Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(67)

Her eyes fluttered closed because she’d caught him with her feet and impaled herself on his length. “Thank you, Lukas,” she whispered as she worked him in and out of her with slow, leisurely rolls of her hips.

As she pressed tender kisses around his mouth, he kicked them to the shallow end so he could put his feet down.

“I remember so many people telling me they were sorry, but it means something to me when you say it.”

Because she could hear the love he felt for her in his words? “Why?”

She skimmed her lips across his jaw. “Because I know how loyal and committed you are to those you love. It’s pretty beautiful to watch you with your dad and brother. And even Farah, though you’re more careful with her. Your devotion to them means you know what I lost.” She kissed him, making the tangle of their tongues as slow and erotic as how she was working his cock with her hot sheath. “In a selfish way, your loyalty also means our children will prevent you from ever leaving my life completely, and…I, well…since we’re getting married Sunday and all…” She hid her face in his neck and finished almost too quickly for him to understand. “YoushouldknowI’mcomingtoappreciatethat.”

With a surge that splashed water around them, Lukas got them to the stairs. He laid her out and took over, loving her harder and quicker as her long hair snaked around them in the water. He didn’t look at her wet breasts or beaded nipples but held her eyes, growing addicted to the new clarity in their depths as he watched her climb to the pinnacle. Just as she went over the edge, he gave her the only response he could to her incredibly brave revelation.

“I love you, too, Magdalena,” he whispered too quietly for her to hear over the pounding of his hips. He knew she still wasn’t ready for that yet, but she was close. Goddamn, was she close.

***

Through the mind-bending pleasure that was as comforting as it was chaotic, Dale was so in tuned to Lukas she felt what he wouldn’t say. He communicated it in the way he touched her with such possession. With such reverence. It came to her on the air. And was reflected in his eyes. She’d even heard it in his voice when he’d offered his condolences.

He loved her.

Honestly and single-mindedly.

Rather than refute it or doubt it was possible in so short a time, Dale finally accepted it. She no longer had a choice. It was possible. Now she knew first hand, didn’t she.

Holding him close as he brought his heavy body down on top of her, she wrapped him up and felt every point of contact as he shuddered through his release. The power behind it had him growling into her ear, and that, too, she savored.

Mr. Murdery. Her passionate, romantic mobster.

How could she have thought she would live any sort of life without him?





TWENTY


Saturday evening, one week from the day she’d met Lukas, Dale smoothed down her light sweater-style dress and made sure the tops of her thigh-high boots were even before bracing herself and pushing through the staffroom door she’d been breezing into almost every night for the past year. Tonight was different. She was getting married tomorrow, and she was here to follow through on a decision she’d made earlier in the day as she’d sat beside the pool with Kostya, getting to know a man she should be terrified of, but wasn’t.

A round of high-pitched screams assaulted her ears just before she was tackled by a gaggle of four of her co-workers. Erika was the loudest.

They were all talking at once, so Dale made out only bits and pieces.

“…thought he got you,” Erika said into her ear.

“…worried I’ve been, you little shit,” Elaine chastised in her perfect mother voice.

“…scared the pants off us!” the twins cried in unison as they both took a side and hugged Dale until her ribs hurt.

“What are you guys talking about?” she finally managed to say, because, look at her, she was feeling emotional. Couldn’t imagine why. She also feigned ignorance so Lukas wouldn’t or couldn’t be implicated in anything that might befall Garrett Dawson, assuming that was who the girls were going on about.

Erika grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake that dislodged all the hands grabbing at her. “You disappeared, Dale! Couldn’t you have called? Where the fuck have you been? You don’t know how scared I’ve been after all that shit with Garrett. I’ve called your cell a billion times. Nagged the hell out of Liam by knocking on his door on the off chance you went back there even though I know you moved out last week. I didn’t have a number or address for your dad’s place, and couldn’t find one online.”

The knot in Dale’s throat grew. “He’s in the phone book.”

Erika gave her a dunce-cap look. “Well, fuck me. I forgot there was such a thing.”

Everyone laughed and moved aside so the other girls who always converged in the back corner of the staffroom could get by and out to the floor; the club would open any minute. Hi, Dale and Glad you’re back, sweetie and Happy you made it in, Dale came flying at her.

This, she thought as she forced herself to take in the greetings and smiles, and, yes, even the rolling eyes and turned up noses some of the bitches gave her. This was why she’d made a decision that was so out of character, and why she was now here to talk to…her friends.

She used the label because that was who these girls were. Her friends. It’s who they’d always been, and she just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it until now.