Page 127 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

Then again, what life would it be under Romanov’s thumb? Or on the run with a small kid?

So I stay quiet, because I get it. I get her.

When we get back home, I’m more than ready for the fight that’s quietly brewing inside of her.

But she doesn’t say a thing. All she does is hold out her hand. “I need that key and my crest.”

“Fuck no.”

“We’re done. Seamus. I’m out of here. Your friend took my sister, and you took those papers.”

“I told you I don’t have them.”

“Well… maybe one more for the road, then.” She comes up to me, pressing against my body, fluttering her eyelashes at me. And I’m so turned on by her that when she moves, I fuck up.

I don’t stop her in time.

Now she has my gun, and she steps back, pointing it at me.

“Here we are again, Seamus.”

“Just put the gun down,” I say carefully. Because there’s a coldness in her eyes, one I don’t like.

“No. Give me the papers.”

“I. Don’t. Have. Them,” I say, not moving. “And even if I did, the answer would be no.”

The coldness shifts. There’s fire now, sparking in the depths of her hard gaze.

I don’t think she’ll shoot me, but she’s definitely hovering on the brink.

“You know, Ava, there will come a time when we need each other.”

“I don’t need you.”

“You do,” I say softly. “What’s worse, you want me, too. Know how I know? Because I need you, too. And I want you so much it drives me insane.”

“You mistake me,” she bites out, “for someone else… someone who gives a damn.”

“No, I know you’re the woman who gets off on fighting. The one who wants to see which of us will dominate the other. You like me chasing you and hate fucking you. You want me to make you get on your knees in a bathroom and blow me. And I want to go down on you whenever I want, feel you up wherever I want. I don’t even care who’s watching.”

“That’s sex,” she says, her voice steely. “Nothing more.”

“With us, Ava, it’s everything. Because it isn’t just sex, is it? It’s life blood. It’s love. All mixed together.”

Her hand shakes, and she adds the other one to steady it and keep that gun trained on me.

“You even fucked me thinking I killed your cousin.”

“Be careful, Seamus,” she says, “I might start believing it again.”

“There comes a time, sweet thing, to let things morph into what they really are. And our hate isn’t that. It’s a slow burn, balls to the fucking wall love story, and you know it. Not a pretty one, but ours. Blood, bruises, slugged-out fuckfests that leave us torn to pieces and wanting more.”

She blinks, her eyes shimmering, and she swallows hard. “That sounds horrible.”

“It is. To the wrong person. But admit it, you live for what’s happening between us.”

“What if I want gentle?”