Page 94 of Pietro

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

I press my lips to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with tears and the faint lingering smell of the warehouse.

"Sleep,tesoro. I'll be here."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

NORA

His arms around me feel like salvation and damnation. I should pull away. Should remember that hours ago, he held a gun to my head. Should care that my entire world has just shattered into pieces too small to ever reassemble.

Instead, I press closer, breathing him in.

"I can't stop shaking," I whisper against his chest, hating how weak I sound, how thoroughly destroyed.

Pietro's hand moves to cup my face, tilting it up until I have no choice but to meet those dark eyes that see too much. "You're in shock,tesoro. It's normal."

Normal. Nothing about this is normal. Not learning my entire life was a lie, not being Connor O'Sullivan's daughter but not really, not finding comfort in the arms of a man who should be my enemy.

"Make it stop." The words escape before I can catch them, raw and desperate. "Please, Pietro. Make me feel something else. Anything else."

He goes still. "Nora?—"

"Don't." I press my fingers to his lips, feeling the warmth of his breath against my skin. "Don't tell me this is wrong. Don't tell me I'm not thinking clearly. I know all of that."

Something shifts in his expression, the careful control cracking to reveal hunger that makes my breath catch. His hand moves from my face to my throat, not squeezing, just resting there like a promise.

"You don't know what you're asking for."

"Yes, I do." I turn my face into his palm, pressing a kiss to the rough skin. "I'm asking you to make me feel something other than this crushing emptiness. To prove I'm still alive, still real, still?—"

His mouth crashes down on mine, swallowing whatever desperate plea I was about to make.

This isn't the careful kiss of a man offering comfort. This is possession, claim, a brand that marks me as his even as it sets me free from everything else.

I melt into him, my hands fisting in his shirt as he deepens the kiss. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, and I taste whiskey and danger and promises he'll probably break.

When he nips at my bottom lip, I gasp, and he swallows that sound too, like he wants to consume every piece of me.

"You want to forget?" he growls against my mouth, his hands moving to my waist, lifting me like I weigh nothing. "I'll make you forget everything except my name."

My back hits the mattress, and he follows me down, his weight pressing me into the soft surface. For a moment, we just stare at each other, both breathing hard, both recognizing we're crossing a line we can't uncross.

"Last chance," he says, his voice rough with restraint that's costing him. "Tell me to leave."

Instead, I pull him down for another kiss, pouring all my confusion and pain and desperate need into the contact. He groans against my mouth, his control finally snapping.

His hands are everywhere. Tangling in my hair, skimming down my sides, pushing up the hem of my shirt to find heated skin underneath. Every touch sets fires I didn't know my body could produce, every caress driving out thoughts of betrayal and lies and twenty-three years of deception.

"Pietro," I gasp as his mouth moves to my throat, as his teeth scrape against my pulse point in a way that should frighten me but only makes me arch closer.

"Say it again," he commands, his hands working at the buttons of my shirt with fingers that tremble slightly. "Say my name."

"Pietro." It comes out as a moan when he finds sensitive skin, when his mouth follows the path his hands have blazed. "Please."

"Please what,bella?" He pulls back to look at me, and what I see in his eyes steals my breath. Not just hunger, but something deeper, more dangerous. Recognition. Like he sees past Kelly the secretary, past O'Sullivan, to something essential and true. "Tell me what you need."