Page 19 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
Damn it, I tried so hard to keep it together. Never in my life have I had so little self-control, not even the night that my brother was killed. On that night, I at least thought I knew what I was doing and felt that I was doing the right thing to save him.
But here tonight with Elle, I'm pretty sure that I know this is exactly the wrong thing to do, and yet I can’t seem to stop myself anyway. I’ve spent my whole adult life living by the code that my brother’s dying words taught me—stay detached, don’t make things personal. And until now, those words were my North Star. They made sense, and I followed them without fail. But tonight, alone with Elle in my safe house, I feel like I’ve misunderstood my entire life journey, and that instead of it being one of devoted isolation, it’s becoming one of slowly waking up. Elle is waking me up.
I’m feeling things I’ve never felt before, never allowed myself to feel. I’d resigned my purpose to one of carrying my brother’s mantle, isolating myself with guilt and retribution. Dare I even wonder if redemption for someone like me is possible? If it is, then the internal battle that I’m having over my feelings for Elleis the thing drawing me out, pushing me past my solitude and daring me to once again allow myself to trust. For me, trust, albeit rare, is absolute. And as I stand here watching the fear and skepticism play out across her face, it’s like watching my hesitation to trust someone mirrored back at me. Neither of us is ready to take that plunge and let go of the protective walls we have put up around our hearts and souls, but both of us desperately wish that we could.
“Tell me something,” she says, with audible intensity and anger in her voice. “And tell me the truth, or else I’m going to walk out this door and continue assembling your criminal profile until I find a reason to have you locked up for life.”
Her hands are trembling, and her chest is heaving. She’s upset, but her threat is an empty one.
“I’m only going to ask you this one more time. Did you have anything at all to do with my mother’s death?”
The truth is not always a linear plane. Sometimes there are gradients to it, like a monochromatic drawing that illuminates several shades of gray before finally letting go and transitioning to become light enough to be white. I didn’t kill Elle’s mother, and I don’t know who the man was who pulled the trigger. But I do know who was behind it, or at least I have very strong suspicions. I don’t know the reason it happened, but I know that Elle’s father did more than simply cover up the investigation. That is a truth that she isn’t ready for yet, not until I can prove it to her without question. She also isn’t ready to hear that I was there to observe so that I could track the motive back to its source. It wasn’t only inaction that gave me pause that night; it was also the fact that I had a job to do and a bigger fish to catch. Still, though, I can answer her honestly, as long as I choose my words carefully.
“I didn’t kill your mother, Elle. I’m not sure how much my word is worth to you, but you have my word. I was not involved in any part of her slaying.”
I’m not sure what I expect to happen next—more questions, perhaps, or more outrage at the fact that I was there observing instead of acting. But instead of throwing more questions at me, Elle throws her arms around me instead. I’m completely taken by surprise as she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me. What began as an angry encounter between two people who are both wrestling with their past demons suddenly erupts into a burst of passion. Elle had her chance to leave, and I had my chance to stop, and now we’re both careening toward each other like trains on the same track—consequences be damned.
I hook my arm behind her, feeling the curve of her lower back against my forearm as I lift Elle onto my hips. Her legs wrap around me, thighs gripping my sides with unexpected strength, ankles crossing at the small of my back. The scent of her perfume—something floral with an undercurrent of vanilla—fills my lungs as I carry her down the narrow hallway toward my bedroom. This safe house, with its sparse furnishings and utilitarian design, has only ever been used as a solitary hideout when needed. But tonight, the moonlight streaming through half-drawn blinds transforms it into something else entirely.
When I reach the bed with its crisp, never-shared sheets, I set her down, the mattress dipping beneath our combined weight. I keep my mouth over hers, tasting the sweetness of her tongue as I bend toward her and work at each button of her shirt with trembling fingers. The fabric parts to reveal smooth skin and black lace beneath. The throbbing in the crotch of my pants has become a relentless pulse, each heartbeat sending blood rushing to my groin until the pressure against the zipper isnearly unbearable. When Elle's hand touches me there, her palm pressing firmly against the rigid outline, it sends an electric quake from my center outward, making my vision blur at the edges and a groan escape from deep in my throat.
Never did I ever think that I would be undressing Elle Monroe in my bed tonight. I never imagined I would do anything other than keep an eye on her from afar to make sure her bastard father didn’t do anything else stupid to ruin her life. But this—this is the fruition of all the complex emotions that we are both confronting simultaneously in real time. This is years’ worth of unanswered questions, consuming obsessions, and personal boundaries built around nights that changed each of our lives forever. This is a turning point, and there’s no turning back from it.
I tear her shirt away, buttons scattering across the hardwood, and nearly collapse when she plunges her hand down the front of my pants, her cool fingers wrapping around my throbbing cock with devastating precision. My brother's dying words—the mantra I've lived by for years—disintegrate into ash. "Detached" becomes a foreign concept as every nerve ending in my body screams to possess her completely, to mark her as mine. The line I swore never to cross isn't just blurring—it's burning to cinders as I dive into the flames, my control shattering like glass.
When the last piece of clothing falls away, I pin Elle's wrists above her head, feeling her pulse flutter against my thumbs. Her skin glows pale in the half-light, goosebumps rising where my breath touches her. I hover above her, hesitating—the mask I've worn for years suddenly too heavy to bear. Her eyes find mine, not searching for the vigilante who moves through shadows, but for the man beneath. My real name forms on her lips like a prayer: "Nico."
It’s crossing a line. And in this moment, I don’t care.
When I thrust into her slick heat, Elle gasps against my mouth, her nails digging crescents into my shoulders as she wrestles one hand free. She clutches my jaw, pulling me deeper into our kiss while her hips rise to meet mine. I drag my fingertips down the hollow of her throat to the swell of her breast, circling her hardened nipple until she whimpers and bites my lower lip.
Our lives have been entwined with each other ever since the night her mother was murdered, possibly even before that if fate had anything to do with it. And now that I’m laying claim to her, she will have my devout loyalty and protection, even if it means crossing more lines.
As I drive into her, Elle arches her back, her breasts gleaming with sweat in the dim light. Her nails rake down my chest, leaving trails of fire across my skin. She wraps one leg higher around my waist, pulling me impossibly deeper, and I feel myself hitting that spot that makes her gasp my name like a confession. Through the haze of pleasure clouding my mind, a thought surfaces—dangerous and clear—that I owe her more than just this moment of ecstasy. I owe her the truth about her mother's killer, even as her inner walls clench around me, threatening to unravel every secret I've ever kept.
“Be with me,” she says as she draws my face back down to her.
My cock pulses inside her, throbbing against her slick walls with each heartbeat. Heat radiates between us as I watch her lips part, her eyes half-lidded with desire as I thrust inside her. I don’t know what she means. I couldn’t possibly be more “with her” than I am in this moment.
“Your eyes are far away,” she says through heady breaths. “They betray you, as they always do. Be with me in this moment, Nico.”
Elle’s ability to see inside me goes far beyond her capabilities as a profiler. She sees me in ways that no one else has ever been able to do, not even my brother. She touches places in my heart that no one has touched before.
I do as she asks, letting her pull me under like a riptide. My hips snap against hers with renewed urgency, her wetness coating my thighs as I drive deeper. When I finally break, the pleasure rips through me like lightning—my vision whites out, muscles seizing as I empty myself inside her with a primal growl against her neck. Her body trembles beneath mine, her inner walls pulsing and milking every last drop as she cries out my name. In this raw, unguarded moment—sweat-slicked and breathless—I feel exposed in ways no weapon has ever managed. For years, I've been the Ghost, untouchable, but Elle's nails digging into my back have carved through my armor, marking me as flesh and blood. Real. Seen.
CHAPTER 15
ELLE
It’s too late to go back to how things were before now. And even if I could, would I change anything about what led me to this moment as I lay beside Nico in his bed? Probably not. Even though I've questioned and mistrusted him every step of the way, and evenhatedhim, there’s something about the connection that keeps drawing us both toward each other that has sunk into my blood like ink through skin. Neither of us asked for the nights that changed us to happen, and perhaps neither of us has changed for thebetter. But regardless of how each of our traumas has shaped us, or how broken we may have become because of it, our pasts and our fates have been intertwined. Nico has been hiding in the shadows as the Ghost for his entire adult life, and I’ve built my life around chasing shadows in search of the truth. Now, our paths have intersected in a veryphysicalway, too.
I lay there beside him with my head resting in the crook of his arm. This feels more real than anything else I think I’ve ever experienced. It also feels morally questionable. I still don’t even know if I can trust him, notreally. Nico has kept secrets from me foryears, and I have a strong feeling that he still is.
“You didn’t hold back fromthat,” I tease as I tip my head to look up at his face beside me.
It feels like the mood between us has changed completely. What had been hostile before has now been replaced with raw vulnerability. We both pulled our walls down just now so that we could let each other in. Whether they will stay down depends on how things go from here.
“I want to trust you, Nico,” I say from a place that is more honest desire now than it is accusatory. “But how can I trust you if you’re still hiding things from me?”
