Chapter 11 #2
Luc shifted, his shoulder brushing hers as he turned to look over the skyline. The heat of him seeped through the thin fabric of her dress. She fought the urge to lean into that warmth and found, bewilderingly, she did not want to run.
They stood in a quiet lull. A sultry song drifted up from below, the kind that made her pulse stutter. Somewhere near the terrace edge, a cork popped and someone laughed, high and careless. Mia breathed it in.
“I used to dream about this city,” she said softly. “At night in the convent, I’d picture the lights and the noises of the world. I thought if I could see everything moving so fast, I’d never have to think.” The admission felt naked and small in the space between them.
“And now?” Luc’s voice was barely a whisper; his breath warmed the shell of her ear and sent a shiver down her spine.
“Now it’s slower,” she said, surprising herself with the truth. “Or maybe just quieter next to you.” The words were foolish and honest, leaving her feeling oddly exposed.
He turned to her then. His gaze darkened, intense, as if he were stripping her down to the part of herself she kept locked away. “I don’t want to be a prison for you,” he said, a faint frown tugging at his brows.
Mia laughed softly, the sound light but trembling at the edges. “That is good to know.”
His gaze lingered on her, then he lifted a hand and traced a finger along her cheek. The touch was deceptively gentle, but there was possession in it too—an unspoken claim that made her heart stutter.
“You’re… different when you laugh,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“Different from what?” she asked.
“Different from the girl who ran.”
Somewhere between the wine and the stars, something inside her loosened.
She reached for his hand before she could talk herself out of it.
Maybe it was the wine, or the hush of the rooftop, or the way his thumb found the pad of her knuckle and traced slow, lazy circles that sent sparks curling up her arm.
Whatever it was, she did not pull away when his fingers closed over hers—firm, possessive, anchored.
“I want to know more about you, Luc,” she murmured, voice small against the hum of the city. “Not the business. Just… you. Anything at all.”
He surprised her with the answer. “When I was thirteen, I read The Count of Monte Cristo three times in one summer. I told my father it was a strategy. Truth is… I liked the idea that someone could be buried alive and still come back stronger.” He gave a faint, almost private smile. “I kept that.”
Mia blinked. “That’s… not what I expected.”
He shrugged, and the movement was oddly boyish. “Yeah.” His expression softened—an island of humanity she’d scarcely seen. “I have one of the first English editions. I’ll give it to you.”
Her throat tightened. “I’ve never read it.” The confession felt foolish. “At the convent, the library was everything. Mostly religion, but on rare days, I’d sneak out to a bookstore and buy crime thrillers. Sister Therese once caught me and made me read aloud. I liked the villains.”
“You miss them,” he said.
“I do.” The words came wrapped in a sudden nostalgia that stung.
“Once we’re married,” he said, almost offhand, “you can visit. Your bodyguards will follow to keep you safe.”
The image of three hulking men shadowing her made her blink. “I will have bodyguards?” she asked, half-amused, half-aghast.
“Three of my best.” His voice left no room for argument. “They will keep you safe.”
The wine loosened her more; the admission felt less terrifying aloud than it had in her head. “Do you get many attempts on your life?” she asked, voice damp with curiosity.
“Once. Not anymore.”
“Did something change?” Her words came out in a rush.
“I was very ruthless in my retaliation,” he said. “Nobody wants to lose their family.” There was a softness to the sentence that made her stomach knot in a new way.
She wanted to ask more—if he had ever wiped out a family, whether he had watched men die—but the question tasted like ash on her tongue.
She shut her mouth and let her fingers tighten around his.
The warmth of the wine, the night, and his steady pulse beneath her palm braided together into something confusing and fragile: fear braided with a flicker of trust she had not meant to give.
For a sliver of a moment, with the city unfurling beneath them and his hand holding hers, Mia let herself believe that perhaps—just perhaps—this year might hold things she had never been allowed to imagine.
For a breath—maybe two—the future didn’t feel like a trap.
It felt like the beginning of something neither of them had yet managed to ruin.
And then Luc moved.
One hand came up to cup her jaw, steady and sure, tilting her face toward his. The other slid around her waist, pulling her flush against him. She felt the hard planes of his chest, the quick thud of his heart under her palm.
“Mia,” he murmured.
She rose onto her toes and met him. The kiss was tentative at first—a question pressed to her lips—then softened into an answer.
His mouth was warm, tasting of wine and something darker, dangerously addictive.
She sighed against him, fingers threading through his hair as heat pooled low and sweet.
When he deepened the kiss, his tongue met hers, stealing her breath; the world narrowed to the press of his body, the arc of his hands as they moved across her back and waist like a man committing a map to memory.
When they finally pulled apart, both were breathless. Luc rested his forehead against hers, voice rough and honest. “I do not like how much I want you.”
Mia couldn’t help the smirk that tugged her lips, her mouth still buzzing from the kiss.
“I never realized I was the sort of woman who liked having her ego stroked. Tell me,” she murmured, her voice barely more than a tremor of breath.
“Do you feel that awful ache of want that keeps you awake long into the night?”
Luc’s eyes darkened. “Yes.”
A slow smile curved her lips. “I am glad it is mutually assured madness, then, because I ache for you.
A hiccup of laughter escaped her and turned into a giggle.
He chuckled low. “You’re tipsy.”
“I am not,” she protested, affronted and then, on a sudden impulse, spun away from him. Arms out, she began to sing, off-key and exuberant, “Someone to kiss, someone to hold, someone to love!”
She glanced back over her shoulder, mischief bright in her eyes. “Have you watched Coming to America? It’s set here in New York.”
“No,” he said, a bemused note in his voice.
“Will you watch it with me?” she asked, hopeful and ridiculous.
He arched a brow, that provoking humor brightening his gray-blue eyes, then said, “That’s two movie requests now.”
“Oh, yes, a double movie night. Will you join me?”
“Yes, mia colombina.”
Delighted with him, Mia lurched forward, clutching his shoulders for balance as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Luc’s grip tightened instinctively, a low growl rumbling from deep in his chest. “I see I need to get you tipsy more often,” he murmured, the flicker of restraint in his gaze unraveling until nothing but hunger remained.
She leaned in and bit his lower lip, teasing, before her tongue swept over it in a slow, soothing glide. His breath hitched, and his fingers dug into the curve of her hips, possessive and bruising, as if to anchor himself.
“I am so damn tempted to fuck you right now,” he rasped, voice rough and dark as sin.
Heat pooled low in her belly, her pulse pounding. “It’s strange,” she whispered, her lips brushing his, “how much I like it when you talk to me like that… so raw and real.”
For a moment, the world held still—just the sound of their uneven breaths and the faint thrum of the city outside.
Then she closed the last inch between them, pressing her mouth to his in a kiss that tasted of wine, danger, and feeling something terrifyingly soft unfurling inside her chest, pushing her to fall into feelings she did not understand.