Page 49 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

“It’s the least I can do. It’s the one meal I can cook really well.” Her small smile guts me. Regret coils deep in my stomach. No one will understand my reasons for keeping my distance. Least of all me. My head says it’s fear keeping barbed wire wrapped around my heart. But I know it’s because I love this woman’s innocence. That truth forces me to keep away.

How do I know I love her? I don’t know. It’s only been hours and my thoughts are consumed by this woman.

But I refuse to let my darkness taint her soul.

For the next five minutes she twirls her noodles but doesn’t join me in eating.

I set my fork down and turn my attention to her. I take her chin between my fingers and hold her gaze with mine. “Talk to me, Cora. What is wrong?”

“Why did you walk away from me?” The red on her cheeks deepens. “Is there something about me you don’t like?”

I never found the use in lying. “The problem is you make me want to marry you. Your very energy speaks of forever, of love, of light and happiness. I want that. I want what my brothers have and I know you are my soulmate. But I can't let you close. If I have another taste of you, I won't be able to walk away. You have too much to live for and I have a short life expectancy. I refuse to pull you into my early grave.”

She blinks up at me and is silent for a long moment. Her fingers curl around mine, tightening, and I watch her throat work through a swallow before she trusts her voice.

"I've never had anyone tell me they think they love me." The words come out raw, stripped of her usual gritty humor and bright energy. Her bottom lip trembles by a fraction and she catches it between her teeth to stop it.

I shake my head. "No, Cora."

She inhales sharply, her grip loosening on my hands. Her chin drops and her shoulders pull inward, folding toward her chest.

"No?" The pain in that single word drives a blade into my ribs and twists. Her voice cracks on the syllable and she won't look at me. Her lashes are wet when I tip her chin up with my finger.

"Look at me, malyshka."

Her eyes lift to mine and the violet in them darkens. The hurt swimming in her eyes nearly drops me.

"No," I confirm, holding her face steady. My thumb traces the line of her jaw, slow, deliberate, making sure she's anchored to me before I finish. "I don't think I love you. I know I do. There's no thinking involved. There hasn't been since I watched you swing a rolling pin at a man twice your size in a towel and gardening boots."

Her smile heals a part of my soul. “That did it for you, huh?”

Her lips part. Color floods her cheeks and her eyes go wide, glassy with tears she's fighting to hold back. One escapes anyway, rolling down her cheek and over my thumb.

“When I’m near you all I can think of is the feel of your touch on me. Your warmth. The way you make me forget to breathe. And since we are being honest, I want to know what it would be like to lose my virginity to you. I don't know what to do with all that," she whispers.

I smile and brush the tear away. "Me either, malyshka." And that is another truth. The deadliest one I've spoken out loud in twenty years.

Before I kiss her again, I take her fork and wind a few noodles covered in sauce for her. "You need to eat. Let’s both focus on making sure you stay strong. The rest can come later."

She opens her mouth without argument and my hand steadies as I guide the fork between her lips. Sauce catches at the corner of her mouth. I swipe it away with my thumb and she turns her cheek into my palm, her eyes closing for a fraction of a second. The trust in that small movement guts me. No flinch. No pulling away. She leans into my hand like my touch is safe, and the weight of that faith presses against places inside me I stopped visiting years ago.

I wind another forkful. She takes it, chewing slowly, her gaze holding mine with a warmth that makes the underground brighter than any surface I've stood on. I've fed men information, fed operations money, fed enemies bullets. I've never fed a woman a meal and wanted to do it again tomorrow.

Once she is done, I stand and place a kiss on the top of her head. “Go relax. I have cleanup.”

I take our plates to the kitchen. While I clean she wanders to the window overlooking the lake.

Early evening gives way to night. Moonlight shifts across the compound and plays in the strands of her hair. I pause while loading the dishwasher, amazed by her ability to glow with golden light by day and then shine when the lady overhead bathes her in silver light at night.

She walks in two worlds.

I wrap up the cleaning of the kitchen and grab my tablet from my office. I return to the living room to find her on the sofa with a book.

I take the opposite end of the sofa and it’s not long before I have a tiny foot on my lap.

She wiggles her toes as she stretches her body out, her book abandoned. "I realize I know next to nothing about the man who has confessed his love for me. Tell me your favorite color?"

I'm reading a report on my tablet. Shipping logs that Luca sent over. I set my tablet aside and pick up her foot instead. Using my thumbs, I work her arches to the sound of thankful moans.