Page 38 of Dark Empire

By now, Connor knew I was a slave for coffee, and he must have gotten up to make some. He was surprisingly thoughtful that way. It wasn’t at all what I expected, coming from a hardened mob warlord, but then again, there were a lot of things about Connor that surprised me.

Especially last night.

Was it strange that I liked the way I could still feel him inside me? He hadn’t left a single bruise or mark, yet I still felt him on my skin, still tasted him on my lips. I touched them and smiled. The few men I’d been with before had made sex a fun diversion. Something that was supposed to happen when two members of the opposite sex courted each other, a biological function of the mating ritual, easily instigated, easily forgettable.

I had wanted it, but I had never felt like Ineededit.

Until now.

Last night was a firestorm. A cosmic implosion on the molecular level. A primal coupling—aclaiming, isn’t that what Connor had called it?

It sure felt like it.

I fell back against the sheets, contemplating my aching limbs and the enigma of Connor McTiernan. My heart ached for him, for what he lost and for the burden he carried. I’d been tarring him with the same brush as my father and brother, but I had been wrong about him. Connor was a victim, too. Like me.

I had thought there wasn’t a reason in the world that could excuse choosing a life of crime like he had. But I understood duty and indebtedness. I understood guilt and what it could drive you to do. Before last night, I’d thought Connor a cold, heartless man who relished violence, but now I saw the beast he’d yoked himself to. One that would devour him whole if he let it.

Maybe, I could help him find his way back.

Maybe, we could help each other.

My phone buzzed. Jerome and my few work friends had been blowing it up this week with worry over my apparent leave of sanity after our shotgun wedding. Jerome was two steps away from having me committed. I appreciated his concern, but I was not ready to hash out my sordid past or my level of involvement with the Irish mob.

Jerome: Thought you might want to know, the autopsy report on your patient came back. COD ruled PE.

Jerome: Call me.

Pulmonary embolism. I chewed on my thumb. I’d nearly forgotten about Johnny’s murder, but hearing the ME’s ruling brought it right back to the forefront.

I thought of the piece of paper containing Johnny’s last words, carefully folded in my suitcase. The police were less than useless. Tommy was right. But maybe, with Connor’s help, I could work the case from the inside and find out who killed Johnny. Maybe we could find enough evidence to put Johnny’s killer behind bars.

I checked the time on my phone and frowned. Connor had been gone for awhile. I could still smell coffee, but the walls were too thick to hear anything going on down in the kitchen. Maybe he was making breakfast, too.

I smiled to myself as I slipped into my robe, knotting it loosely. He was sweet like that, doing little things for me that I never noticed before because I was too busy hating him.

Maybe this morning, I would help him make breakfast. Surely, I could handle cracking a few eggs. I padded barefoot down the hallway, remembering the easy laughter in the kitchen last night when he teased me for my sorry cooking skills and knife work.Hold the pepper like this, love, you’re trying to dice it, not perform surgery on it.There was something so undeniably sexy about a man who knew his way around the kitchen. I didn’t even mind him taking control, not when it came under the guise of quiet domesticity.

Or when it came to the bedroom, apparently.

Two hands, callused and warm. Hands that had surely killed, hands that held the kitchen knife just so, hands that caressed the piano keys like a lover. I would know, because those hands had touched me the same way. And I wanted them to touch me again.

I smiled and bit my lip, as I wandered down the hallway, teasing the front of my robe open just a bit. I felt so deliciously sexy. Wanted. Cherished. I tousled my hair, brushing the lengths over my shoulder because I knew he liked it that way. Maybe I could get him to tell me what that word means, the one he whispered to me last night.Mo chroí.

“You’re up early,” I rounded the corner into the kitchen. “You know, I’ve never had sex in a kitchen before, but this is giving me ideas—”

I stopped so suddenly, I nearly lost my balance. Tommy was standing in the kitchen.

No, check that.

Tommy and four strange men were standing in the kitchen.

I stood there, frozen, mouth hanging open. Brain on pause. Or short circuited. At least it was, until Tommy’s shocked stare slid from my eyes. Over my wild bed hair. The long sliver of exposed skin between my breasts. Down my bare legs.

Tommy’s face went ghastly white.

Two hands yanked my robe shut. It took me a second to realize the hands belonged to Connor.

He roughly knotted the robe and stepped into my line of sight, shielding me from view. Gone were his faded jeans and motorcycle jacket. Instead, Connor was wearing an immaculately tailored suit, and when he reached for me, I saw a gun strapped beneath his arm. His expression was strangely blank. “Go pack your things. We're leaving.”

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