Chapter 83 Untitled Chapter

Chapter 83 Untitled Chapter
Roberto opened his eyes and looked at her like she was the only real thing in the world. Then he kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. Like a promise.
Kendrix melted into it. The fight left her body. Her hands slid up from his shirt to his shoulders, then to the back of his neck, fingers tangling in dark hair. She answered him without thinking. 
This was dangerous and she knew it. Every part of her understood that kissing Roberto Tuzo was like playing with fire in a room full of gasoline. He was power and violence and control wrapped in skin. One wrong move and she could get burned.
But this wasn’t the first time fire had caught between them. They had kissed like this countless times before. They had let the walls fall, let the restraint snap, let mornings turn into something neither of them said out loud. She knew the weight of him. The way his hands felt like they could destroy and protect in the same breath. The way he looked at her after, like he was shocked he had let himself want her that much.
But his mouth on hers didn’t feel like danger right now. It felt like coming home to a place she had never been allowed before. Like a secret she wasn’t supposed to know but he had handed her the key anyway.
So she didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. Whether burned or not, she had already chosen the fire.
Roberto tasted like sleep and restraint and something darker she didn’t have a name for yet. He kissed her like he had been starving for years and she was the first meal he had been offered. Like every second he had held back last night was debt he was paying now, with interest. His grip on her waist turned possessive, pulling her closer until there was no space, no air, no world outside this bed and this moment. One hand fisted in her hair at the back of her head, tilting her just enough to deepen the kiss. The other stayed locked around her back, thumb pressing into her spine like he was branding her through the thin fabric of her sleep shirt.
Kendrix gasped into his mouth. Heat flooded her face, her chest, everywhere his hands touched. Her knees had stopped working the second he kissed her the first time, so she clung to him. Her fingers curled into the fabric at his shoulders, then dragged up to his nape because she needed to touch him too. She needed to know this was real. That the man who never let anyone close still chose her, again, like he always did when no one was watching.
When they broke apart, both of them were breathing hard. Kendrix’s lips were parted, stunned, swollen from his mouth. Her pulse hammered in her throat, loud enough she was sure he could hear it. Roberto’s thumb brushed across her bottom lip once, slow and rough, like he was wiping away the proof of what he had just done. But his eyes betrayed him. Dark. Hungry. Undone in a way only she ever got to see.
He rested his forehead on hers again. He didn’t speak for a long time. The only sound was their breathing, tangled and uneven, filling the quiet room. His chest rose and fell against hers. His heart beat fast under her palm where she still touched him.
Countless times, she thought. And every time it feels like the first and the last at once.
Maybe I should stop this…whatever is going on with us. She thought again, biting her lips.
But she didn’t stop. Because when he looked at her like that, all the reasons to run faded. There was only him. Only this. Only the way his hands knew exactly how much pressure to use, how to hold her like she might shatter and like she was his to protect at the same time.
Finally his voice came out low, rough at the edges. Like it cost him something to say it out loud. Like each word was being dragged from a place he never let anyone see.
“Kendrix.” 
Kendrix made a sound in her throat. Couldn’t form words yet. Her lips still tingled from his. His hand slid from her hair to cup her face fully. His thumb tracing her cheekbone, her jaw, the curve under her eye. Slow. Reverent. Like he was committing every inch of her to memory in case the world took her away tomorrow.
“I don’t do soft,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it filled the room anyway. “I don’t do mornings like this. I don’t let people this close. I don’t… feel things I can’t control.” 
Kendrix’s heart twisted. “I know.” 
Because she had seen it. The coldness. The distance. The way he moved through the mansion like a ghost people were afraid to touch.
“But you.” His eyes locked on hers. Intense. Unflinching. No mask. No walls. Just the raw truth. “You walked into my house and started rearranging things. My bed. My temper. My rules. Me…Everything” 
He paused. The room felt smaller. Hotter. Like the air couldn’t hold all the things he wasn’t saying.
“I told you five minutes,” he said, voice dropping lower until it was almost a growl. “Because I knew if I said what I really wanted, you’d run. You’d see it in my eyes and bolt for the door.”
Kendrix swallowed. Her throat was dry. “And what do you really want, Roberto?”
His thumb stilled at the corner of her mouth. He stared at her lips like he was fighting the urge to kiss her again. Then dragged his eyes back up to hers, and the look in them stole her breath.
“More than five minutes,” he whispered. “All of them. Every morning after this one. I want you looking at me like that when you wake up. Like I’m the only thing you see. I want to be the reason you argue about bed occupancy at 7am. I want to be the first face you see when the nightmares come. I want…” He cut himself off. 
Roberto's Jaw clenched. A muscle jumped there. Like admitting the rest would break him open completely.
Kendrix didn’t let him. She reached up, covered his hand with hers where it held her face. Her fingers were small against his, but she pressed like she could give him courage through her touch. “Say it. All of it.”
Roberto exhaled like he had been holding his breath all night. When he spoke, the words came out stripped bare. No filter. No strategy. Just him.
“I want you, Kendrix. Awake. Asleep. Arguing with me. Staring at me like I’m something worth admiring. Smiling at me like I didn’t spend years making sure no one ever could. All versions. The brave one. The scared one. The one who pokes my chest and tells me I’m breaking company policy. The one who talked back at me with defiance burning in her eyes. I want every version of you."