Page 299 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

I sigh. “You know, things always get better just when you think they can’t get any worse.”

“I’ve been waiting for that sudden shift for about a year,” she snips. “It’s been a damn long twelve months with no end in sight.” She sighs. “And now this business with Frankie…he’s always been this way. Worse than when he was a kid. Short fuse, short-sighted. He never thinks about consequences. He’s all emotion. But he means well, and I know he’d do anything to keep me safe. He’s going to find your money, Roman,” she says, twisting toward me. “I promise you he will. He won’t want anything bad to happen to me.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” I ask. “Because I can’t tell right now.”

She leans back against the couch cushion. “He doesn’t always do the right thing. But he does the best he can. I just hope he figures out a smart way to get you what you want,” she whispers. “Because I’m afraid his emotions may get him killed otherwise.”

I don’t usually feel remorse for my work.

Then again, I don’t typically bring my work home with me.

But having Chella here, next to me, exposed in the literal and figurative senses, makes me realize what I’ve been missing out on all of these years. I thought I was just missing the sensitivity chip. Now I see I’ve had it all along. I just didn’t care enough to channel it.

I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life and I never looked back once.

And now, I have another choice to make, a chance to make a strong move to restore faith in my influence.

Except I can’t seem to stop looking backward at the girl who makes me feel more vulnerable and exposed than I ever have before.

It was dangerous ten years ago…and it’s even more so now.

Marchella runs a hand through her sleep-tousled hair and I catch a whiff of coconut.

My shampoo…

I shift on the couch when my dick jumps at the mental images of her soaped up in my shower, naked and wet. She was gorgeous as a teenager, but now? Christ. She’s all woman with curves that my hands itch to caress. My mind sticks me in the glass-enclosed space right behind her, my cock pressed against the globes of her ass. I run my hands over her tits, flicking her nipples as she moans and rests her head on my shoulder. My cock dips in between her ass cheeks and she gasps when my fingers slide into her tight pussy?—

“Roman!” She snaps her fingers in front of my face and suddenly, I’m no longer submerged in the hot spray.

“Yeah?” I say.

“Did I lose you? I feel like you completely blacked out there for a second.”

“No, I’m here. I was, ah, just thinking that maybe you might be, um, hungry.”

Hungry. Hmm. Well, I can definitely say at least one of us is.

She narrows her eyes. “I forgot. We didn’t eat before because you pissed me off.”

I scrub a hand down the front of my face. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean for you to starve.”

“Well, I had the anger to keep me sated,” she says with a tiny smile.

“Are you still angry?”

“Are you still a dick?”

We stare at each other. I watch her tongue dart out of her mouth and sweep over her lips, her expression full of conflict.

I feel that conflict, too.

Fuckingeverywhere.

“I can’t apologize for who I am, Marchella,” I say, my voice gruff. “But I promise that I’ll never hurt you. You’ll be safe with me.”

She nods. “That pretty much tells me what I need to know.”

“What do you mean?”

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