Page 95 of Diamond In The Rough

Micah Malone could have been so much more than what he is. Yet, his father, the deadbeat, murderous bastard, made sure to fuck his sons up as best he could before he died in his own filth.

It’s his legacy, I suppose.

Prick.

“Whatever you’re thinking about,” Micah dozes, his voice lethargic and his hands warm on my backside. He sleeps with his cock still inside me. A habit he has no hesitation forming with me. “Whatever the hell has tripped your temper, you need to let it go, Grá. I’m trying to rest here.”

I cling to him in the darkness, my nerves rising up to make my heart pound if I let them get away from me. But the shadows come in handy now, the ability to hide from the man skilled at reading a woman’s expression, even when she’d prefer he couldn’t. I press my lips to the center of his tattooed chest and grin when his dick twitches inside me. “I must’ve had a bad dream.”

“Impossible.” He kisses the top of my head, exhaling as he lies flat again and his breath hits my bare shoulder. “You’re wrapped in me. Bad dreams can’t possibly intrude.”

I set my cheek on his chest and simply… exist. I’m leaving in the morning. Back to work. Back to my life. I doubt I’ll return to this house, simply because being here is wildly detrimental to my employment prospects. But that doesn’t mean I have to let us go.

Not yet, anyway.

Reaching out blindly and finding the lamp on the bedside table, I flick it on to push the monsters away. Because even with Micah Malone holding me in every way possible, the shadows still encroach. And out here, far from Manhattan, darkness is just… darker.

Scarier.

“Do you ever wonder what your life would have looked like if you were born to another family?”

His heart thumps beneath my ear. I knew it would.

“Like, if you could just be a regular guy,” I press. “Regular job. If you could walk the streets of New York and not need to look over your shoulder and be worried someone like Wilkes had a gun pointed your way.” I push up, but only to set my hands on his heart, and my chin on my hands. “Surely, you’d like to not worry about the FBI following you everywhere you go. To meet a woman, and not have your first instinct be to assume she’s out to get you.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this, huh?” He strokes a long line along my back and hip. A pattern he repeats, over and over again, that brings goosebumps to my skin. “You want to change me?”

“I want you to be free,” I counter honestly. “I want you to know what it’s like to not be…”

“A Malone.” He changes direction with his hand and circles a new design into my flesh. “I like who I am.”

I move to my elbows and search his eyes, a thick line forming between my brows. Surely my position stabs into his chest, but he doesn’t complain. Doesn’t twitch. Doesn’t flip us over and return the favor.

“You like being the son of Timothy Malone? The mafia don whose body count is…” I swallow and shake my head. “Incomplete. There are simply too many to count.”

“Timothy was never someone I would choose to have in my life. And now he’s dead, so things are finally good.”

“Because Felix is in charge and you became his second? You like that power shift?”

“Because Tim is dead,” he grits out, “which means the senseless killing no longer happens. Because Felix is in charge, and he’s a good man, even if he’s a bit stupid sometimes. You’re asking me to consider a regular life with a regular family where I could probably get a business degree and work in an office all day long.”

“Hardly an awful life to live.”

“I prefer to be who I am right now.” He brings his hand up and gently massages the back of my neck. “Because that regular-Joe shit would mean my brothers are no longer mine. It would mean this lifestyle, where I work for Felix, and I dig my hands into soil every spare moment I have in my day, wouldn’t exist.”

“So if you had the freedom to choose anything in the whole world… This is it? You’d still live this life?”

“Yes.” He pinches the back of my neck and pushes up, his mouth hovering by mine. His breath, bathing my lips. “Because this version of me is here with you. And there’s nothing on this planet I would trade that for.”

19

TIIA

WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO DIFFICULT?

It’s a workday, just like every other, so even if I wanted to stay in bed forever and forget the rest of the world existed, I can’t.

It’s impossible.

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