Read Exploding: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection #1) for Free Online Page B

lungful of the scent of her hair. She smelled of vanilla and lavender, and before he could stop himself, he knew he had never inhaled a sweeter or more enticing scent. He held Fallyn’s left breast, steadying both of them as their hearts banged against each other’s. Maria’s breasts were painfully fake. It had been a long time since he’d felt a firm pair of natural, full breasts. He listened to her breathing hitch, wondering why neither of them were pulling away from the inappropriate entanglement. His hand screamed at him for retreating as his palm migrated from her left breast toward the center of her cleavage. “Sorry. Did you burn yourself?”
    “No,” she whispered, afraid to break the tension that had come out of nowhere. She realized she had landed herself in the viper’s arms. She had joked with the snake, laughed with him. If her brothers could see her, she knew there would be fallout not even her best diplomatic reasoning could field. “Thanks for that. I nearly burned myself all over.” She turned her wrist and shook a healthy amount of cayenne pepper into the bowl, grinning as Vince hissed in defeat. “I win.”
    “Yes, but your customers lose.” His lips were too close to her ear for the candid business greeting he’d intended. He’d never thought much about Fallyn in the ways that were now running through his head; she was so much younger than he was growing up. She had always been beautiful; there was no denying that, but her time away had transformed the beauty into a bombshell. A bombshell whose breasts he could feel the swell of as she breathed in the sexual tension neither of them were equipped to deal with.
    Her hand reached up and rested on his, tangling her fingers through his atop her breasts. “My heart’s racing,” she admitted, shocked that she wanted his hand to stay where it was. She had never been so daring, and knew she was on the edge of something dangerous. “Feel that?”
    “Mine, too.” His other hand found its way to her side, snaking around her stomach and causing her to arch her back. “I definitely feel it.”
    Fallyn’s free hand took on a life of its own, reaching up behind her to stroke his cheek, feeling the stubble there and holding her breath when his lips turned to her palm to deliver a silent kiss for her to hold onto long after their moment of insanity had passed.
    He slowly released her, backing up to assume a more respectable distance. “I should go. Please tell your family I stopped by to wish you luck with your store.” He ran his hand through his black hair, messing the tresses that he usually kept perfectly in place. She was disheveling him, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about a curvy tornado messing up the balance of his life’s plan. “I really do want peace between our families. Any way we can work toward that, we should.”
    Fallyn touched her chest where his hand had been, her eyes wide at the thoughts she had been entertaining mere seconds ago. She nodded slowly. “I’ve been saying that all along.” She cleared her throat, standing straighter. “If you really want peace, give it time and tread lightly. Keep an eye on Joey and Tony. They tend to run their mouths, and some of my brothers have hot tempers. Bad combination. Killian wants what you want, though. Daddy put him in charge, so I’d appeal to him. Ignore the others if they seem resistant to the truce. Kill can handle his own people.”
    Vince took in her lovely face and mulled over her words. “I can deal with Joey and Tony. Any way you can get Carrigan to stop driving his patrol car around the edge of our neighborhood every night? It makes everyone edgy.”
    Fallyn nodded. “I can ask him to stop, but you know Carri does what he wants.”
    “You have more sway than you realize. I’m not expecting you to work miracles, but a word or two from you might help.”
    “You’re overestimating my reach.”
    Vince paused a beat, and then reached forward to wipe a bit of flour