Page 176 of SINS & Riley
Mateo smacks my foot. “Another reason we’re pissed. You’re about to be a father, and what? Were you ever going to tell us?”
Was I? My throat tightens. “I was trying to keep everyone safe?—”
“I’m not sure how shoving your pee-pee into her vajayjay keeps her safe, but please, enlighten us.” Enzo twirls his cigar between his fingers in a filthy gesture.
“I mean…” Christ, what do I even mean? “What happened with Riley wasn’t exactly planned.”
“So it’s not serious?” Mateo presses. “Because she’s hot.”
“What?”
“Smoking hot,” Dillon adds, straight-faced. “If Mateo’s not all in, I call dibs.”
What the actual fuck. “You can’t call dibs on a woman. Let alone the mother of my child.”
He waves me off. “The baby’s already blessed with my good looks. And hey—” he snaps his fingers. “Perfect plan. I don’t even have to woo her. I’ll just pretend to be you.” He rubs his chin like he’s actually imagining it. “We’ll need to ease her into the massively bigger dick, of course.” His hand drops to his crotch.
“You’re definitely the bigger dick,” I mutter.
“Tell me, bro—” he pats my shoulder. The one still screaming with a bullet in it. “Which did she like better? Dante or Zver?”
He snatches up my mask, presses it to his face, and in the worst Russian accent I’ve ever heard, drawls, “Perhaps she likes the rough stuff.”
That’s it.
I snap upright—instant regret, pain detonating like an atom bomb.
My snarl rips free, raw and savage.
“If any of you motherfuckers so much as breathes in her direction, I. Will. End. You.”
“Big talk from a man who couldn’t take a toddler,” Mateo fires back.
“I mean it.” My voice drops low, lethal enough to silence the room.
Dillon doesn’t blink. “So… you love her?”
His words are… everything.
A question.
An answer.
Everything I feel to the point I am aching for her more than I’m struggling to breathe.
And, yes, for the record, still struggling to breathe here.
The room stills.
What I feel for Riley isn’t love.
It’s resurrection.
My rusted heart clawing back to life, ripped open and crammed with every hope I swore off.
A chokehold of lust. Fear. Need.
And want.
