Page 72 of Desperate Crimes
The way I like my coffee.
The way I read dark romance novels late at night and pretend it’s not him I’m imagining.
The way I smile when I’m pretending I’m okay.
He sees through it all.
He knows.
And part of me—some wild, aching part—wants to let him keep knowing. Wants to see how deep this madness goes.
Because being kissed like this?
It doesn’t feel like the beginning of something awful.
It feels like the first breath of something I’ve been drowning without.
And some part of me—some deep, broken part—wants him to.
“Goddamn, Princess,” Nico growls, voice gravel-thick and dripping with need. “I wanna rip this dress off your body and fuck you again, right here on this counter.”
My stomach—traitorous and completely without shame—grumbles in response.
Again.
Shoot me. Right now.
Heat floods my cheeks. I make a strangled sound, half mortified, half ready to crawl under the counter and disappear.
But before I can recoil or die of embarrassment, his mouth finds mine again.
Soft this time.
Tender.
And I forget everything for a second.
Just lips. Breath. Warmth.
“We’ll do that later,” he murmurs against my mouth. “I need to feed you first.”
“Feed me?” I repeat faintly, dazed.
He pulls back, blue eyes wicked and knowing. “So, eggs or pancakes?”
“Oh. Um,” I hesitate. “Both?”
He grins like I just gave the right answer on a test he wrote for me.
“Yeah. Both sound good to me too, Baby.”
Just like that, my dark, obsessive captor—the man who took me from my world and folded me into his like I belonged to him—becomes this.
Soft. Domestic. Sweet, even.
Like the devil knows how to cook breakfast and make you forget he dragged you into the underworld.
He leads me to a stool at the counter with a light touch on my lower back, like he’s been guiding me for years, and turns toward the stove.
