Page 164 of Dangerous Contract: Part 2

They’d been taught so many things that were wrong. The women with them were showing them that love wasn’t a weakness. It made you strong. Especially the love of a good woman.

The love of a good woman could even make a man out of a don who thought he knew everything.

Chapter Fifty-One

ORAZIO

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They were on bed rest. Doctor’s orders. Orazio had never been one to follow orders. But there was a first time for everything. What made it easier to stay in bed was the woman next to him, who was sleeping soundly with her head resting on his arm. His numb arm.

He knew he should move her to his other arm. But he didn’t. Instead, he ignored the painful tingles that had been prickling his arm for the past hour and lay there watching her sleep, her light snoring filling his room. Their room. In their beach house.

Before her, he’d never understood the need for art, poetry, or even love songs. They were all too flowery for him. To emotional. To... everything he wasn’t. Now, because of her, he was pretty sure he could write the sappiest poem that had ever been written.

Because of her, he could compose a love song that was so sweet it would give its listeners a cavity. He could paint a picture that would rival some of the greatest paintings of all time. And it was all because of Monique Rose. The woman he loved.

She was his muse. His inspiration. His reason for living. His reason for killing. His every fucking thing. And he planned tospend the rest of his life protecting and loving her the way she deserved to be loved.

With his free hand, Raz lifted the covers so he could stare at her naked body. Damn, his woman was a sight for sore eyes. Though they hadn’t made love since they’d reunited, mainly because she was a stickler for following the doctor’s orders, Raz had insisted they sleep naked.

They’d already had enough distance and drama keeping them apart. He refused to let anything else separate them, even clothing. So, each night, they’d gone to bed naked. Each night, he’d fallen asleep with his cock pressed against her ass, with her resting on one of his arms and his other arm wrapped around her sexy body.

He lowered the cover because if he kept staring at her, he’d be unable to resist putting his tongue on her. She stirred in her sleep, rolling to the side, facing away from him, and almost rolling off his arm. Even in her sleep, she was stubborn, turning away from him as if he wanted to stare at the back of her head.

He needed to see her face, needed to feel her breath against his skin every time she exhaled. He hadn’t thought his obsession with this woman could grow any stronger than it already was. He was wrong.

The gala event had made him even more possessive of Monique Rose, and he was trying his best not to let it show because he didn’t want to scare her or push her away with his crazy. With her back to him, he chose that moment to slowly slide his arm from underneath her head, moving carefully, not wanting to wake her up.

Once his arm was free and her head was resting on a pillow, he massaged his arm, working out the kink in his shoulder. It took a few minutes for the tingling to stop. Once it did, he carefully climbed over her in their large bed and lay on the other side of her.

Perfect. Now he could see her face again, feel her breath again. He stretched his other arm out and lifted her head, moving her slowly until she was once again resting on one of his arms. Soon, that one would go numb also, and he’d endure it.

He’d endure anything for his Rosa. If she could see inside him, see the chaos that was his love for her, she’d probably try to run and hide from it, hide from him. He wouldn’t let her run, and there was nowhere she could hide that he wouldn’t find her.

Luckily, he was learning to keep the crazy from showing. She thought he’d changed. Thought he was calmer now. She was wrong. He’d already ordered men to watch his mother and her moves.

If she did anything that even remotely looked like she was targeting Monique, they were ordered to kill her on sight. Same for Frederico and his daughter. In fact, if Frederico even went into a flower shop and purchased a rose, they were ordered to kill him.

But his Rose didn’t know that. And he hoped she never found out. She sighed in her sleep, and Raz smiled, wondering if she was dreaming of him. This was day three of their bed rest.

They slept all of day one, only waking up to order food, shower, and go right back to sleep. On day two, they’d slept most of the day also, the pain meds making them drowsy. They had gotten up to eat the food their maid had prepared for them and to make some phone calls.

His calls were mostly answering the investigator’s questions about his father’s involvement in what went down at the gala and his father’s disappearance. His cousin, Bryceson, and their long-time friend, Landon, had made sure the police reports from the guests all stated that Orazio Cattaneo was the victim and the person who’d been a threat to their lives was his father.

The reports that tried to lay any blame on Raz had mistakenly disappeared, and those who’d filed those reports hadeither ended up dead or with missing body parts to make a point. Like Raz, Bryce had also been shocked to learn that Cas was his brother.

Raz couldn’t deny that he was kind of upset about sharing his brother with Bryce. It was an irrational feeling. They were all family. Had always been family. And they were close as fuck.

That didn’t stop Raz from getting slightly upset when Bryce said he was heading out to seehisbaby brother later that day to have a talk with him. It turns out that Monique wasn’t the only person Raz was possessive of.

Hearing Bryce call Cas his baby brother had put Raz in the mood to kill. But Raz hadn’t said anything crazy or threatened to kill anyone. Cas and Bryce indeed needed to talk. Plus, Bryce had always been like a brother to them anyway, his mother being more motherly to them than their own egg donor.

Though Cas didn’t want outsiders to know the truth, that didn’t mean Cas and Bryce couldn’t get closer and treat each other as brothers instead of cousins. It would take some getting used to. But they were family. And none of this was their fault.

Raz had also spent his second day of bedrest talking to young Denver, who was staying with Cas and Meka for the time being. The kid had completely fallen in love with Meka, to the point that Raz overheard Cas telling the kid to stay away from his woman.

Cas was on board with letting young Denver live with him. It gave him something to do and helped him focus on helping someone rather than stewing in his own troubles. Sometimes, his brother needed help getting out of his own head and Denver was that help.

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