“You twitch and you die.” “Interesting,” he remarked evenly, as though his life wasn’t two inches of flesh away in her trembling hands.

“I can’t marry you,” he told her, “not until I fulfill the promise I made to my sister.” She nodded in understanding. “But I never, ever want you to not walk into a room and know that every part of me, fucked up man and the lost boy, belong to you.”

“She was the beat to his heart and he was the beat to hers, both of them pulsing together. Maybe, they were both the same beats. Maybe, theirs was the same heart.”

“I can feel your life under my hand,” he stated, his eyes burning on hers, his fingers locking her life to him. “Your body, your life, your heart – they’re all mine now. Trust me to keep all of them safe.”

“You ever try to leash me, I’ll fucking strangle you with it.”

His lips twitched. “I thought you wanted me to touch your soul?” The amusement in his tone pushed her frustration higher. “Fucking rip it at this point. Just move, please.”

“She stared at the shelf in wonder. Not only did he know she liked the cute bottles, he was giving her options to try. Again. He was giving her the chance to experiment and see what she liked.”

“Because I can kiss you whenever, wherever, however I want now,” he stepped back. “And nobody can do shit about it.” He gave her a light slap on the ass. “Now go.”

“He was also the reason she had come to the party. She was going to kill Tristan Caine.”

“In that moment, the enemy had done what no one had ever even tried to do for her. He had made her feel a little less lonely. But for that silent moment, something inside her beyond her own understanding, even as she hated him, shifted.”

“No,” she whispered, her words falling against his lips. “You are my emperor.”

“As long as I’m alive, it won’t touch you. And I intend to live a very long, very happy life with you.”

“And he didn’t know how to tell her that, how to verbalize that. Maybe one day he would. He hoped someday he could. Until then, he could just show her.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Morana asked with extra enthusiasm, trying to lift the energy in the room a bit. “Do you want to run a mafia family?”

“Your voice makes my atoms sing.”

Something cold pressed against her cheek, making her seek more of the coolness that gave her a brief moment of respite. A hand. Leather. “Shh.” The voice of death came from the darkness, his voice, right next to her ear. “I’m here, flamma. Shh.”

“But in that moment, she was just a girl and he was just a boy, and somehow, their broken pieces matched.”

“Dante Maroni was a piece of art – a very fine, very exquisite piece of art. Every time she saw him, she wanted to do a chef’s kiss gesture to the sky.”

“What’s a little rainbow like you doing in a shithole like this?” he murmured as he inhaled the side of her neck, so softly she felt his words more than heard them.”

“Her heart started to pound and the monitor beeped, matching its rhythm, embarrassingly telling both of them that she was affected by his presence.”