“Now’s good.” She slowly sank onto him, her eyes squeezed shut, and her hands gripped the dusting of hair across his chest. “I take care of what’s mine, you know.”
Shane groaned at the liquid silk enveloping him, thrusting his hips upward as she circled her pelvis and grinded against him. He could never get enough of her sweet cunt. Even their role reversal, where she thought he was at her mercy, was a game he didn’t mind playing if the payoff was being buried inside her as she rode him.
Mia cupped her breasts and pulled her nipples as she bounced up and down his shaft. Each time she flexed her inner muscles, he moaned and increased his pace, until he was almost ramming into her. He knew they would both be sore in the morning, but he couldn’t hold back.
His dick hardened inside her as she came with a small gasp that turned into his name. Shane let go, spilling inside her as his erection twitched with release. He grunted and surged upward as she pressed down against him, the spasms in her sheath urging him to keep coming. He hadn’t had this many orgasms in one night since he was in his early twenties. Back then, he’d had the stamina to reload quickly, but the cost had been a hair trigger. With Mia, he had control and the ability to go again after a brief rest.
“You’re going to be the death of me, babe,” he groaned as she slipped off him and took time to untie his wrist before sprawling beside him. For a second, he was tempted to pin her beneath him and show her he was the one in charge, but he hesitated.
In reality, he was completely at her mercy. She had him wrapped around her finger, and she could do any damn thing she wanted to him. For example, the tie had loosened enough for him to slip his hand free about the time she’d been teasing him with that belt, but he’d played along, deciding to surrender to her and let her have the illusion of ownership.
But it was no illusion. The petite woman in his arms owned him as much as he owned her, and it was both humbling and awe-inspiring to have that epiphany and not want to run away screaming from the vulnerability it imposed. He couldn’t live without her. That realization came before another. He’d never actually spoken the words in return. He’d plotted and planned to get her to fall in love with him, all the while intending to remain aloof and immune.
But he had fallen into his own trap. Shane laughed, earning a puzzled look from her. “I just realized something.”
“Oh?”
“I love you, Mia.”
She blinked, her obvious confusion deepening a bit. “Uh, yeah, I thought we established that earlier?”
He pulled her closer with his good arm. “Yeah, except I didn’t say the words, and I hadn’t yet admitted them to myself.” Feeling a bit ashamed, he confessed, “I set out to make you fall in love with me so you’d stay without protest, but I was an idiot.”
“Why?” There was a hint of hurt in her voice, but maybe hope, too.
“I thought I could remain immune and not love you back.” He sighed, but it was a reflection of his contentment. “I didn’t understand that I fell for you the moment I saw you in that restaurant, baby girl.” He had been a lost cause from the second he set eyes on her, and he was surprisingly at peace with that fact.
“Oh,” she said again, this time sounding much more content as she cuddled closer.
He’d never been a snuggler, or had much use for women to linger in his bed after sex, but it was nice holding her. Shane let his eyes close and surrender to the pull of the drowsiness from the pain pills now that the post-coital euphoria was fading from his system. A small smile curved his lips as she stretched and put her arm across his stomach. Life was good, even with a gunshot wound and the war with Peretti. She was worth all of it and more.
17
Their idyllic interlude lasted three days before reality intruded. Mia and Shane had spent most of the time in his suite, making love, talking, watching movies, and learning how to be a couple without all the baggage they had each dragged into the relationship.
That morning as they slept in after a late night, his phone woke them a little after ten a.m. Mia intercepted it first, hoping to screen his callers. “Hello?”
“I need Shane. Now. No bullshit this time, Mia.”
Murphy’s voice brooked no argument, and she reluctantly passed the phone to Shane. He had been looking much better, but his skin paled as the conversation progressed, and he looked sick. Shane’s side of the conversation was brief, concluding with, “I’ll be there soon.”
After he hung up, he started to get out of bed. Mia put a hand on his arm. “Do you really have to go?”
He nodded abruptly. “Peretti bombed Kilkearny’s Pub, Mia. Several of our people died in the blast, and there are feds crawling all over the place. We can’t hide this one or pay off the right people. I have to deal with things.” Shane’s mouth compressed, and he scowled. “Peretti has to disappear. No more of this shit.”
She licked her lips, searching for the right words. “I’m sorry about your friends.” He inclined his head once, his expression remaining stoic. Gently, she stroked her fingertips over his skin. “We could leave.”
His frown deepened. “What?”
“You and me. We could just leave this all behind.”
Shane snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
Mia blinked to hold back annoying tears. “I don’t want to lose you to this craziness. I don’t want your bosses to decide I have to go with Aldo, because I’d rather die than let that happen. If you love me, Shane—”
“Stop right there.” The warning in his voice was too strong to ignore. “Don’t play that kind of bullshit game, Mia. You know I love you, and I would do anything to keep you. I have done all kinds of things already. Leaving the Murphy family is not an option. We would never be safe, and I couldn’t live with the lack of honor in such an action.”
His rejection hurt, though she understood his dedication. It didn’t make it any easier to bear, to know that loving Shane included the part of him devoted to his mafia family. She didn’t think she would always come second, and she didn’t doubt his obsession, love, and devotion to her, but her nerves were too raw not to feel like he’d chosen them over her. Rather than say something horrible she couldn’t take back, she simply nodded.
