The slap was loud enough to stop a violin. For one strange second, I didn’t feel it.

I didn't speak.

Instead, I reached out with both hands, grabbed the wet lapels of his suit jacket, and pulled him down to me.

Adrian made a sound deep in his throat—a low, possessive growl—and his mouth crashed against mine.

It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was an eruption.

His large hands tangled in my curls, pulling me flush against his massive frame, heedless of the flour on my apron or the rain on his wool. His lips were cold from the storm, but his tongue was hot, demanding, tasting of dark scotch and fierce hunger.

I gasped into his mouth, my hands sliding up his broad shoulders to wrap around his neck.

For four years, I had been handled as if I were something fragile, inconvenient, and burdensome. Evan had touched me with hesitation, as though he were doing me a favor, always keeping his distance, always critical.

Adrian touched me like a starving man who had finally reached a feast.

His hands slid down my spine, curving over the heavy flare of my hips, lifting me slightly until my toes barely touched the floor. He pressed me back against the heavy maple worktable. Flour puffed into the air around us, a white cloud settling over his dark shoulders.

“Adrian,” I whispered against his lips, breathless, dizzy from the sheer weight of him.

He broke the kiss, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down my jawline, over the sensitive curve of my neck, to the hollow of my throat. His hands gripped my thighs through my denim jeans, firm and possessive, testing their strength, celebrating their fullness.

“You are magnificent,” he murmured against my pulse point. “Every inch of you. Every curve. Do you have any idea what you do to me when you look at me with those green eyes?”

“You make me feel... dangerous,” I admitted, my fingers burying themselves in the wet silk of his hair.

He lifted his head, his gray eyes flashing with dark amusement and unmasked adoration. “You are dangerous, my sweet baker. You brought down a fifty-million-dollar logistics firm with four pieces of paper and a rolling pin.”

He picked me up effortlessly, seating me on the edge of the flour-dusted table so our eyes were level. He framed my face with his hands, his thumbs stroking the high curve of my cheekbones.

“Evan Cole was sentenced to five years in federal prison this afternoon,” Adrian said quietly.

I exhaled slowly, the last invisible chain around my chest snapping into dust. “It’s over.”

“It’s over,” Adrian agreed. “He will never touch you again. He will never speak your name again. And if he ever looks in your direction when he gets out, he will find me waiting for him.”

I looked at the scar running through his eyebrow, at the faint lines around his mouth, at the lethal, terrifying man who was looking at me as if I were the center of the universe.

“I’m not a socialite, Adrian,” I whispered. “I don't belong in boardrooms or penthouses. My life is flour, butter, and early mornings.”

Adrian smiled, leaning in until his forehead rested against mine.