I promised her father long ago to protect her and Natalia. But I’d made a promise to myself, too: never let anyone I care about feel anything close to the kind of pain I lived with daily. And if I gave in to my desires, gave in to my feelings for her . . . what if the horrible scenarios that crossed through my mind like a deadly storm came true? What if I hurt her? Lost her forever?
“Maria.” Her name came out like a rough plea from my lips. Of course, I had no idea what I was begging her to do. Stop wanting me or never stop?
“I tried to open the door to my heart for you on my birthday, and you slammed it shut.” Her voice trembled this time. “I’m opening it again for you tonight. Right here in this parking lot. It’s up to you whether you want to walk through. This is your last chance. I’ll stop being stubborn if you reject me tonight. I’ll face reality and move on.”
Was this my shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment, as my brother had so eloquently called it?
“You’d risk your heart, but what about Chiara’s?” I cut straight through to the meat of what I knew would be the main problem for her. The only counter defense I had left in my arsenal to use against her, to keep this woman from breaking me down to the point where I stopped fighting this thing between us, and I tried to be happy.
“No.” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “You’d kill yourself before hurting my little girl.”
Without question. “And you already know what I’m willing to give up if it means keeping you safe.” I reached for her, cupping her cheeks, unable to think straight.
Her glossy eyes unleashed a few tears. “Yeah, you’re already doing it,” she whispered. “Breaking your own heart so you don’t risk breaking mine.”
My hands slid to her hair, and I set my forehead to hers, playing with the locks by her face as I mustered the strength to keep fighting her on this.
She was offering herself to me, doing what I begged her not to do, but this went way beyond sex. She was offering all of herself to me. Not just her body. Her whole life.
“Maria, what are you doing to me?” My voice broke that time, and her hands covered mine.
She shifted back to stare into my eyes as her lower lip trembled.
“After what you learned about me, I just can’t wrap my head around why you still want me,” I bluntly said, no point in sugarcoating anything now. “But I need time to think things through before I . . .” I let go of a ragged breath. “Can you give me that?”
Her lips rolled inward, and it took all my strength not to lean in and suck that bottom lip, to not taste her for the first time in six years.
“Okay.” The word was more like a breath of air passing between us as she eased her body a bit closer, and my hand brushed against her breast with barely any space between us. “I wish you’d kiss me,” she cried like it was meant as a confession for a priest. Only I was far from worthy of hearing anyone’s sins. I was a man incapable of redemption, and my soul wouldn’t wind up with hers on the other side when my time came.
I pulled my hands free from hers and brought the pad of my thumb along the seam of her lips, and her eyes closed at the contact. “The next time my mouth touches these lips,” I began before reaching between her thighs with my other hand, “or these lips,” I added in a low voice, and her pussy arched into my palm, “you’ll first know the truth about me. But not tonight.”
She wanted my walls down? Then so be it. But I was terrified that once they came crumbling down, she’d hate me and build them back up herself.
“Give me something,” she pleaded, peeling her eyes open. “Either a bit of hope. One of your secrets. Or, at the very least, touch me. After the day I’ve had, especially with Chiara being out of town, I need something.”
My shoulders slumped at her request. Hope? That wasn’t in my wheelhouse. And my secrets weren’t meant for being shared in a parking lot.
I looked around, finding us still alone, so I snatched her wrist and guided her so her back was to my Tahoe on the other side of Ryan’s F-150, which served as our shield from the back door of the restaurant. “You want my touch? You want it out here? Like this?”
She licked her lips and nodded.
Of course you do. It disturbed me how easy it was for her to break through my defenses, to get me to do things I’d vowed never to do. “Unzip your pants for me, then,” I ordered.
Her palm slipped between us, and she did as she was told.
Hoping like hell no one walked outside and witnessed us, I spun her around so her hands landed on my SUV, and her eyes caught mine in the reflection of the glass.