Page 21 of Bound By A Promise
“You still haven’t been kissed.” Dario would fuck me over if he knew what I was contemplating.
“Yes, we just?—”
Slowly, I shook my head, my gaze locked on her stunning stare. I took a step closer, heat building around us as electricity snapped and crackled with the warning of an impending storm. Camila Ruiz was too young, too delicate, and too pure for a man like me. The Mafia and cartel had two marriages securing our alliance.
Spoiling a cartel princess could ruin everything.
I shut my mind down in considering right versus wrong. After all, I wasn’t a man who was guided by such simplistic standards. A few days ago, my knife was covered in another man’s blood. His body was now dissolving in a vat of acid.
Dante Luciano was as far from a choirboy as they could come.
Yet, there was something more primal at work, maybe even something I could justify as altruistic.
Camila wanted to be kissed.
Another step.
Camila’s eyes grew impossibly larger, and her lips opened slightly as she backed away from me. Our feet moved in sync, one and then the other. Her breathing came faster, causing her breasts to push against her dress. The material tented over beaded nipples.
“You still haven’t been kissed,” I repeated, my tone lower and my words slower. “You’ve kissed.”
She inhaled as she came to a stop, her shoulders colliding with the wall. She straightened her neck and squared her shoulders as if she wasn’t trapped by a man double her weight with a growing hard-on.
Her voice was strong with determination. “I’m almost twenty years old. I want to decide who kisses me, not my father and notel Patr?n.”
My pulse raced as I laid my forearm on the wall above her head. “Have you been promised to another?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’ve been told. It’s just watching Cat with Dario…I want to make my own choice.” Camila lifted her gaze, keeping her eyes on me.
The heat of her small body radiated through my cotton shirt, stimulating every nerve ending and rerouting my circulation. There would be no hiding my hardening cock in the damn shorts. “Are you sure you want to be kissed?”
She swallowed and nodded.
Reaching for her chin, I gently angled her face to the perfect position.
Her wide eyes watched as I leaned over her, bringing my lips back to hers. My hand slid around to her neck, fisting her long hair.
Unlike her first attempt, this kiss came with a combination of force and restraint. Her soft lips pushed back against mine. I fought the compulsion to slip my tongue into her warm haven.
Camila’s hands slid up to my shoulders and higher, her fingers weaving through my hair. I closed the gap between us, pressing my erection against her stomach before giving into my desire and sliding my tongue between her lips.
Her moans encouraged me to continue.
This was wrong and felt so right.
With the tension surrounding our father’s death and Dario’s takeover, our constant battles with the bratva, the fight in San Diego, and the trauma of the Ruiz invasion, this—right here—was the first moment in as long as I could remember that made my heart race and set off synapses throughout my nervoussystem. It was as if the stars aligned, bringing the two of us together in the right place at the right time.
Releasing Camila’s hair, I bunched the skirt of her dress higher until I grasped her thigh and wrapped it around my hip. Camila gasped as I leaned in, pressing my hardness against her core. Pulling away from our kiss, I searched her expression for an indication I’d gone too far.
“Have you had enough of your first kiss?”
She shook her head. “No, I like it.”
Definitely not a little girl.
I ran the pad of my thumb over her swollen lips. “You like it?” I asked with a grin.
Camila nodded. “I’m afraid this isn’t real, and I’ll wake up.”