knows it. This is reckless beyond belief, having sex with my employer in his private office while his household prepares for important business guests. Though I should, I can’t make myself stop or resist the way he’s touching me like I’m something precious.

He slides his hands up my thighs to my waistband, pushing down the khakis that are part of my uniform, and he doesn’t stop until I’ve kicked off my sensible sneakers and shed the pants, getting on his knees to help me remove them.

Then he traces the edge of my plain white panties, and I’m embarrassed by how wet I already am for him.

He looks up at me from where he’s kneeling between my legs. “Tell me what you want.”

I thread my fingers through his hair. “You know what I want.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

The words come out as a plea. “Touch me. Please, just touch me.”

He hooks his fingers in my panties and slides them down my legs,.

When I’m bare to him, he leans forward, lightly stroking my mound with his tongue.

The first touch of his mouth makes me arch against his desk, and a broken cry escapes my lips.

He remembers exactly how I like to be touched and what makes me fall apart in his hands.

He murmurs against my pussy, “God, you taste so good. I missed this. I missed you.”

I bury my hands in his hair, holding him exactly where I need him as he works my slit with devastating skill.

Knowing we only have a little time makes everything more intense and frantic.

He alternates between broad strokes and targeted pressure on my clit until I’m trembling on the edge of something incredible.

“Please.” I throw back my head. “I need?—”

“I know what you need.” He increases the pressure without lifting his head.

He adds suction that makes me see stars, and when he lightly inhales and exhales against my clit, I shatter completely.

The orgasm crashes over me, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out loudly enough to alert the entire household staff.