Chapter 61 MICELI

This fucking woman.

Sex with her is like bathing my soul, something I thought impossible. Bending down, I lift her up and kiss lips swollen from stretching around my cock. Róise returns the kiss, holding nothing back.

Like every single time we touch.

She offers the beauty of her soul along with her body and that sweet, dirty sensuality. I lick my seed from around her lips and she moans.

Fucking moans.

No other woman matches me like this one. Age and innocence don't matter because at her core, she is a deliciously sensual creature.

And yet so pure, her soul shines like a beacon in the darkness of our world.

I rip her dress getting it off her and she doesn't yell. She laughs.

She's not laughing when I plunge my hard cock, that never softened after coming, deep into her perfect, tight pussy.

No, she's moaning and writhing and meeting me thrust for thrust.

It's my turn to play with her tits and fuck if I don't get lost touching her until she screams in my ear. "Move, Miceli. Fuck me like you mean it."

Ah, the word that only comes out of her mouth when she's so far gone in her need, she can't help herself.

Twining my fingers with hers, I push them down onto the bed on either side of her head. Our gazes lock and I let mine show words locked too deep inside my broken soul to find voice .

Driving my cock as deep as it will go, I heave above her. Lungs bellowing and heart pounding, I push us both toward another catastrophic climax.

For one long perfect moment, we are joined so completely, the essence of who we are mixes and we are one.

Afterward, I hold her tight, brushing my hand up and down her naked back and pretend not to notice the hot moisture dripping from her eyes to my chest.

Her tears express the profound connection of our lovemaking that I have no words for.

That she allows herself to cry in my presence is both an honor and a gift. I lost my ability to cry before I learned to read, but Róise was taught not to cry in front of others, like my sister Giulia was.

"I can't believe you're still wearing the top half of your suit." Her giggle is a little waterlogged. "Take it off. I want to feel your skin. All of it."

"That's an order I don't mind taking." I sit up and start stripping out of my suit jacket, askew tie and rumpled shirt.

She watches me like I'm putting a show on for her. "I'll remember that."

"Just remember, I expect reciprocity. Reaching out, I tug one of her sweat damp curls.

"Like that's a problem. Keeping my clothes on around you is the bigger challenge."

"We fit."

She nods. "Way more than I thought was possible."

"Just think, you could have ended up married to Jed."

"You know about that?" she asks. "Only my uncle would even consider marrying me off to a man Gabriel picked out."

"You would never let that happen." And I'm not so sure her uncle did consider it.

The way he talks about Gabriel's disgusting plan doesn't indicate a man who sees it as a viable alternative for his niece.

Regardless, a woman as resourceful as Róise would have disappeared before marrying the man closer to her grandfather's age than her father's.

The fact she's here means she sees me as a better alternative, but that's not saying much.

"My dad hated Gabriel. He would never have considered allowing me to marry into that cult."

"Why?"

I wait to see if she'll tell me and I feel like I won an all-in hand of poker when she starts talking .

"Gabriel Lion is a chauvinist, misogynist piece of crap who believed in the whole spare the rod, spoil the child thing. My mom would have married a gorilla to get away from him, but she fell in love with my dad."

"He was a good man." I didn't know him personally, but I knew Derry Shaughnessy's reputation.

"The best." Her face fills with regret. "He promised my mom he would stop doing business with the AOG once he became boss. He never got the chance."

"Your dad was going to cut ties with Gabriel's cult?" This is news to me.

"Yes. Even after mom died, he intended to keep his promise to her. He was honorable like that."

He'd also been a vicious fighter and brilliant strategist. "Did Gabriel know?" I wonder out loud.

Róise shrugs, lost in old melancholy.

But the thoughts shooting through my brain with rapid fire logic energize me. "I haven't been able to find any information, not even a rumor about a hit being taken out on your dad."

Not within the Five Families, or any of the other syndicates in New York.

"You're still investigating?"

"I promised I would."

"But I thought you had mafia stuff you were doing for your brother."

"I do." As well as my many commitments as COO of Oscuro Enterprises.

"Thank you." She presses a soft kiss to my chest.

That tiny expression of appreciation goes through me like a stiletto, touching something I could swear is nothing more than cold ashes. The remnants of a soul incinerated by a lifetime of damning choices.

"The Shaughnessy mob has a lot of enemies." Róise's swollen, pretty lips twist in a grimace. "They're not all Italian."

I squeeze her in reprimand. "With our marriage none of those enemies are Italian."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. The powerful Genovese will keep the rest of the Cosa Nostra at bay." Her sass is back in full force.

And I lov—like it. A lot.

"I've looked into the likely candidates. No one took responsibility."

"They wouldn't would they?" she asks, her brows drawn together.

"They would, at least among their own circles. Someone would know something. Even if it was your Grandfather Shaughnessy taking a hit out on himself anonymously, there would be a whisper of it somewhere." At the very least, speculation on who might have done it.

But there's nothing .

"Are you saying you have contacts in all those circles?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Oh." She looks impressed despite herself.

I want to smile, but the topic is too serious.

"If it wasn't an enemy, but someone who didn't want anyone to know they had your dad killed because doing so would make an enemy out of an ally…"

I stop talking, letting her draw her own conclusions.

The narrowing of her eyes says she's reached one. "You think it was my grandfather, Gabriel Lion."

Got it in one, my smart fiancée. "If he knew your dad's intention to stop doing business with the AOG once he became boss, it's almost a certainty."

And he doesn't have to outsource a hit. He has his own people for it.

She doesn't look shocked or disbelieving.

"I'll find the answer," I promise her.

She nods, swallowing back emotion.

I want to tell her not to do that, not to hide her feelings. To cry again if she needs to. The words stick in my throat though, just like so many others I forgot how to speak.

"I spent so many years, hating the Cosa Nostra, and I probably would have anyway because of my mom. But we're not enemies. Not anymore."

"I'm glad you finally realize that."

"Pretty sure I realized it a while ago or we wouldn't be sitting here naked."

"There's such a thing as hate-sex."

"Well, I'm not into that."

"Good." I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her palm. "I'm not either."

The only sex I'm into now, is sex with her.

Her lips set in a firm line. "If that hypocrite had my dad killed, I am going to cut his throat and enjoy watching him bleed out."

"Blood thirsty."

"I have some of my dad in me. I figured that out a while ago."

I believe her, but it's the best parts of the man. Not the ability to kill. "As much as I appreciate the sentiment, leave the killing to me. I'm trained for it."

"You promised to train me," she reminds me.

"We'll start this week. But I'm training you in self-defense. It's not the same thing."

"So you say. "

"I do. Trust me, mi dolce fiore , killing isn't as easy for someone like you." And there's no way her father taught her aggression fighting techniques. "No matter how much you hate the person you are taking out. "

"As opposed to someone like you? What do you think you have that I don't?"

I kiss her hand again and close her fingers around it to hold my affection as I want no one else to do. "It's not what I have, but what I don't have."

"I know you have a conscience. Your actions with me show it. When you realize you screwed up, you backed down. You're keeping your word. And it's not just about being trustworthy in the criminal underworld. You care about keeping your vows."

"Yes. I do. But, I don't have a soul anymore. Or if I do have one it is so black you can't see it. One more killing won't make a difference in the opaqueness."

"You have a soul," she says earnestly. "I feel it every time we touch because our souls connect. If yours was as black as you think it is, that connection wouldn't feel as beautiful as it does."

"If there is any beauty in my soul, it's because of you."

Her beautiful eyes glisten with moisture. She smacks my arm. "Don't say stuff like that."

"I will speak the truth…"

"And shame the devil?"

"I am the devil and I feel no shame for the goodness you bring into my life."

With an inarticulate cry, Róise throws herself at me, kissing me with hot and irresistible passion.