“Honey, we had this conversation. You’re skirting around what’s really bothering you. Earlier, you had that same look on your face right after I . . .” She trailed off. “The same one after I had you in my mouth tonight. If I’m doing something wrong, you have to tell me.”

Siena tried not to think about the words Elijah had said to her when he’d thrown her out of his house. He’d proved time and again that he hadn’t meant them, but they still reverberated through her mind when she caught that particular look on his face. For the first time her gaze slid from his, and she looked down at her body. Her breasts exposed, her skirt around her hips, exposing her bare skin to him. She had to look slutty.

Siena shifted in her chair, drawing her legs back so she could sit upright. The problem was, he didn’t move back. Not an inch. Not one single centimeter. She put a hand to his belly, trying to shove him back.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he demanded. “Fucking get a clue, Siena, the way you touch me, the way you work me with your mouth. The way you give that to me undoes me every single fucking time.” The admission burst out of him.

Siena looked up at his gorgeous, masculine face, the hard features even harder than usual. The silver eyes burning brighter than normal. Intense. Focused. Close to leopard. He looked aggressive. Dominant. Standing over her like a conqueror.

The truth hit her then. Her man, the supremely confident, arrogant, powerful Elijah Lospostos, head of the Lospostos crime family, feared by everyone, was insecure when it came to her. Siena Arnotto. A virgin who knew nothing about sex. Who brought him trouble—the kind of trouble that could get a man killed. He was the type of man who reacted with anger and intensity when he felt threatened. She was the threat to him. More precisely, the way he loved her.

She loved that. She also detested it with every breath she took. She realized that one woman, his sister Rachel, had been his Achilles’ heel all his life. His love for her had made him vulnerable. He’d been forced to do vile things, things that shaped him into the dangerous killer who stood in front of her, staring down at her with a kind of fury gathered in the centers of his eyes. Rachel had made him vulnerable. What would loving Siena do to him? And he loved her. He wanted her in his life. He needed her.