Page 103 of Forbidden Want

“I never wanted to use you,” she argued, pissed if he was going to accuse her of manipulating him with sex again.

“I can’t protect you like this. I can’t put word out that messing with you ends with looking down the barrel of my gun. If anyone came near you, tried to hurt or coerce you, the threat would end when you tell them I’ll slit them open and rip out their guts just for breathing near you. To be with me, you have to be owned by me. Protected by me. You have to stand proud behind the McDade shield. You can’t have one foot in their world and one in ours. When people try to hurt you, you tell them you’re the superintendent’s daughter.”

“So?” she spat.

His face got closer. “The worst he’ll do is arrest them.” He startled her with a quick, brutish kiss. “Imagine how different that plays out when you tell the threat you belong to me.” Her anger morphed into something much more intense, much more electrifying. “You wanted to know if I’d kill if you asked me to… Baby, you don’t have to ask. Point and I’ll shoot.”

“If that’s true…” she said, squeezing her arms up from where they were folded against him to coil them around his neck. “Why finish this? Whatever’s between us—”

“Won’t go away if we keep doing this.”

His hold loosened. It didn’t disappear, just diminished, yet she was bereft, terrified his arms would never hold her that way again.

“You’ve broken up with me before—”

“I’m not breaking up with you,” he said. “This is us making this choice. The smart choice.”

“To stay away from each other?”

“You were right in the car.If you’re a McDade, you’re all in. You all in, baby? No secrets. No lies. You ready to tell the world you’re mine? That I’m your McDade?”

Now it made sense. Putting it in words, telling him she wasn’t really a McDade got him thinking, facing the truth.

“You’re dangerous,” she murmured.

“That danger will get you killed if you don’t let me protect you.”

What future could they have? Happiness? Marriage? Kids? Yeah, right. Connel sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with Lachlan and Whisper Doherty?

All that would start with her telling her family. Telling her dad. Her grandfather. And if her dad was in deep with Manzani and her relationship with Connel came out… They’d all be in danger.

“You know the man I am,” he said, running his fingers into her hair.

“And I was never ashamed of that,” she said. “The things you’ve done for me—”

“I’ll always do those things for you.”

“But you won’t be in my bed,” she said, sinking away from him on her knees to sit on her feet. “Every day I’ll wake up lonely.”

“If I got my way, you would,” he said, provoking her frown. “The thought of any other guy in my place…”

As his jaw worked, his anger grew palpable.

Lying on her side, she laid her head in his lap. “How do you think I felt tonight…?” She traced a fingertip down the ridges of his abs. “Why does your family need your help with Madison Byrne?”

“Because she and her father are close,” he said and inhaled. “And because keeping them in line involves me, her, and a hotel room.”

That was what she’d suspected. “Right.”

When she tried to rise, he laid a hand on her temple to keep her down. “Cushla Machree—”

“I know, we’re through, and we were never exclusive. We weren’t…”

“That why we stopped using rubbers?” he asked and their eyes met. “No one else is here tonight, Macushla.”

Her favorite time with him. Alone. In the dark. In the night.

“I love it when you call me that,” she said. “I don’t know what it means, but it sounds poetic, romantic. What do I call you in return?”

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