Page 30

Given the look on his face, I should be afraid—but I’m not. Not exactly.

I’m just aware . Acutely aware of how close he is. How far away the bed is. How fast my pulse is thundering behind my ribs like it wants to break out of me. Every nerve is awake, buzzing beneath the skin, reacting to him like I’ve stepped barefoot into a lion’s cage and dared it to bite.

My hand tightens on the strap of my bag.

“Ares…” I breathe, my voice a soft scrape in the silence. He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t blink.

He just watches me, eyes locked, cold and unflinching, as though he’s cataloguing every flicker of guilt on my face, every excuse I might try to build before he tears it down.

I don’t move. I don’t run.

Because somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I already know…Ares didn’t come here to shout. It’s not his style.

He came to remind me exactly who he is. I’m just not sure who I exactly am to him .

Ares takes one slow step toward me. Not threatening, not overtly. But everything about the way he moves feels like a question I haven’t been given permission to answer. Yet, somehow, I find my voice long enough to question him .

“What are you doing here?”

When he speaks, his voice is quiet, rough like gravel dragged over velvet. “Tranquilla, Bambina. I’ll be the one asking the questions.”

My brow rises, “On what authority?”

Brown eyes darken to almost black, “On mine.” He states grimly.

“What the fuck were you doing at Eden, Jordyn?”

He doesn’t yell.

He doesn’t bark.

Just simply asks . Like it’s owed to him. So, I lift my chin, refusing to flinch. Though my heart’s a war drum, I don’t let it show. I stand my ground, even as he closes the distance between us, two feet… one… until the scent of him is everywhere.

Smoke, spice, sin .

His hand brushes my doorframe as he leans in, towering over me, dark, carved out of wrath and restraint. Fuck, my mouth goes dry and my knees tremble like they’re about to give out on me.

I keep my eyes locked on his, even as his free hand reaches out, wrapping gently around my wrist. Slowly, he lifts my hand. His gaze flickers from my face to my thumb, zeroing in on the cut. It’s stopped bleeding hours ago, but the sting still lingers.

He doesn’t say a word. Just looks. Then, with a touch so light it barely feels real, he brushes his thumb across the tender skin. The contact sends a quiet shiver through me—part pain, part something else entirely.

“Answer me.” It’s not a request.

My voice doesn’t shake when I speak, even if everything inside me does.

“I thought it was obvious. I work there.”

His brow ticks. The muscle in his jaw jumps once. I can feel the heat coming off him like a furnace, and it’s not anger.

Not entirely. It’s something else.

Something possessive. Feral. Starving.

He looks at me like he wants to tear into me... kiss or kill, I’m not sure which. Though I’m secretly praying for the first.

“Not anymore, you’re not,” he declares, voice tight. “Of all the places you can work, you find a sleazy club like Eden. Who has you dressed like that , serving drinks to men who are staring at your tits and ass every time you bend over?”

“And?” I cut in, lifting an eyebrow. “How exactly does that concern you? I didn’t know I needed your permission to get a job or ask your approval on my attire.”

That gets to him. Just a flicker. His mouth hardens. His eyes narrow.

But he doesn’t step back, no, he steps closer .

His warm breath grazes my cheek as his voice drops an octave, and I almost swoon.

“And what makes you think that, bambina?”

I hold his stare. My voice comes out soft, sharp, and soaked in venom.

“Because, the last time I checked, I’m an adult and perfectly capable of making my own decisions. And you’re neither my father, brother, or...” I trail off when the word gets lodged in my throat.

“Or what...” Ares probes, his eyes searching mine.

I whisper, “My boyfriend.”

Ares goes still.

Not frozen, just tight . Like a beautiful storm holding its breath.

His dark eyes drag over my face, slow and searing, until they land on my mouth. His jaw ticks once...and again. And then he speaks his voice low and frayed at the edges.

“No,” he murmurs. “I’m not your boyfriend.

” He leans in just enough that our mouths share the same breath.

“Because if I were...” His voice cuts sharper now, raw with something darker.

“I wouldn’t have let you walk away from that room until you understood the difference between someone looking at you—” he leans in, his breath hot against my cheek, “—and someone owning every fucking inch of you.” The words slam into me, stealing the air from my lungs.

“You’re playing the game without knowing the rules, bambina.” He adds, voice rougher now, lower. I blink up at him, my mind in a lustful haze. “You think you can walk around dressed like sin, tempting fate in places that crawl with men who’d devour you whole... and I’d just sit back and watch?”

My breath shudders, but I don’t move. I can’t.

He drops my hand and braces his hand against the doorframe beside my head, caging me in.

His control is slipping, and I can feel it in every muscle stretched tight beneath that inked skin, in the way his chest rises and falls, in the tension burning behind his eyes.

“You have no fucking idea what kind of place that is. What kind of men walk into rooms like that thinking everything they see is theirs to take because they have money.”

The heat between us is suffocating now.

He leans closer, just enough to skim the corner of my jaw with his mouth, not a kiss. Just contact. Barely.

“And you...you walked right into the lion’s den, bambina. And you fucking smiled.”

I don’t shrink away. I let the oppressive heat press in around me, feeling his breath ghost over my skin like a haunting whisper, allowing him to look at me with an intensity that suggests he wants to tear me in two.

Then, with deliberate slowness, I tilt my head and meet his eyes, directly, unwaveringly.

“And what, Ares?” I ask, voice cool and unshaken. “Were you planning to come charging in, dressed in rage and tailored Armani, to rescue me?”

The room seems to shrink around the force of his stillness, but there’s a flicker of something dark flashing in his eyes.

Yet, he doesn’t answer. He just stares, locked in silence, as if he opens his mouth, he won’t be able to stop. Like he’s two seconds away from proving exactly why I shouldn’t play with fire.

So, I continue, my words now softer yet dripping with a more perilous allure.

“If you want to watch, you’re free to do so,” I shift ever so slightly, just enough to make his hand hover uncertainly in the air rather than imprison me.

“But you don’t get to decide where I work, what I wear, or who looks or even touches me. ”

I pause, allowing my words to settle between us like ash falling after a blaze. “You told me not that long ago to keep my pretty nose out of matters that didn’t concern me.” My lips curl into a mockery of a smile. “Maybe it’s time you take your own advice and keep your nose out of my business.”

His eyes flash with a dark, molten intensity, grave and deadly. But he still doesn’t touch me. His breath comes harder, more erratic, and in that moment, I know, I fucking know that I’ve just kindled a fire between us that neither of us will be able to extinguish.

His body doesn’t move.

But something in the air between us does... it shifts, tightens and thickens.

He leans in, his forearm braced against the door just beside my head. I’m already trapped, already pinned. His chest nearly brushes mine. My spine is flush to the wood, and there’s nowhere left to go. Nowhere I want to go.

Then he speaks. So low and slow and sinfully dark, it makes my pussy ache.

“No, bambina,” he murmurs, and the rough slide of his voice sends a full-body shiver through me.

“I wasn’t going to storm in and save you like some white knight in a designer suit.

That’s not my style.” His lips hover just near my ear, hot breath grazing my skin but never touching.

It’s cruel the way he holds back, and I almost whimper.

“I was going to wait until your shift ended...” His voice dips, velvet and fire, making me shiver. “Drag you into that back alleyway, press you up against the wall…” His mouth moves closer to my jaw, almost brushing it. “…and show you what real danger tastes like.”

I stop breathing.

Or maybe I just forget how.

Because the heat that coils low in my stomach is thick and dizzying, and every inch of me feels too tight, too exposed. My thighs clench of their own accord. My heart trips in my chest, stuttering against the pressure of him, his stare, his nearness, his intent.

“You were walking around that club tonight,” he says, voice molten, “dressed like you just walked out of every man’s fucking fantasy… like you didn’t know exactly what you were doing.” Those dark eyes drag over my lips. “But you did.”

I can’t speak. Can barely swallow.

Then comes the final blow, soft, dark and inevitable.

“Volevi la mia attenzione, amore?” You wanted my attention, love?

The words slide over my skin like silk and steel.

He dips even closer, breath hot against my parted lips.

“Adesso ce l’hai.” Now you have it.