Page 45 of Mafia Baby

He glances over at me with a smile that looks a little sad. “That’s nice of you,” he says, but he doesn’t add anything else.

We drive for a few hours in relative silence. Dom is listening to classical music, which strikes me as a little strange, yet not strange at all. One of the things that I had read about him when I was trying to find out who the Reaper was, was that the Reaper always hummed while he made his kills. I wonder if he hums classical melodies as he does his work.

I start to feel sleepy, and I curl up on the comfortable seat and doze on and off. At one point, I hear him on the phone with Vince, but they are talking about people and places I don’t recognize, and I give in to my exhaustion and go back to sleep.

In the middle of the night, I wake again and look over at Dom’s profile. He looks like some kind of romantic hero from a movie, silhouetted by the light from the dash. I see him glance up in the rearview mirror again, and then he realizes that I’m awake. He gives me a little smile and reaches over to squeeze my thigh.

“Go back to sleep, babe,” he tells me. “We still have a ways to go.”

I allow my eyes to drift shut, forgetting that I was planning to ask him if he wanted me to drive for a while. When I wake up next, we are pulling into the driveway at a cute little cottage. I can hear the ocean nearby. The sun is just peeking out for the day, bathing the house in hues of orange and yellow.

I feel tears prick my eyes. I’m always emotional now that I’m pregnant, and this feels like waking up on the morning of my honeymoon. It’s so beautiful, but I know it will be fleeting, which makes me crushingly sad for a moment.

“Ready to go inside and get comfortable?” Dom asks me.

“Yeah,” I say quickly, to cover my emotions up. I can’t explain my sudden tears and I really don’t want to. I almost told him about the baby once already on this trip. I can’t afford to risk surprising him at the wrong time yet again, especially when my raw emotions have a hold of me.

The inside of the cottage is quaint, cozy, and exactly what you would expect near the beach. I instantly fall in love with it.

I haven’t been to Atlantic City since I was a teen. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the beach. Being away from a proper place to sunbathe and play in the surf for so long had erased the wonderful memories of time spent here, but now they all came rushing back.

“What a cute house,” I say honestly to Dom.

“I’m glad that you like it,” he tells me with a grin. “Want to break it in?”

I’m not sure what he means at first, and then he sweeps me up in his arms and I realize. “Oh, of course, I do,” I say with a laugh as he carries me into the little bedroom and drops me onto the bed.

He pulls my shirt off immediately, and lavishes my sensitive breasts with attention. I moan and grip the soft coverlet on the bed, the pleasure from this single point of contact almost too much to take.

As he enters me and starts gently thrusting, pressing kisses to my lips in between each movement, I think of the tiny life growing inside me, cradled between its parents.

For this one moment, I can pretend that we’re just another couple in love who has headed to the beach to enjoy some time together.

Love. The word slipped into my mind like a thief, but now that it’s there, I can’t shake it away.

Do I love Dom? Things have been so chaotic and scary the past few weeks that I hadn’t actually examined what I feel for the dangerous, yet loyal and kind man who is currently inside of my body.

“Oh, Dom,” I murmur, arching with each stab of viscous pleasure racing outward from my core.

Can I love a man who kills people for a living? Can I love someone who has placed me in grave danger just because I have involved myself with him?

As the rising tide of orgasm breaks and crashes into me, I open my eyes and meet Dom’s intense, focused gaze.

For just a moment, I see something soft and tender in his expression before he shutters his gaze and closes his eyes. He shouts out his orgasm, shaking and snapping with pleasure as he holds himself above me on his palms.

I watch him give in to the ecstasy that we share, and my heart answers my questions for the first time, without distractions and worries clouding my judgment.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Maybe it was inevitable. After all, Guy had been a dangerous man in his own way and I had loved him once as well.

Maybe I was meant to fall in love with men who are bad for me and who could tear my life apart with their bare hands.

But I don’t care. Beyond the soul-shattering sex that Dom and I share each and every time we get naked together, there is a growing understanding rising between us that I haven’t shared with any other living person.

The intimacy that is growing between us is just as compelling as the sex, but in a different way.

We belong together, like Bonnie and Clyde, and I’m not about to argue with that.

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