Page 50 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

My cock thinks those are for it and hardens on command.

I focus on her question. Color? "Hmm. I don't have one."

She wiggles her toes again, this time giggling. "Everyone has a favorite color, silly."

"I don't."

She pushes to her elbows and I love watching the steel in her eyes solidify with determination. "Look at this place. It’s black."

"I didn't say black." That's because as of forty-eight hours ago it changed to violet. The color of her eyes.

She shakes her head with defiance. "Mmm…you were thinking it," she counters, wearing a smirk on her pretty pink lips.

I take her other foot and give it the same treatment. "As you wish. What's yours?"

"Easy. Sunshine."

This woman is going to be the death of me. "That's not a color."

"It is if you've ever stood in a flower shop at five in the afternoon when the light comes through the front windows and turns everything to gold." She pulls her foot free, crosses my living room to the windows. Darkness covers everything in black ink beyond the glass. She pushes off from the glass and walks toward me, bare feet silent on the marble. "Sunshine is absolutely a color. It's the color of things that are still growing. Of warmth. Of mornings filled with laughter. It’s the color of a person’s heart, their soul and life."

She stops a few feet from where I'm sitting. Her eyes shift in the light from the blue of the glimmering pool light.

"You should try it sometime. Standing in sunshine. You might like it."

I hold her gaze. The words that come out of my mouth are not the words I planned. "Maybe I'm standing in it right now."

The shift in her expression is subtle. A softening at the corners of her eyes. A breath she holds for half a second before releasing. Color rises in her cheeks.

"That was pure poetry."

"I do love a good line or two.”

"I’ve seen your massive poetry collection, Bratva man. That makes two things I know about you." She turns away, but not before I catch the smile she's trying to hide. "Don't worry. Your scary reputation is safe with me. I won't tell anyone you are a softy at heart."

I switch to her other foot and she melts deeper into the cushion. "What about the drawing? I've seen your sketchbook. The detail in your work is exceptional."

Her toes curl against my palm. "It's illustration. Botanical illustration, specifically. I draw flowers and turn them into coloring books." She tucks her chin and the shyness that surfaces is different from anything I've seen from her. This matters to her in a way that goes deeper than the shop or the flowers she sells. "I sell them online. I have twelve titles so far. People seem to love them."

"Seems like more than a hobby."

"It is." She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. "One day I want to see them on a real shelf. In a real bookstore. With a real display and maybe a little sign with my name on it." A self-conscious laugh escapes her. "Stupid dream, probably."

"That is not a stupid dream." I press my thumb into the arch of her foot and hold her gaze. "That is a beautiful dream, Cora."

The color that rises in her cheeks pushes me deeper in love.

She picks up her discarded book and reclines on the sofa, slipping her feet into my lap. We stay like this, her with her book and me with my tablet, for the next couple of hours. Comfortable silence that feels right.

Late evening arrives and I look over to find she's fallen asleep. The book rests open on her stomach, one hand still curled around the spine. Her breathing is deep and even, her lips slightly parted, and the silver light from the windows turns her hair into liquid mercury against the dark leather.

Two nights in that reading chair. Two nights on the couch. My spine, my knees, my pride. All sacrificed on the altar of keeping my distance from a woman I've already told I love.

Enough.

I set the tablet aside and ease the book from her fingers, marking her page before closing it. She doesn't stir. I slide one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and lift her from the sofa. She weighs nothing against me. Her head rolls into the crook of my neck and a soft exhale warms my skin.

I carry her through the corridor to my bedroom. The blue light from the pool follows us, rippling across the walls as I cross the threshold and lower her onto the mattress.