Page 65 of Hostile Vows
“Holy shit, Dré—” Sharp teeth sink into my prickled flesh, sending electric shocks right through me. Her body convulses, wrangling waves of pleasure. “It’s still—going,” she breathes. “So damn gooood.”
I wrap my arms around her, angling my hips to nudge in deeper while she’s trembling. When her muscles finally relax and her breathing settles, I stroke her hair and hold her against my heaving chest, tight and possessive. I’ve never let a woman screw me like that. Although, something tells me it’s not the way we fucked, but the woman who’s just ruined me for sex with any other.
“Thank you, Dré.” She sighs, still stuck to my sweaty chest.
“What for?”
“For saving me like you promised all those years ago.”
I haven’t saved her yet. The bastard who abused her still walks the earth unpunished and her father, well, he’s a dead man too. Rather than reply, I kiss her head and pull the sheet over the top of us. My busy mind is at peace and my body is fully satiated for once. With that bizarre awareness, I fall asleep to the sound of her hypnotic breathing.
It feels like my eyes have only closed when they reopen to the brightness of my phone glowing on the nightstand beside me. She’s no longer on top of me, her naked body flush to my side and her arm draping my hip bone.
I lean across and grab the phone, noticing the time. It's 2:30 in the morning.
Answering it, I slide out from under her arm, sit up, and throw my legs over the edge of the mattress. “Letterman? What’s up?”
I’m walking away from the bed when he speaks. “We have intel. Except this shit isn’t about Elias or Sapori. The chopper is fueled and waiting on the roof, ready for takeoff. Reno and I are happy to deal with this, but I think you need to see it for yourself, parce.”
I rake a hand through my hair. “What are we talking about here?”
“Our guys visited a local stash house and found something… Look, Dré, this issue needs a Souza presence. It’s…” Letterman’s voice goes ice cold. “We’re waiting for you downstairs.”
Fuck.
I hang up and pull on my boxers, glancing over my shoulder where she’s still peacefully sleeping. The compulsion to kiss her fizzes through me, so I prowl to her side of the bed, reach forward, and tuck a wave of hair behind her ear.
Staring at the battered marks, so dark and ugly on her beautifully structured face, I curse the fucker who put them there.
Sapori.
His henchmen dished out the punishment, but her father had given the order. I drop my lips to her temple, inhaling the scent of her. The seductive notes of sex and Sin.
I pull back and take a steadying breath, wondering how the fuck she could get under my skin this much. As I leave her in my bed, a weirdness unsettles me.
My muscles become twitchy and a buzzed source of energy pistons through my limbs, making me jog, rather than walk. I’m pumped, indestructible, and ready to rule my kingdom with an iron fist, no matter what I’m about to face.
26
SINÉAD
He thought I was asleep.
But the gentle kiss he placed beside my eyebrow settled the warmest sensation on my skin. I couldn’t open my eyes for fear of my husband seeing straight into my soul. If he did, he would’ve found a racing heart that was shackled in the dark for too long, and now I’m terrified that he’s set it free.
Whether the old ties of our friendship never frayed, or it’s the new relationship we’ve kindled, I’ve become emotionally attached to him—and now anxiety is eating me alive like a super-spreading virus all because of Frankie’s egocentric demands. It’s not just Mammy I have to protect; it’s André too.
I fully understand who my husband is and the power his family holds, except it appears that no one can circumvent the evil streak of a Sicilian mafia don with high expectations and tunnel vision. He’s not only spying on me, but he’s watching André too and making my husband’s entire inner circle vulnerable.
Upon waking in his suite, I found my beautiful husband pacing. His distraught obsidian eyes shielded the vengeful storm within him, his muscular flexed arms folded over his inked chest in quiet observation of me. It was at that moment I’d recognized his true nature from a different angle. I witnessed my best friend's creased brow, his pouty regard, and caught every deep exhalation.
It wasn’t a monster staring at me—it was my villainous hero, my husband. I have no right to hate him for the years we spent apart. We were too young to know any better, just two kids who hunted an escape together. Me, from my brutal reality, and him, from his father’s constant displeasure.
After years of resenting him, I finally discovered he never found the scribbled note I’d left for him. He had no idea we traveled to Donegal to stay with my uncle. Instincts tell me our cottage on his family’s estate was raided after we fled, and all traces of our existence removed. That’s what happens when you challenge a Hennessy.
Maybe it was better that we had parted ways. Fate had its own plans and today, as grown-ups, our bond has crystallized into something heartfelt—my heart feels it. And I’m starting to think his does too.
In normal circumstances, I would have naturally seduced André after I’d met his harrowing expression in the hotel room. The murderous countenance he wore switched in a heartbeat as he hauled me into his strong arms. Wide inky pupils had engulfed midnight irises the instant his fingertips located my seeping head injury.
