Page 91 of Where the Wicked Reign

“Heard you, just having trouble processing,” he uttered, reaching up and brushing his fingers over the stubble along my jawline.

I snatched his wrist, jarring him. Getting his attention, just like I wanted.

Like I needed.

“Don’t ever put yourself in that position again.”

“It wasn’t exactly—”

“Watch your own back, not just Nico’s.”

His lips quirked. “Apparently, there’s no need. I have a new little guardian angel.”

“I’m serious.” I shoved his tank up to his pecs, baring all that insane muscle and bulk of his torso to my roaming gaze.

He hissed in need as I ran my fingers over his skin, tracing some of his tattoos, then moving from scar to scar, all of which were hidden in amongst the ink covering the beautiful canvas, strategically concealed by the artwork. But I knew and remembered where they all were. I’d spent a lot of time touching him, exploring and learning him over the years, since we’d first gone there senior year of high school during a particularly tumultuous night when I’d broken up with my cheating girlfriend. He’d been there for me then, in more ways than either of us had imagined. Well, I had imagined it—several times over, in fact—but I hadn’t thought it would become a reality.

“Too many,” I said, fingering a particularly nasty scar near his ribs, a serrated one that had been caused by him blocking the hit of a broken beer bottle that had been intended for Nico.

I knew it was a part of his role, the only outward one that people saw of him being Nico’sguard, but with what was coming, the stakes had been raised substantially and what had happened tonight had been a major wake-up call where that was concerned.

I’d been focused on the positive of it all, something I made myself do, or my mind could venture down very dark paths thanks to what my father had incited in me for years. That positive being upending the current system of the three families, of taking power and ripping back our freedom from the Marchetti Syndicate and the whole fucking thing in the process.

But now there was this side of it that could no longer be denied.

The risk.

Major fucking risk.

His hand covered my fingers tracing that scar. “Sunshine,” he spoke. “I’m okay. Nothing actually happened to me. All right?”

It wasn’t enough for me.

“Thewrecking ballapproach is off the table going forward. You and Nico need to retire it. The risk is too great, and I saw that front and center tonight.”

“It’s been extremely effective over the years.”

“That has been when going up against enemies to the three families, upstarts and the like. Not the families themselves. Not their well-trained and extremely brutal soldiers. It’s different, just as we saw tonight. So we need to approach it differently going forward.”

He released my hand and pulled his tank the rest of the way off. “I hear you, and I’ll talk to Nico about it,” he said, reaching beneath me and unbuckling his belt, then opening his pants.

“If you don’t,I’llmake myself your unofficial guard on all further operations.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You know I don’t like that.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near me fighting. You need to keep your distance. With my size versus yours, you can’t take what I can. You get in my vicinity when I’m fighting like that and you could get crushed or beaten really fucking bad. There’s no room for those fancy kicks of yours when you’re in the thick of it.”

“I’ll make myself into a human shield if I have to.”

He snagged my hips and rolled me beneath him, his mammoth hard body looming over me as he bared his teeth like an animal. “No,” he rumbled. He pulled off his jeans and boxers while still on me, then glared hard down at me. “I’mthe protector.”

I reached back and pulled a packet of lube from underneath one of my pillows. Ripping it open, I coated some on my fingers and slicked up my hard cock, then passed it to him. “Things are changing. We’re going to war, for fuck’s sakes. The way we do things needs to alter to accommodate that.” I slapped his ass, and he took the cue, flipping us again so I was straddling him again and on top.

“So?” I pushed, sitting back on my haunches and stroking my lubed cock as I watched him teasing his hole with slicked fingers. I only just managed to suppress a groan as he slid two inside at once, twisting and pushing in deep, making himself nice and slippery for me. “Are you going to be a good boy for me?”

A groan escaped him as he started having too much fun with the prep, driving deeper and going rougher and harder right before my eyes. “Agree to your terms?”

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