Page 79 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

“They’re not hidden.” Seamus’s eyes are dark liquid heat, but there’s steel in their depths. “Just put away.”

“I didn’t try to shoot you.” I’m no longer trying to clean his hands, and now he’s holding mine. They’re comforting, disturbing, and inside, things turn and twist and dance. “I tried to shoot the person aiming at you. I saw the glint of a gun.”

There’s a moment of silence between us, a beat of something that’s not hate but intensely more complicated.

It makes my mouth dry and my chest even tighter.

“Why did you follow me to your nasty little apartment?”

“It’s not nasty. It’s all I can afford.”

“Says the rich girl.”

I narrow my eyes, a part of me grateful to be back on safe, familiar ground. “My finances are tied up, remember? It’s why I’m in this charming marriage.”

“I think you came after me to try and stop me from finding things out.”

“Think what you want, but did it ever occur to you that I might be interested in knowing what you discover? Since it’s got to do with me and my bratva.” His face is blank. “Doesn’t it?”

“I really don’t know. All I know is if you weren’t involved with the other bomb, someone else was, and that someone might not have been trying to stop the Assisi/Romanov merger after all.”

I pull free of his disturbing and hypnotic touch. “Me? Because?—”

“Because what, sweet thing?”

I could say because maybe someone knows Tatiana’s in Romanov’s care, and they think she could one day be more of a threat than me, being of pure Russian blood.

“Because I know Romanov, so of course I’d be there.”

“But here’s the thing, Ava. I happen to know you don’t show up to most of his events. In fact, you seem to shun them, like you shun his help. He told Cal that before we showed up the other day.” He picks up his whiskey, downs it, refills his glass, and tops mine off, too. “Sounds like you’ve got a secret.”

“I thought you thought that’s all I had. Secrets.”

“Another secret. And you know what?” He leans in.

I do the same. “What?”

“I’m going to do my best to find out what it is.”

When we get back home—no, when we get back to Seamus’s place,nothome—he pushes me against the door and takes mymouth in a deep, searing kiss. It spreads scorching need and heat everywhere.

My bones turn molten and I start ripping at his clothes, but he turns me, slamming me into the door. Panic beats hard in my veins as he undoes my jeans and pulls them down. He stands on them, forcing me to kick them and my shoes off.

But with the panic comes an erotic bite of pleasure. He hasn’t done anything.

Seamus doesn’t need to. He’s pressed against my back, his hand holding one of mine against the door, the other moving my hair so he can bite my throat and the nape of my neck, and I shiver with electric waves of heat.

It’s where we are.

In his foyer.

I’m half-naked, pressed into the front door.

He moves his hand from my hair to the alarm box that’s just at the side and punches in the numbers.

“Gotta change that.”

“Seamus, we can’t?—”