Falling For You

※※※ Cross

Her laugh was a drug, pure and sweet, carried off by the wind whipping over the Williamsburg Bridge. I felt it through my back, where she was plastered against me, her arms a tight band around my waist.

I’d picked her up from her “art history tutorial”—a lie she’d fed her security detail that I’d helped her craft—and now we were flying, the city a sprawl of ambition and grime on either side of the murky river below.

Every chance I got. That was the mantra. Every moment I wasn’t running collections, breaking knees for her father, or training in the dank basement of my club, I was with her. It was a selfish, greedy kind of theft. I was stealing time from her future, from my own soul, and I couldn’t stop.

this will soon end. The thought was a cold blade twisting in my gut, a constant companion louder than the engine’s roar. She leaves in ten months. If she’s tied to me, she’ll fight it. She’ll dig her heels in, and Salvatore Damingo does not tolerate defiance, not even from his blue-eyed princess.

He’s the closest thing I have to a father. He pulled my mum and me out of the shit when I was eight, he gave mum a job we stayed in there quest house for a bit then he gave us a clean apartment, and paid for her medicine. He saw something in me—a useful kind of violence—and he’s been polishing it ever since. Last week, he made it official. I’m his primary enforcer.

It’s an honour. It’s a death sentence. It means the next step isn’t just threatening; it’s pulling the trigger. It’s looking a man in the eye as the light goes out. She can’t see that. The girl who traced the lines of my cross tattoo with such innocent wonder can’t watch the man who wears it become a monster.

But not yet. For now, I take. I take everything.

“Are you ready?” I called over my shoulder, feeling her nod against my back, her helmet bumping mine.

I tapped her knee where it was pressed against my thigh. A signal. Immediately, her hands, which had been resting on my stomach, began to move. They slid up, exploring, rubbing over the plains of my chest through my thin T-shirt.

A bolt of pure, undiluted heat shot straight through me. Christ. She had no idea the effect she had. No idea that her slightest touch could unravel the rigid control I wore like armour.

It was too much, too distracting while I was splitting lanes at seventy. I reached down, my left hand leaving the grip for a second, and grabbed both her wrists. I pressed them firmly back down against my abdomen.

“Ah, ah,” I said, my voice a low growl she’d feel through my body. “Bad girl. Hold on. I don’t want to kill you, Blue.”

A thrill went through her; I felt the little shiver. She liked it. I liked the command, the hint of danger that was so much a part of my world. She squeezed me tighter in response, a silent apology that wasn’t apologetic at all.

That was the other thing. She was the first. The first girl who wasn’t just a convenient body in a dark corner of the club. The first one whose smile could cut through the fog of anger that always seemed to cling to me.

The first one whose mind I craved as much as her touch. Lissa was smart, sharper than anyone gave her credit for, with a quiet rebellion in her that mirrored my own loud one. I was falling for her. Hard. And the fall was going to destroy us both.

We hit the Brooklyn side, and I took a series of turns, heading for a deserted industrial lot I knew about, tucked under the rumbling expressway. Gravel crunched under the tyres as I killed the engine. The sudden silence was heavy, filled only with the distant groan of the city and our own breathing.

I got off first, pulling my helmet off. She did the same, shaking out that waterfall of dark hair. In the grey afternoon light, her eyes were almost unreal—a cerulean blue so vivid it stopped my heart for a beat. She was smiling, a little breathless, her lips still pink from where she’d been biting them in concentration.

“Your turn,” I said, nodding at the bike.

Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“You said you wanted to learn. Can’t learn just on the back.” I walked around to stand besides the machine. “Come on. Basic lesson. This is the clutch. This is the front brake. This is the gear shift. Throttle here. Don’t touch it yet.”

She slid into the seat I’d just vacated, her small frame looking almost comical against the bulky bike. She was tentative at first, her hands gripping the handles too tight. I stood besides her, leaning over, my chest against her shoulder, my arms coming around her to guide her hands.

“Relax. You’re fighting it. It’s an extension of you. Feel the balance.” My voice was close to her ear. She smelled like sunshine and vanilla, a scent utterly foreign to the places I usually inhabited.

Under my instruction, her grip loosened. She practised finding the friction point of the clutch, her brow furrowed in adorable concentration. I was aware of every point of contact—my chin near her temple, my hands over hers, my thigh pressed against her leg.

“Okay, good,” I murmured. “Now, the kill switch is off. Ignition on. Pull the clutch in. Kick down to first gear.”

She followed the steps, her movements gaining confidence. The bike came to life with a potent thrum between her legs. I saw the shock, then the thrill, light up her face.

“Keep the clutch in. Just feel it.”

She did, her head tilted back to look up at me, her smile triumphant. “I’m doing it.”

“Yeah, you are.” The pride in my voice was real and thick.

The moment stretched. The bike vibrated beneath us. Her gaze dropped to my mouth. The air between us, thick suddenly crackled with a different kind of energy. The lesson was over.

I reached over and flicked the kill switch. The engine died, leaving a ringing silence that was somehow louder.

“Lesson two,” I said, my voice dropping to a rough whisper.

I didn’t wait for permission. I held her face in my hands and kissed her. This wasn’t like the frantic, desperate kiss on the cliff. This was slower, deeper, more possessive. Here, in this grimy, hidden place, I could pretend she was already mine. She made a soft sound against my lips,“Mmmh”,and her hands came up to clutch at my wrists, holding me to her.

I coaxed her mouth open and tasted her. Vanilla and warmth and Lissa. My hands slid from her face into her hair, angling her head to take the kiss even deeper. She met every stroke of my tongue with a shy, eager one of her own, learning me, claiming me back. I was drowning in her.

The rough brick of the warehouse wall at my back, the cold metal of the bike against my leg—none of it existed. There was only the softness of her lips, the little gasping breaths she took when I pulled back to kiss along her jaw, the way her fingers dug into my arms.

I pulled her off the bike, never breaking the kiss. I turned us, pressing her back against the gas tank, my body crowding hers. One of my legs slid between hers, and she arched into the contact with a sharp, breathy sigh.“Enzo...”

Hearing my name like that, a cry and a hope, was my undoing. I kissed her harder, my hands roaming down her sides, settling on her hips, pulling her tighter against me. I could feel every curve of her through our clothes, and the ache it created was a sweet, brutal pain. I wanted to memorise the feel of her and the sounds she made—the soft “ah” when I nipped at her lower lip and the shaky inhale when my thumb brushed the bare skin at her waist.

This was the addiction. This right here. The way the world, with all its violence and obligations, just fell away. In these stolen moments, I wasn’t Salvatore Damingo’s attack dog. I wasn’t Cross, the rising nightmare of the underground fight circuit. I was just Enzo, a twenty-year-old kid hopelessly in love with a girl he could never keep.

I finally broke the kiss, resting my forehead against hers, both of us panting, our breath mingling in white puffs in the cool air. Her eyes were glazed, her lips swollen and beautifully red. I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip, and she caught it, pressing a soft kiss to the pad.

“I’m falling for you, you know that?” The words were out before I could cage them. A fatal confession.

Her eyes, those devastating blue eyes, welled up. She saw the truth in mine. She saw the conflict, the darkness waiting on the edges, and the sheer, terrifying depth of what I felt. “I’m falling for you, too,” she whispered, the words a secret for the rusted girders and the passing traffic above.

And right then, with her in my arms and the future a storm cloud on the horizon, I made a vow to myself. I would take this year. I would take every second, every kiss, every laugh. I would let myself have this one pure, good thing.

For now, I just kissed her again, softly, sealing the promise I knew I would have to break.

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