Her eyes caught him first thing. They were almost too big for her face. A very light brown, amber really, like a fine whiskey you spipped at night when you just wanted to lay it all down.
He pulled out of her mind abruptly. She knew because she felt bereft. Starkly alone. The feeling was raw and ugly after having him there with her. She wanted him back, and that wasn’t an intelligent response.
Every moment I’m with you, bambina, I fall harder. It’s difficult for mr to believe you’re real. You aren’t the only one a little terrified.
Draden. Who knew there were men like him in the world? He made it exciting to wake up in the morning. She looked forward to the day. To their shared laughter. Their conversations. The intense attraction between them. Who wouldn’t fall in love with him?
Keep making fun of my name and every time you order a drink, I’m going to put something in it you aren’t going to like,” Ashe muttered under her breath.
He presented a mask of indifference to the rest of the world, but for her – and their future children – he would be different. He would share fun and laughter.
There was a sense of comfort being wrapped up in his arms. He was calm in the middle of a terrifying experience. He was a rock she could cling to.
He’d been ten years old when he’d last begged someone for something, and he’d promised himself he’d never do it again, but this was too important.
She laughed, and the sound was tantalizing. He didn’t understand how musical notes could stroke a man’s skin and dance along his thighs. He didn’t understand how the notes could be an arrow that pierced his heart. She owned him.
In that moment he knew she could shatter him. Break him into a million pieces and he’d never recover. Not in this lifetime. He realized all the lore in his family was truth. Ferraro men. When then found the right woman, loved her with everything in them and they did it only once. Francesca was his once.
He was becoming intimate with her mind, with her body, like a lover, though he had not yet shared her body or mind in the way he wanted. Darius.
She’d managed, in a very short period of time, to slip under his guard and get inside him. There was something very valiant about her.
There it was. His woman. Laying it out for him. Giving him truth and making him feel like he was the luckiest man on earth.
So now I’m supposed to believe you haven’t been with another woman for five years. Get. Out.
Ashe’s entire face lit up when she laughed. That laughter did something to his insides, turning him to mush, so he thought some of the ice that had frozen all emotions so many years earlier had melted and allowed her deeper.
Bottom line, dolce core, that’s who I am. When the cops can’t do something to protect citizens, it’s my turn. You have to decide if you can live with who I am. The real me.
She wasn’t certain what he was going to work on, being a caveman all the time, or trying not to be a caveman most of the time.
This woman could break him when nothing that had come earlier in his life ever had.
Coffee. It was decisive. Without their women, their chosen drink would always be what it had been.
It was an observation, not a judgment. Shylah liked the way Draden seemed to reserve his conclusions until he had the facts.