Page 38 of A New Days Don

I brush some of her damp hair out of her face, and she releases a shaky breath. Mila is beautiful when she’s all done up and taking control of her life and the world around her. But Mila is wild and free. Mila, with her hair down, makeup washed from her face, and lips swollen red. She could bring any man to their knees.

Too fucking bad nobody will ever get to see this look. Nobody but me.

I’m not immune to Mila looking at me like I’m the one she trusts. Every ounce of my being wants to show her how safe she is right here with me.

Fuck.

“Dinner?”

She looks over her shoulder at the two sandwiches, “You made food?”

I nod, not having a better response for the pitiful excuse of a meal. Now I really fucking wish I had sent for someone to bring up a five-course meal. Mila deserves more than what is essentially bacon on bread.

Note to self: Pick up a cookbook.

Chapter 16

Mila

Oh my God.

For the tenth time since sitting down at this table, my hand blindly wanders to my lips, brushing where his lips stole all rational thought from my mind and fractured everything I carefully built around me. Not that what was built made the world any safer, in fact, it barely got me through day to day, but now I am stuck reeling over a silly little kiss. A silly little breathless moment that I want to replay over and over again.

The look he was giving me before he told me he was going to kiss me. Giving me every chance to run. I didn’t want to run, though. I wanted to give in to the intoxicating feeling of warmth. Then, when his lips met mine, everything crashed, burned, and broke. It wasn’t soft and sweet like you see in movies. It was explosive and all-consuming, like suffocating and coming up for fresh air all at once.

His deft lips guided me through the motions while his big, warm, heavy hands held me in place, kept me tethered to him. His scent wrapped around me like a vice. Then his tongue dipped into my mouth. The broken sound that he elicited from my body. It was heady and overwhelming.

Warmth pooled and tightened deep in my core, pulsing with the need for some kind of relief I couldn’t begin to understand, yet Massimo knew. He rolled his hips expertly against me, pushing me into the counter, pinning me there with his body. The massive bulge in his pants, something I knew instinctively was his own arousal, rubbed against something that sent my body into a frenzy. One that shamefully sent panic across my body, but not because I was transported back to that night.

No.

That night, I felt nothing close to the way Massimo’s lips caressed mine, and his hands demanded my attention.

But every part of what has gotten me through my life since that incident six years ago has been order, structure, and control. Whatever that was wasn’t order, and it wasn’t control. It felt wild and almost liberating.

“You’re thinking too much,” his deep rumbly voice pulls me from the memory, only to be brought back to this table with an ache between my thighs that screams for something.

I look over at him, only one bite taken out of the sandwich he made—not that I am doing much better, my sandwich is untouched, cooling on the white plate.

Massimo gives me a pointed look, his brown eyes looking darker now than they ever had. I bring the sandwich Massimo made me to my lips, and he watches every movement like he’s inspecting some rare gem.

Something about his dark presence takes me back to that moment in the kitchen. His lips on mine, the ache between my thighs. My mouth goes dry. Everything in my body feels like it burns for him, and the devilish smirk on Massimo’s handsome face only stokes the flames. He chuckles, not with humour, almost like he’s trying to remain in control of himself. Pieces of dark brown hair fall and cut through his sharp features.

I try to chew, to do something with the food currently turning to cement in my mouth, but I can’t tear my gaze from his. It feels like we are stuck in a time warp, as if everything around us has slowed to a stop and we are the only ones in the world.

Massimo slowly leans forward, sliding his own plate out of the way, until his elbows rest on the corner of the table between us. The intensity of his gaze increases tenfold, leaving me breathless. He slowly murmurs, “Swallow.”

His lips wrap around each syllable in that slow, succulent, husky voice of his that makes my toes curl involuntarily. Heat and sparks of desire pulse through me and, as if my body reacts solely to him and his commands, saliva pools in my mouth.

I try to swallow the bite, but his gaze drops to my throat as it bobs, and it gets stuck. I reach for my water, the cool glass beading with condensation that mimics the way my forehead starts to prickle with the sensation of sweat forming. I bring the glass to my lips, and the cool liquid fills my mouth. The contrast to the heat that wants to swallow me whole is welcomed. Massimo watches intently as the lodged piece of food goes down, and then his lips quirk into a smirk that shouldn’t be as insanely attractive as it is.

It’s normal to feel attraction.

The thought comes in the sound of Annalese’s voice. If it's so fucking normal, then why the hell does this feel like torture? Addictive torture that I want more of for some reason, but torture no less.

His eyes slide to my lips as he leans back in his seat, his hands resting in his lap.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.