Page 169 of Creep

And I realized that was all I could ask.

He cupped my cheek and swiped away my tears with his thumb. I let my eyes take in his face. He looked tired.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. Everything will be okay.”

“How could I not worry about you?”

He smiled a little at that.

“Every time you step foot out that door, all I can think about is if I will see you again. I know you have to do it. I know you have to take the risks, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Baby,” he breathed out before pulling me in closer to him and pressing his lips against mine in a sweet kiss. I closed my eyes and savored the taste of him, my fist clutching at his shirt, not wanting to let him go.

He pulled back way too soon.

I tried to follow his lips with my own, but he held back.

I made a small sound in protest, and he let out a low groan and kissed me again.

I wrapped my arms around him and moved off the chair. He sat down on the floor and pulled me onto his lap. We never broke away from the kiss.

I let him deepen the kiss, letting out a small moan when I felt his tongue sliding against mine, the hot, silky taste of him sending a flurry of butterflies to flutter around inside me.

How could he always manage to make me feel like this, even after all I knew about him? I pulled away first this time, and he pressed his forehead against mine. I looked into the bottomless depths of his ocean blues, feeling as if the world had held its breath and it was just us. The feeling of being in a snow globe with him came back.

How I wished we could just stay like this.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he said softly, his hot breath fanning over my skin.

I nodded.

Everything was going to be okay. Because I didn’t know how I could keep going if that wasn’t the case.

44

MAEL

Findingthe head of the Camorra wasn’t hard.

In fact, I was almost disgusted by just how easy it had been for me to find the fucker and follow his moves for the past three days.

He was a man in his early fifties, walking around with an air of arrogance that usually only came with age for men in his position.

Men in the game never expected to live long. It was a blessing to get past thirty-five, a little harder if you were higher up in rank, like Miguel Gallo.

But the man had already entered his fifties, and his greed didn’t seem to have faded over time. If anything, it seemed to have intensified. He guarded his position with a vise grip. Even if there had been chatter of unease from his men that he should step down, should have stepped down decades ago and let his oldest son run his empire, I doubted he would do just that.

I stayed hidden in the shadows between two buildings as I watched his heavyset frame walk down the streets, his two guard dogs following behind him.

I shook my head. Even the men he had around to guard him had been oblivious to my presence. It was a fucking wonder no one had killed the fucker.

I supposed his reputation protected him well. He had been ruthless when he was younger.

Now…

I just wanted to get this done and move on to the next part of the plan.

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