I waited, knowing she got my point, knowing she understood that, though the immediate outcome of Brooke’s kidnapping would not be satisfactory, Fiori’s punishment was only being delayed. I’d take care of it.
Long moments later, her body relaxed back against mine. “As long as Brooke is safe,” she said quietly.
I pressed my palm over her stomach, melding her body to mine. “As long as you’re both safe.”
My heart jumped when her hands came back to cup my ass, pull me closer. “You said ‘until now.’ What does that mean?”
Far too much for me to explain at the foot of her sleeping daughter’s bed at one in the morning. “We can work on that when this is all over, lev sheli.”
She hummed, whether in agreement or because of the endearment or because I was tracing biting kisses down her neck, I wasn’t sure. The next moment she stepped out of my arms. “Take a shower with me?”
My dick punched at my zipper. It was the first time Leah had initiated contact of any kind between us, the first time she’d signaled that she wanted me without me approaching her first. I threw a look to where Brooke slept soundly, then took Leah’s hand. “Hell yeah.” Always.
In the bathroom, I moved to the shower and turned the water on to warm. Facing her felt like coming home, and I found myself wanting to slow down time, to savor the moment instead of rushing forward. Maybe she did too, because she didn’t hurry to undress. Instead her eyes held mine as I grasped the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, tossed it into the corner.
Leah leaned her hip against the counter.
My fingers went to the button of my fatigues. “I thought this was a joint thing.”
A faint smile pulled at her lips despite the fatigue darkening the skin beneath her eyes, slumping over her shoulders. “Just looking. Maybe I don’t get enough chances to just look.”
Considering the frenzy we’d been in each time we came together, she had a point. I flicked my pants open, eased the zipper down. Women had admired my body since I’d begun filling out as a teen, but the heat flaring in Leah’s eyes, the hunger that licked over my skin everywhere her gaze touched—I’d never experienced anything like it. This woman touched my heart as well as my body. She ignited a need inside me that threatened to explode, and all she’d done was stare.
I snagged a condom from a pocket of my pants before sliding them down my legs. Kicked off my shoes, then the fatigues, not caring where they landed. All I cared about was the slide of Leah’s tongue across her lips as her gaze landed on my rock-hard cock.
“Your turn,” I said, prowling forward.
She watched me slide the condom on, her arms tightening over her middle, plumping her breasts up so that they flirted with the low vee of her T-shirt. I dropped my gaze to the rounded flesh as I planted my fists on either side of her hips and leaned down. Only her hand on my chest stopped me, stroking over the scar from the gunshot wound that had landed me in the hospital. The injury that had brought us together eighteen months ago.
I’d almost died. And I’d found my life, in this woman, this moment.
Leah’s gasping breath filled my ears, her taste filling my mouth when I opened my lips over the luscious curve of her breast and sucked.
“Jeremiah.”
The word was rough, breathless. It sent a jolt of hunger through my gut. I needed more—more flesh, more desire, more of Leah. A whole lot more.
With a yank I stretched the neck of her tee down until it cupped her breast. A ripping sound reached my ears, but I ignored it, ignored everything but the mound pushed toward my mouth as I dragged her bra down too. A ripe pink nipple reached for me. I took the crinkled length between my lips and drew on it, forced it against the roof of my mouth and sucked hard.
Not enough. It was never enough with Leah, but now, here, I wanted everything she had to give. Fuck patience and savoring. That first taste of her had torn through any control I’d thought I had. Taking the neck of her shirt in both fists, I ripped it straight down the middle as I continued to suck.
Leah arched against me. “Yes. God yes.”
Luckily for her lingerie, the bra had a front clasp that opened when I fumbled with it. Finesse was beyond me—I needed access, and when the cloth gave, I brought both hands to her breasts, pushed them together, took turns with her nipples. Teeth, tongue, lips. I devoured her, only vaguely aware of the cries she muffled behind her hand as I took what I so desperately needed.
“Remi, please!”
Without warning Leah pulled away from me. I felt the cool counter kiss my erection and realized she’d raised herself on top of it. Taking advantage, I ripped open her jeans and stripped the rest of her clothes off.
Then tipped her back against the mirror, raised her feet to the counter, and set about devouring her in a whole different way.
Slender fingers dug into my hair, pulling my head close. Leah’s clit was a hard button peeking from between deep pink lips. I grasped it gently with my teeth, giving her the suction she needed, the pressure that had her pelvis rocking against my face, her fingers digging deep, her strangled cries escaping despite her best efforts. “That’s it, lev sheli,” I said, raising my head just long enough to slip my fingers into her cream-covered slit. “That’s it. Use me good. Get off on me.”
She cocked her hips, and my fingers slid deeper. I curled them against her G-spot, took that sensitive nub back into my mouth. Leah rode my hand hard, and my heart and cock throbbed in unison at her taste, the feel of her, the knowledge that I was the one giving her this pleasure. My woman. My heart. She was my everything.
“Remi, it’s coming,” she whispered roughly above my head. I pressed my fingers deep, rubbing against that soft pad deep inside her. Leah whined as the first contraction squeezed around my invasion.
I needed to feel it on my cock, not just my fingers. Sliding out, I pulled her hips to the edge of the counter and slid my thick, hard length inside. A cry escaped her as I crowded in, taking up every millimeter of space and forcing her to squeeze down on something far thicker than my fingers. I eased back, then surged forward, even deeper this time, and held myself there as her orgasm threatened to squeeze the life out of me.
“Fuck, Leah,” I whispered in her ear. “You’re so tight, so strong. Squeeze me, lev sheli. You’re gonna suck me dry, aren’t you?”
“God, I want to,” she said, the words strained. A quiver shot through her. “I want you.”
The clenching around my cock eased to flutters. I pulled back, pushed deep, setting up a rhythm. I should stop, give her time. But the feel of Leah’s wet flesh cupping me, clutching me...fuck if I could find the strength to force myself away.
I threw my head back, a groan escaping. “I need you so fucking much, lev sheli.”
Leah tightened around me. “What does it mean, Jeremiah?” Delicate fingers traced across my chest. Pinched my tight nipples, drawing as hard a gasp from me as I’d drawn from her earlier. “What’s lev sheli?”
“Leah.” Ah God. I couldn’t stop. The glide of her up and down my cock, the feel of her cream dripping down to coat my balls... “Leah!”
“Tell me.” Leaving my nipples behind, her fingers glided down my abs, making them clench, ripple with pleasure. Short fingernails traced the trail of hair from my navel to my cock. When she wrapped her fingers around the solid bar of my shaft, I went to my toes, pushing as high and hard inside her as I could. “Tell me what it means.”
My eyes were crossing. I blinked back the need consuming me and focused on her face, on the look in her eyes. Heavy-lidded, her gaze was full of a hunger that matched my own, but that wasn’t all. There was something else staring back at me, something I hardly dared believe: acceptance. Leah was fucking a killer, and looked at me like that.
God help me.
The slap of skin against skin filled the room as my hips sped up without permission, reaching, desperate for that melding I only wanted with her. That I needed so desperately I thought I’d go insane.
&n
bsp; “What does it mean, Jeremiah?”
I more saw than heard the question, watched her lips wrap around my name. “My heart,” I gasped, lunging again and again. “My heart, Leah.”
A Cleopatra smile curved her lips. The fingers around my cock retreated, and as I looked down, I saw her press hard on her clit. She shifted her weight onto her feet, swinging her hips into each advance. Once. Twice.
My balls drew up. A tingle shot from my head to the base of my spine, and I knew I was done for.
“Leah!” I laid myself down on her, using my weight to force myself inside. “Leah!”
She clenched herself around me, that smile still on her lips. “You’re my heart too, Jeremiah.”
I let go then, releasing inside her. Making her mine. And when Leah’s climax hit just behind mine, I knew I belonged to her as well. For however long she’d have me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Remi—
The Fiori family was patriarchal, as were most mob families. Every decision, every deal was run through Santo “Sonny” Fiori, the grandfather of the family. But as I watched the man on the screen in front of me fuck the woman in his bed, I couldn’t help thinking how natural a heart attack would be at that age, especially for a man with Fiori’s appetites. Filing the idea away, I checked my weapons once more before turning to Levi.
“This might take a while.”
“Not likely,” Eli said from the back seat. “The man’s too old to hold out long with a woman like that.”
Considering she was a good sixty years his junior, Eli wasn’t wrong. And the likelihood that she was there willingly wasn’t high.
We waited impatiently for the man’s final rough grunts. I grimaced, disgusted, as he rolled off the woman’s body a few moments later, his wet penis flopping against his thigh. The way the woman curled away from him confirmed my earlier thoughts. Nothing we could do about it tonight, but later, we could give her options to get out.
“You have the recording?” I asked Eli.
“I’m not a total fuckup, you know.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Levi said, his face tight with concentration. We were like the three bears on an op—Levi dead serious, Eli joking to relieve the tension, and me somewhere in between. Just right, as I liked to refer to it. When we left the safety of the SUV, it would be a different story, but right now…
It took only a few minutes for Fiori to fall asleep, still splayed like an upended frog across the bed. The woman took longer. A half hour after she drifted off, we moved out. The rain had started earlier, but as we neared Fiori’s property, lightning flashed across the sky, followed by the crash of thunder.
“Handy,” Eli said, his voice reaching me in the mic I’d tucked into my ear. “Dogs will be going crazy.”
I acknowledged the gift with a grunt and proceeded along the back fence of the five-acre property Fiori occupied when he was in town. Modest compared to the Italian villa on the coast of Sicily or his Maui estate, but convenient. And easier to police, this close to his family’s enemies.
They hadn’t seen an enemy like us, though.
With the storm, patrols had dwindled to one every ten minutes or so. We waited for the latest guard, the accompanying German shepherd hesitating at the end of his leash for no more than a moment before being led forward with a rough command. Eli had already hacked Fiori’s security. Now the mini computer strapped to his forearm allowed him to flicker the power once, twice, before cutting it just long enough for us to climb the electrified fence.
“Good thing they don’t have a backup generator.” I carefully straddled the discreet but definitely there barbed wire atop the barrier.
“Oh, they do.”
My balls did a rapid retreat into my body. “What?” I hissed at my brother. A sloppy scramble got me over the side for a quick jump to the ground.
Eli’s laugh was quiet in my ear, but the lack of volume couldn’t hide his sadistic amusement. “I said they had a backup; I didn’t say it was useable. Unfortunately for them, it’s experiencing technical difficulties.”
“Are we doing this, or are we hanging here for a chat?” Levi muttered.
Eli dropped to the ground between us. “Just a sec.”
Electricity hummed along the fence, barely audible. Lights dulled by the storm flickered back on.
Crouching, the three of us ran for the nearby woods. Unlike our estate, Fiori had left the land surrounding his mansion wild. Looked pretty, but it was shit for security. We were within a hundred yards of the house in less than five minutes, without even a close call.
“Thank fuck for waterproof gear,” Eli said in my earpiece.
No kidding.
Crouching in the underbrush, we gave Eli a few minutes to flicker the power a couple more times, allowing security to lower their guard where the electricity was concerned. When Levi gave the signal, Eli sent the command to his keypad and the lights went out.
Levi shot from cover immediately. I was directly on his heels, Eli just behind. Levi had a grappling hook secured to the roof in seconds. No more than four minutes passed before the three of us were inside the obscenely large bathroom attached to Fiori’s master suite.
Eli turned the power back on.
“Get the alarm taken care of,” Levi warned. Even without the backup generator, the alarm system had its own battery pack. It would’ve registered the window opening. Too bad the system included a connection to the Internet in order to send information back and forth to the off-site security company. Easy access for them—and for us.
“On it.”
Levi moved to the bathroom door. I opened a side pocket on my fatigues and pulled out the prepped needle waiting there. We couldn’t remove the woman, not without making her a target—disappearing might give the impression that she’d helped us—but we could keep her from knowing what was going on. Levi signaled with four fingers, counting down. Four… Three… Two… At one he opened the door, allowing me to slip past.
The girl was taken care of without trouble. The needle slipped into her arm without waking her, the effect of the ketamine almost immediate. We gave it several more minutes before my brothers made quick work of gagging and securing Fiori to his own bed—as roughly as possible.
I watched. Waited. Let the killer slip to the fore.
Finally Fiori was settled against the headboard—or maybe I should say trussed to it. Levi did enjoy his ropes; they meant his victims could be fully awake for their torture. I moved to the end of the bed, feet braced apart, arms crossed over my chest.
“Good evening, Sonny,” I said.
Fiori huffed angrily behind his gag. A few moments of mumbling followed.
“I imagine you’re asking about your guards. Or warning me that they’ll catch us.” I gave him a small, grim smile. “Unfortunately for you, we know your suite is soundproof, for obvious reasons.” I glanced at the woman, sleeping peacefully on her side, facing away from Fiori. “They’ll find you, of course. When we’re ready.”
Fiori growled, anger shining from his beady eyes.
“Relax, Gramps.” I stared into those eyes, letting him see exactly how little his anger affected me. How I didn’t give a fuck if he was comfortable, if he thought he could buy his way out of this, if he swore retaliation the minute he was free. None of it mattered. He couldn’t touch me; he’d learn that soon enough.
“We are here about a little matter that may have come to your attention: Leah Windon?”
Fiori’s eyes rounded before narrowing, his face turning an interesting shade of red detectable even in the dim light of the room.
“You sent a team to recover certain”—deliberately I glanced at Levi as if considering—“evidence. Yes?”
The man on the bed jerked at his bonds, glaring at me.
“Exactly.” Reaching into the sheath at the small of my back, I drew my KA-BAR, held it in front of me. “I see you remember.”
Fiori zeroed in on the knife in my hand.
“You see�
��” I moved around the end of the bed, noting the cord securing Fiori’s legs in front of him, the bare feet so vulnerable to anything I needed to do. “Leah is under our protection.” The knife’s tip glinted wickedly as I lowered it to stroke the top of the nearest foot. “And we don’t like it when anyone steps into our business. Anyone, Sonny.”
A flick, and the first slice appeared just below his toes—long, shallow, barely enough to bleed. It stung, I knew, sent a shock through the man’s system, but that was nothing more than foreplay.
Fiori jerked. A single word, barked behind his gag, came through clearly.
“Who? Is that what you asked?” Fiori whined as I moved the knife to his other foot, took my sample cut from the hair-covered knob of his big toe this time. “That’s not really important, is it? Who we are will never matter if you stop pursuing what is mine. If you choose to ignore my warning”—I moved the knife to hover above foot number one, shrugged—“who we are will be equally unimportant. Because you’ll be dead.”
Another slice, deeper this time. Blood trickled toward the sheets. A warning growl came from behind Fiori’s gag.
“That is definitely not the response I was looking for.” A second cut on foot number two. “Careful, Sonny boy. Your balls are next.”
Instinctively the man’s thighs squeezed together. Ignoring the satisfaction his fear gave me, I motioned Eli forward. “You might be wondering what’s in this deal for you besides staying alive.” Eli held up the hand with the computer attached, pushed a couple of buttons. “Maybe this will help.”
Fiori’s voice fill the room. “Vincenzo is an idiot. If he’d wanted to stay alive, he’d never have crossed me. Those cement shoes were earned, a hundred percent.”
Eli stopped the recording. I kept my gaze on Fiori. “Not too incriminating, is it? How about another one?”
Eli pressed the button. “What, you think Frankie has a fucking chance in hell of taking over my routes? No one, and I do mean no one, will be horning in on the drug supply in this town. I control every step, every participant, from the cooks to the candymen on the street to the importers and most especially the exports.” Fiori boasted about his drug lines and how easy it was to control the penny-ante dealers who cluttered the DC streets. Trying to impress someone he wanted to do business with, most likely. Unfortunately he spilled a few too many details. Judging by the increasing struggles against his bonds and the alarming shade of purple creeping into his face, I was pretty sure he knew that.
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