Page 45 of Mob Bride

“This will be mine, too.”

“Not will be. It is. I know what you mean, but you don’t have to claim it when I offer it.”

He helps me sit up, then cups the base of my head, his thumb on my jaw beside my ear. It’s arousing in its intimacy.

“We will make this work, Carrie.”

It’s a sobering comment, and one I would rather forget. But I can’t.

“Shane, I want this, but I don’t see how it can possibly work. I don’t know that we can make it come true.”

I’m a DEA agent, and he’s a mobster. The only way it could work is if I quit my job. He can’t quit his family or the mob. They’re one and the same. It wouldn’t be safe for him or his family if he struck out on his own. He’d be dead the moment someone found out. His family would never let him go unprotected, so they’d become targets, too. There’s no stepping down. Their successors would kill them before risking them returning and taking back control.

“We will find a way, Carrie. If a future with me is what you want—at least want to try—then we’ll make it work.”

“You are so used to bending everything to your will. But some things snap instead. I don’t know that we can.”

“Don’t you want to try?” Disbelief and hurt flash in his gaze as he backs away from me.

“Of course I do. But I want to prepare myself in case it doesn’t work out. I don’t want to float through a fantasy only to have it ripped away from me. I want to be prepared for reality, or my heart will break, and I might never get over it.”

I didn’t mean to admit that. That gives away too much. He steps as close to the desk as he can, my knees bracketing his thighs.

“Why do you think I’ll fight for this? Walking away from you would slay me. I’ve never lived in a fantasy, but I will make our reality what we want.”

That means I have to give up being an agent. It’s something that’s defined me for years. No one in my family or friend circle knows I go undercover, but it’s no secret I work for the DEA. This job has been my identity in so many ways for so long. I’ve worked tirelessly to get where I am. Never mind this particular assignment. I’ve busted my ass my entire career. As much as Iwant Shane, as deeply as I feel for him, am I ready to sacrifice my career for him? I don’t know.

All of this is so surreal. Nothing could have been more perfect than last night. But now I’m back at Bartlomiej’s house, and I’m changing into a bikini that barely covers anything. It’s better than the dental floss he originally picked out but I refused to wear. I told him the only way I would ever get into it was in the shower where nobody could see it. I refused to parade myself around in front of his man with everything hanging out. This one covers all the necessary bibbidi bobs but leaves very little to the imagination.

I toss my suit on, along with my cover up, and head out to the pool. Every step I take, every time I stand or sit, I remember the feel of Shane being inside me. My pussy aches with emptiness after feeling like his cock would split me in half. It’s like phantom pains. I can feel him inside me and his hands on me, but they’re not really there. It just leaves a burn only he can extinguish.

Bartlomiej’s swimming laps right now, so I take advantage of the time when his face is in the water. His phone is on a towel, so I sit on the end of that lounger. I grab his phone and pop off the case. Fortunately, he and I have the same phone with the same case. He insisted upon getting it for me as a present, but I know he put a tracking app on it. It wasn’t hard for Steve to find. It also wasn’t hard for Steve to hack into it to change my location to make it look like I’m in one place when I’m not.

While Bartlomiej swims away from me, I grab the tiny key from my coverup pocket and put it in the hole to pop the SIM card out. I drop that back in my pocket and pull out the replacement SIM.

Why the hell do these fuckers have to be so tiny?

They’re hard enough to handle when your hands aren’t shaking. When he approaches and smiles at me, I have to pause and hide that side of the phone. I make it look like I’m scrolling something. He tucks into a flip turn, once again facing away from me. With his face in the water, I finish putting in the SIM card and replacing the case. I barely do it in time before he stops at the edge of the pool, crossing his arms on the edge. If he wasn’t who he is—a psychopath—I might find him attractive, but I never have. Now that I’m with Shane—if you can call it that—I can’t find anything attractive about him.

When he crooks his finger at me playfully and beckons me over, I know I can’t refuse. I toss the phone behind me as though I don’t have a care in the world, but I keep my hand back there just long enough to be sure I put his phone in the same place I found it, which is farther away from me. I walk over to the edge and sit down.

“The water is perfect, sweetheart. Come and join me.”

I slip my legs into the water, and it would be perfect if it weren’t for him. He wraps his hands around my waist and lifts me down, giving me a peck as he pulls me against him. One hand goes to my ass to guide my right leg around his hip. I pull the left around before he can touch me, except this forces my pussy to rub against his hard-on. I try not to grimace instead, shooting him a smile that earns me a pinch on the ass. It’s annoying, and it’s painful. Not the way I like pain with Shane.

Everything about being this close to Bartlomiej feels exponentially more wrong than it did just a few days ago. Certainly, more after last night. Before we left, Shane said I’m to do my job, and I knew what that meant. But I can’t bring myself to stay in this position because—even if Shane says it’s okay—he and I both know it’s not. It feels even more like a betrayalbecause he had to concede any kind of intimacy with Bartlomiej is necessary.

I splash water at him and push off his chest, diving while he splutters. I surface farther away from him, giggling. His expression is one that would make a lesser person crumble. But I know he thinks he’s being playful with me. He just doesn’t have that many expressions in his repertoire.

He swims toward me, and I evade him. I can’t do that forever. I have to let him catch me again, eventually. I swim until I’m almost at a wall, angling myself so my elbow is on the side when he gets to me. I don’t want him pinning me to the wall, so I twist and let him bring me against him again. This time I don’t wrap my legs around him. Instead, I ease back, laying my head in the water, letting my tits pop up. I know I’m flaunting myself at him, but I also know he likes it. For right now, he’s enjoying the view and not trying to glue our bodies together.

“Sweetheart, we’re traveling tomorrow. I want you ready to depart at eight a.m. You can go back to your place and grab what you need, then spend the night here.”

I shake my head.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

There’s a bite to his tone I don’t like. I swim farther away from him.

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