"If I kiss you right now, Mara, we can't go back to pretending tomorrow," he vowed. "If I claim you now, I will never let you go. I would burn this city to the ground before I ever let anyone take you from me."
He went quiet, and the weight of his promise filled the space between them. It was both a warning and a confession… like he was giving her one last chance to push him away.
Mara didn't say anything; she just looked at him.
At the sharp line of his jaw, clenched tight with the effort of holding himself back.
At his hand still buried in her hair, trembling slightly, not from weakness, but from restraint.
At his eyes, which were pitch black and completely stripped of the Don, the man who had walked into a Council chamber this morning and dismantled twenty years of Greco's power without raising his voice.
None of that was in this room right now.
