Assassin Bride of the Mafia Heir novel · Chapter 7 of 9
Chapter 7: The Pool House
The ache woke her before the light did.
It sat low in her belly, a dull, insistent pulse that had nothing to do with the bruise on her hip or the raw scrape across her shoulder blades. It was the ache of a thing left unfinished. A door slammed shut before she had crossed the threshold.
She opened her eyes to the gray dawn bleeding through the curtains. James lay beside her, one arm thrown across her waist, his breath slow and even against the back of her neck. The heat of him seeped through the thin sheet, and her body leaned into it before she told it not to.
The marks she had left on him were already fading. She could see them from the corner of her eye: the faint purple crescents on his shoulder, the red line where her nails had raked down his ribs. They would be gone by noon.
She wanted to put them back.
The thought arrived without permission, and it made her jaw tighten. She had spent twelve years learning to control everything. Her breathing. Her pulse. The tremor in her hands before a kill. She had never once lost control of her own wanting.
Until him.
She lay still and let the ache build. It was a weapon now. She could feel its weight in her hands, the way she could feel the weight of a knife before she threw it. He had spent seven years watching her from a distance, learning her habits, her coffee, the cat on her fire escape. He thought he knew her.
He had no idea what she was about to do to him.
She moved before the sun was fully up. Not away from him, but into him. She turned in his arms and pressed her mouth to the hollow of his throat, and she felt him surface from sleep in stages: the hitch of his breath, the flex of his fingers against her hip, the slow, heavy beat of his heart under her lips.
"Celia."
His voice was rough with sleep, and it sent a shiver down her spine. She did not answer. She bit him instead, gently, at the junction of his neck and shoulder, and she felt his whole body go taut.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–4 of Assassin Bride of the Mafia Heir are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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