“Do you see me on my knees before you, dollface?” I rubbed my fingers over her and then I took my blade from my trousers. Opening it so that it pointed my way, I offered her the handle. “Hold it.”
The dried blood there was another symbol of what we’d done, what we were, and what I’d do for her. She held it out to me, pointed at my heart, and then I guided her closed fist and the handle to her pussy. I pressed it against her opening.
“Do you see my life in your hands?” I whispered. “Do you want to take it, knowing I put yours at risk?”
She shook her head, and her eyes sparkled. “I can’t take your life, Cade. Not when you gave me back mine.”
She couldn’t mean that. “I put you in danger.”
“The only danger was because of them. And now I’m only in danger of myself.” She said it softly, and I knew she didn’t want to admit it, maybe didn’t even want me to hear it.
“Dollface,” I tightened her grip on the handle. “Do you feel that? The power you hold in your hands? In your soul?”
No woman would ever have me in her grasp the way she did. Tears formed in her eyes, and it felt like my damn heart broke when she said, “What if I can’t be powerful enough, Cade? What if what they’ve done makes me relapse?”
I encircled her hand and moved the weapon’s handle against her. She whimpered as I pushed my chest into the pointed tip until I felt the prick and blood started to bleed through my shirt. I grabbed her jaw with my other hand. “Watch how we work, Izzy. You see us together here, holding this. It’s me making you feel everything, protecting you from the other side of destruction, and you holding my life in your hands. Me and you. We work.”
She was panting, riding the handle, and losing herself in it until she was wet enough for me to know she was ready for me. I turned the blade and slid it between her pussy and the shorts to cut them, then up the side so that they fell, tattered to the floor. Then I pocketed the knife so I could have my way with drinking her in.
“Ride my face, baby. And don’t stop until I tell you to.” I grabbed her neck, needing to own her, needing to feel the control of her life in my hands again.
I cut off her oxygen, and her pussy gushed as though she needed it just as bad. She clawed at my head, at my back, and wrapped her legs around me. I clenched that neck harder, and she pulled me even closer, like she wanted me to take her life, like I was the only one who deserved it.
When she came on my tongue, I just barely remembered to release my hold from her so she could gasp in air. I saw how the marks left would bruise, and I was ashamed to find I wanted to put more there. I unzipped my trousers and pulled my cock from them.
She spread her legs, holding my gaze, and murmured, “Fuck me hard, Cade. Make me feel alive.”
Her words caused something to break in me. I’d almost lost her, and it’d been my fault. I was supposed to be watching her every move. I was supposed to keep her safe, and she was only supposed to be in danger with me. Instead, my name, the company that I’d assigned her to, and the project I’d had her work on had almost taken her from me.
I thrust into her over and over again and emptied my seed inside her, hoping it’d never leave her body.
When we pulled up to my apartment, I tucked my suit jacket around her and swept her up like a baby to carry her into the building. Once we were inside, she walked around and took in the lack of decoration and interior design. It was an expensive place in a high-rise near Stonewood Enterprises with floor-to-ceiling windows onto the city. I didn’t turn on the lights; I let the moonlight fall on us instead. Her in those damn T-shirts with my windows as her backdrop was all I needed to see for the rest of my life, anyway.
“Do I get a tour?” she asked softly as she dragged a hand over the island counter. Then she saw the roses on it. “Someone get those for you?”
“I’ve had them delivered daily since the cabin. I needed a reminder of you.”
She hummed but didn’t say much else.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She stood there in that baggy shirt, dirt and dried blood splattered across it. “I’m a mess, huh?”
“I’d have you this way always if I could.”
“Then have me again.” She lifted a brow, and my dick jumped immediately. She needed rest, but I saw the hunger in her eyes, the way she was pushing herself to stay alive, to test her own limits.
“Let’s go to the shower.”
“You think I’m so fragile all of a sudden, Cade? You just killed a man in front of me, and I realized something during that time.” She strode over to my window. “I wonder if the city will know it too. If my family will accept it. Will people see that if you hadn’t slit his throat, I would have? That I have that in me? That I’m okay with having it in me all of a sudden? That I’m okay with every fucking emotion now?”
Jesus.
Hearing her say it out loud shouldn’t have made my cock hard immediately. Yet I loved Izzy when she was mad, loved when she embraced what she really wanted—and if that was killing an asshole, I probably would have sat there watching and smiling the whole time.
I came to stand behind her and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Are you ashamed of that?”
She sighed as she stared out at the city. “I think I’m coming to terms with it. I’m not all good. I’m different, and different’s okay. It’s what makes me who I am, and I need to be me.”
I nestled into her neck. “I’ll show you how good it will be for you, dollface. Let me take you to the shower.”
She turned her head to look up at me, those hazel eyes vibrant and alive, searching my features. “Why? I want the world to see you taking me like this. Dirty and a mess. Raw and different and ready.”
She took her time taking her tattered shirt off, sliding it inch by inch over her body before dropping it on the floor. The moonlight shone on her curves and had me memorizing every shadow and highlight.
I fucked her with the city as my backdrop and wondered if it’d be enough to show them that she belonged to me.
Then I fucked her slow into the night, made love to her, and told her she was mine forever. I meant it. I lay awake figuring out how to make it all right, how to make sure she was never taken again, how to make sure she’d always be mine.
Did I deserve for her to be mine when I knew deep down I’d always be some sort of danger to her? Someone would always have it out for me and my family.
I found that I loved her, and that meant I had to determine whether I loved her enough to let her go.
29
Izzy
“Where are we going?”
Cade had somehow managed to get me to sleep in after showering and then fucking all night. And in that time, he’d had a suitcase of my belongings—including spray paint—sent over. I searched the bag and was able to pick out a pink T-shirt with Coolio on it and shorts. If my whole wardrobe wasn’t a tribute to the nineties outside of work, I didn’t want it.
He’d hurried me into his Tesla and told me nothing else until he murmured, looking out the window, “To your family’s.”
“Um . . .” I stuttered. “That’s not a good idea. My brothers will—”
“Be happy to see me?” He chuckled and then cracked his knuckles. “I’m aware no one wants to see me right now.”
Everyone knew the situation because Dante had told them. They’d all been texting me this morning. Gossip in my family traveled like wildfire. Dom was probably the most persistent, only because he was the oldest, and Lilah was already married to someone in the mob, so she’d given our family a good enough scare before.
Declan: I’m at Mom and Dad’s. I flew in. You’d better get here now.
Me: Please don’t start. We’re already on the way.
Declan: We? No.
Declan: Don’t bring him here. You need to rest and heal.
Me: I am. I’m with Cade and safe.
Declan: That’s not possible if you’re with him. What the fuck is wrong with you and Lilah? Pick normal men. Not the mob.
Me: Oh shut up.
I shoved the phone into the cup holder. “I don’t need to go to my family’s.”
“I’m going to be gone for a few days for work,” Cade explained, but his voice was stilted, distant, not at all how it had sounded last night. “I don’t want you to be by yourself, and you can’t work, but the election is days away.”
The reminder perked me up. “We need to get back to work. Not go to my parents’.”
“You’re on leave until further notice.”
“Leave?” I leaned forward, and when he didn’t respond, I snapped my fingers in front of his face to at least get him to glance my way. “I can’t be on leave during the election, Cade. JUNIPER is my baby and—”
“You taught everyone everything they need to know. I’ve gotta be in DC, and then I’m heading out for work. You’ll be back in the office in no time. Take a little—”