Page 28 of Mafia Boss' Surprise Baby

“Nine. Right after they open.”

“I know you like it when there’s people playing on the main floor. That they’re on the other side of the glass,” he observes and I nod, not bothering to deny it. If all I can have of him is a few more months, I’ll give myself this to look forward to, a scheduled rendezvous.

I watch him take out his phone and put it in the calendar as a recurring appointment. I allow myself to smile even though it feels bittersweet, like I’ve lost something I knew I could never have anyway.

15

MICKEY

Ican’t make her promises. I know what she wants from me. I can tell by the tremulous, wide-eyed gaze. But I won’t do it. She’ll be back in California in a couple of months and I’ll be stuck here picking up the pieces of my life if I hand it all over to her today. I want to, don’t get me wrong. But this woman can destroy me.

I’m already hooked on hearing her every thought. I stepped out of a meeting yesterday to call and ask if she wanted to grab supper at the brewery on Castle Island. Because I crave her voice and I needed the promise of that to look forward to. Desperation creeps in so quickly, the feeling that I absolutely won’t survive this when she leaves me.

When she puts me to the question and asks me to tell her the truth, I damn near get up and walk away. There’s no way I can tell her the truth. I have to keep up my walls as much as I can and treat this like the fling it has never been. It’s all smoke and mirrors, armor that can’t begin to protect me. After all these years alone and lonelier than I even realized, I have Katie.

But only for a few months, only for now, because the universe is cruel that way. There’s no amount of acting casual and pretending I’m just here for a good time that’s going to soften theblow for me. All I can do is act more detached than I feel and set her up with managed expectations knowing that this isn’t some great romance.

This doesn’t end happily. I’ve known it all along. It’s why I fought the attraction for weeks. I’ll take every Wednesday with her, every minute I can get. Otherwise, I’ve got to try and remember how it feels to act normal. Not to walk around with my heart on my sleeve for someone I can never have.

Does setting up a weekly schedule feel seedy like she’s a mistress meeting me at a cheap motel by appointment? A little bit, not gonna lie. But I rationalize it was her idea and that’s also the furthest thing from how I think of her. She’s proof that I’m alive, a painful awakening after probably a decade or so of being all business and shutting down anything inefficient like loneliness or longing. I wouldn’t say she’s a breath of fresh air in my stale life. That’s a cliché and too tame for what she is. Katie’s an earthquake and a volcano, with maybe a little bit of hurricane thrown in.

As for her, I know damn well she’ll be fine without me. She’ll go back to LA and find a man inside of a week. A better man than me. One who doesn’t carry concealed or spend seven figures every year on covering up shit that would result in about forty felony convictions for myself alone. Not to mention the guys who’d go down with me. She deserves a lot better than a career criminal practically old enough to be her dad.

Telling her how I feel is out of the question. Asking her to give up a life out in California to stay in Southie and tie herself to a garden variety crook is out of the question. And I can’t lie to her. Of all the shit I’ve done and all the illegal and unethical shit I’ll continue to do, lying to Mary Katharyn Donahue isn’t going to be one of my sins. Everybody draws a line somewhere, I guess. I’ll cheat and steal or pop some disloyal bastard in a back alley without even using a silencer. But I will never lie to Katie.

That leaves me with the one thing I can do. Show her what I won’t let myself put into words. Right here. Right now.

She hasn’t left. She’s put about six inches of distance between us on the couch, an overpriced rattan thing with big cushions that the decorator ordered. She put her shirt back on a minute ago which was punishment enough. Now she’s grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around herself like she wants to hide. Or maybe she’s cold. Either way I can take care of that in no time.

“Please,” I say.

I’ve never begged for anything. Not even for my own life when I was nineteen and on the wrong side of a rival family. But I’ll beg her for this. She makes me wait for it. I’m holding my breath and half convince myself that she’s gonna tell me to fuck off. Then she turns toward me and holds out her arms, still with the blanket around her so when I embrace her, she’s wrapping the blanket around me too.

I kiss her like I’ll die without her because that’s what it feels like. The immense relief I felt when she opened her arms, the sensation of everything shifting into place, a rightness and a loosening of some knot inside me when she’s back in my arms. I want to take it slow but I won’t be able to, not tonight. Not after the things she said to me. I want to devour her, make her so happy that she can’t remember why she ever looked at another man. I want to ruin her because she sure as fuck ruined me in an elevator weeks ago.

I do it again now, what I did then and brush the backs of my fingers down her neck from just below her ear all the way to her collarbone in one slow, featherlight stroke. I feel the rapid pulse against my fingers, see the heat in her eyes. She knows what I’m doing and my mouth hitches up on one side, smug as hell and for good reason. Loosely, tenderly, I wrap my hand around her throat and dip my head back down to rub my lips against hers.I kiss the corner of her mouth, “You like that,” I whisper. She doesn’t need to answer. It’s obvious.

I nip at her lips, give her little teasing kisses until she surges up toward me and swings her leg across my lap. Everything in my body tightens with her on top of me. I’m so hard that I know I’m straining my zipper. Her small, soft hands comb my hair back from my face and I shiver at her light touch that’s not enough but somehow too much for me to endure at the same time.

I grab her wrists and love the gasp I startle out of her. She stares down at me as I wrap an arm around her hips and pull her flush against my chest. I can’t break the eye contact, the intense, breathless quality that ratchets up my desire for her. The silence is heavy and I can almost taste the scent of her arousal between us. I’m raw with need for her, my cock jerking in the confines of my jeans. I want to rip off her clothes, just the necessary ones right now. She feels how taut and rigid I am, how desperate for her, and shows me mercy.

Katie helps me get her pants off and settles back onto my lap bare from the waist down. My eyes are riveted to the pale swell of her mound and I know the sweet flush on her skin rises from that perfect soft heat between her thighs. I cup her with my bare hand because I need to feel her and I groan right out loud. She feels so perfect I want to sink into her and stay forever. This is why I can’t afford to say word to her now. Because I’ll say something I regret. Likestay here and marry me.

“What do you want?” she whispers, kissing my jaw, my neck, driving me insane.

“I want to fuck you with nothing between us and make you come so hard you forget your name,” I say without hesitation.

“Oh. Please do that,” she says with a shaky laugh.

First I track the backs of my fingers down her belly and pet her, fingering her tight folds. She rewards me with a gush thatis proof of her arousal. I swallow hard, fighting the urge to eat her out right now. I’m too far gone right now to take the time. I just lift her by the hips and hear my own breath stutter when she reaches for my belt. In no time she frees my cock, the thick, rigid shaft spilling into her hands eagerly. I pump into her grip involuntarily and she wraps her fist around me. My head goes back with a groan and I catch her wrist to stop her.

“Naughty girl, you’re going to make me come too soon,” I manage in a voice that sounds more like panting for breath than speech.

“Oh, Mick! Please!” she says, releasing me from her hand sand grabbing my shoulders to brace herself. She knows how I can’t hold myself back. I’m going to rut in this woman until I fill her with my seed. I want it dripping down her thighs.

With a fierce surge upward I notch the head of my shaft in her entrance and split her wide open with my thick cock. It’s paradise when she bears down so hard I almost black out before I’m fully seated in her. Once I am, I feel her spread around me and can see myself impale her. Katie rides me for a minute, circling her hips, lifting up and dipping back down to consume me. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Her milky pale flesh, plump and sweet, parts and yields as I thrust in to the hilt. Again and again I watch, mesmerized as we move together.

She can’t keep her eyes open and is too consumed with the relentless sensation. I wrap my arm around her hips and jerk her forward, grinding her against me while I’m deep inside her. She rocks back and forth frantically while I anchor her there, my cock twitching within her. With a scream she comes all around me, her orgasm a wave of throbbing surges that grip my cock tightly.

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