Page 45 of Masked Don

I flinch. I don’t mean to. It’s pure instinct, an old fear I keep buried, and it comes up at the sight of a man like him closing the distance.

It stops Enzo like a wall. He freezes two feet from me.

Very slowly, he steps back and takes his hand out of the space between us. I watch him make himself do it.

“The door isn’t locked,” he says, low and rough. “I told you that five years ago, and it’s still true. If you walk out of it, I won’t drag you back.” His eyes hold mine. “But you ran from me once. You won’t get a head start twice.” A beat. “I will always know where you went. I want you to understand that before you decide.”

It should frighten me. It does. It also does something else, something low and hot and shameful that I don’t have a name for yet.

Because Luca would have blocked the door. Luca did block it, more than once. And this man just told me he would let me go and then watch me for the rest of my life, and some starving part of me heard both halves and wanted them.

I look at the door.

I cross the space he just made between us, all of it, and I put my hand flat on his chest the way I did the first night and feel the heavy thud of his heart.

“Stevie.” It’s a warning. “If you touch me right now, I’m not going to be able to…”

“I know,” I say. “I didn’t ask you to.”

And five years of longing and resentment and curiosity and grief and desire that never stopped, not even once, finally explodes to the surface.

CHAPTER 13

STEVIE

Enzo doesn’t move at first. He stands rigidly, as if trying to resist me.

Then he gives in.

“Stevie.” My name comes from his mouth, low and rough.

I rise on my toes and kiss him.

This isn’t the same as the masquerade night. I can feel it already. That night was about discovery, curious hands touching new skin. This is five years of grief and longing and resentment detonating all at once. Our mouths collide and his hands fist my hair, tilting my head exactly where he wants it. I give it right back, scraping my nails down his chest and pulling at his shirt.

He walks me backward to the desk and sweeps the papers off when we get near enough. The edge of the desk bites into the backs of my thighs. The press of the hard wood reminds me that this is his domain, his place of control.

He lifts me onto the desk in one motion. My dress rides high. His mouth is on my throat, open and hot, teeth scraping the skin there, until my head falls back and a broken sound slips out of me.

“Stevie,” he says against my skin, a warning and a question at once. His voice is gravel and smoke.

I answer by yanking at his belt, pulling it like a ripcord and tossing it aside.

My clothes come off, and he pauses, stepping back a little, just enough to take in the sight of my body. His expression changes, and I’m confused because I don’t know what he’s thinking.

Then it hits me: it’s reverence.

Not just the lust and passion from that first night, but something heavier.

He reaches out, tracing the shape of my breasts with his fingertip. Then he moves his touch down to the soft curve of my belly, then the faint silver lines low on my hips. This is the first time a man has seen me naked since the pregnancy.

“I know I’m different…”

“You carried him,” he says, cutting me off. “You carried a child, and you’re all the more beautiful for it. I won’t hear a single word of apology for what I see right now.”

My chest tightens, and I chew my lower lip, not sure how to handle the words he just offered me.

I don’t let the sweetness of the moment linger. I attack the buttons of his shirt with my fingers, pulling at his collar and scattering them to the floor. He grins at my urgency, and I push the shirt off his shoulders, tracing the hard planes of his muscle with my fingertips, my pussy clenching at the feel of his skin against mine.