Be With Me

by Gabrielle Sands

“I’m not a chew toy,” he said through gritted teeth. “Fucking behave.”

“You know, most men have to earn a woman moaning their name, and you definitely haven’t done that.”

“If I’d known you were the enemy, I would have enjoyed having you beneath me even more.”

While she wasn’t looking, I swiped her lip gloss off her desk and shoved it into my pocket. Why? Fuck if I knew. Probably because I was losing my goddamn mind.

“I want you to kiss me. And not just some fucking peck. I want you to kiss me and mean it.”

I’ll work until I'm exhausted to fix the situation if that’s what I have to do to make sure you never have any power over me.”

“We all have our weak spots, Romolo.” A beat passed. “You don’t have to be so angry that I saw yours. The more you try to repress something painful, the more it tends to rupture to the surface when you least expect it.”

Mia Morales had infected my black heart with a virus that compelled me to do right by her. Fuck knows if I’d ever recover.

“Do I need to call security?” “Do that, and I’ll break each one of your fingers before I break your neck.” Erik’s hands fell away from my waist. For God’s sake. “Excuse his twisted sense of humor, Erik. He doesn’t get out much.” “She’s the only one who knows how to handle me.” Romolo’s tone was infuriatingly smug.

You haven’t left my mind for longer than a breath.”

“I can’t fucking sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see you so vividly that I can practically taste you.” Romolo leaned in, brushing his lips against my temple. “I don’t know what the fuck you’ve done to me, Berry, but I need to get you out of my system. And I think you need to get me out of yours too.”

“Simple. You. Me. A sturdy bed with a headboard, and a box of condoms. Remember how you said I hadn’t earned you moaning my name? Let me fucking earn it.”

“I’ve been burning for you, Berry. Feels like a fucking disease.”

Romolo was a contradiction—rough and ruthless one second, tender the next. And that mix? It threatened to undo me.

“You’re nuts.” “Comes with the territory.” “What territory?” He leaned down, pressing his lips to my ear. “The territory you waded into when you slept with a gangster.”

Good girls didn’t sleep with gangsters. But maybe I was tired of being good.

She smelled the way she always did—like my undoing.

“Turn around and bend over your fucking desk,” I rasped.

Black leather against delicate wrists.

Breathe. Just breathe.

“Once you’re mine, I won’t let you. If we cross this line, there’ll be nothing that can save you from me.”

“Maybe I was a victim back then,” I said quietly. “But I don’t have to keep being a victim of my past. Fuck the past. It doesn’t get to define me.”

“I love you like I’ve never loved anything in my goddamn life. It’s terrifying. It’s relentless. You’ve gotten under my skin and into my soul, and you didn’t even try. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being mine and became yours.”

“I wasn’t living before I met you, Mia. I was just existing. Trying to drown the parts of me I couldn’t face. But you—you came in with all your light, and suddenly there was nowhere left to hide. You cracked me open. Made me feel again.”

The world saw this man as rough, brutal, cold. A man built to break things. But I knew better. I’d seen the tenderness. The patience. The way he held me like I was something sacred.