SHE COULDN’T SLEEP.
A couple of times, she’d been on the cusp of drifting off and then she’d remember. It happened so fast. How had it gone from what they’d shared in his office to him effectively dumping her on the curb?
Tossing back the covers, a glass of water would help. No, well, maybe a gallon of whiskey might knock her out, but she didn’t feel like another trip to the hospital. If she started drinking, she may never stop.
Leaving the bedroom, she went around the breakfast bar to get a bottle of water from the fridge. Twisting off the cap, she was drinking as she turned to look into the room. The last thing she expected to see was Connel lying on her couch.
“Shit,” she whispered, the water bottle descending to the breakfast bar.
How had he come in without her hearing him? And without a key. Though he had told her it was easy to pick locks.
Going over, she wasn’t surprised to see his eyes open. Yes, they were heavy, and his mood was definitely sour, but that could be for any number of reasons.
Opening her hand, she held it out to him. “Come to bed,” she murmured.
When he was on his feet, she walked backwards, unbuttoning his shirt. His hands slid onto her waist, directing her around the furniture. As they crossed into the bedroom, she pushed his shirt from his shoulders and went to work loosening his fly. In unison with him shirking his pants, she wriggled out of her shorts, and he took her top off over her head.
When they were both naked, she finished backing up, sitting on the bed, sliding up it as he crawled on top of her.
She didn’t even say anything as her legs parted and he continued between them, guiding himself into her as her body relaxed.
Satisfaction wrung a relieved sigh from her lips. Just being connected to him again was comfort. His support, his companionship, meant everything to her, more than she’d realized. His eyes stayed on hers as he moved within her. The barbs of need, the spikes of pleasure, it was cleansing. He cleansed her, kept her protected from every evil in the world.
He wanted to take care of her, but the truth was, that was impossible. What they had was immense, bigger than any other relationship she’d been a part of, romantic or otherwise. They had a connection, a way of talking without words, or conveying their intensity without ever uttering a syllable.
But that unique link was fragile. Not between them, but in relation to the rest of the world. How would they ever be together? Be more than what they were. There would always be naked women in his lap, kneeling at his feet. If she let herself slip too deep into him, she’d be hurt every time those other distractions showed themselves.
“Conn,” she gasped in a whisper when climax consumed her.
The broad blanket of gratification soothed, even as he sped up to spend himself inside her.
He hadn’t said a word. Didn’t say a word even as he rolled to the side, taking her body with him to nestle her against him.
A tear slipped from her eye. The scorch of inevitability stole every illusion.
“Dorsey led the feds to their evidence,” he said, his mouth in her hair. “Silvio wanted to kill her. They came to an understanding. So long as Hell is imprisoned, Dorsey is too.”
“She was a child.”
“Yeah, it was an innocent mistake,” he said, his fingers combing her hair from her temple, back behind her ear, over and over. “The Manzanis keep her alive. She lives by their rules. We’ll get her back… someday.”
“What do they do to her?” she asked, relaxing her open hand on his chest. “Is she kept safe or do they… hurt her?”
“She lives better than Hell, by all accounts. She’s kept in line. They’ve had her since she was four years old. They’ve indoctrinated her. She is what they want her to be. Completely compliant.”
“That’s why the cops stopped looking. Clancy told them to stop.”
“Aye.”
“He knows where she is… You didn’t ever want to go get her?”
“The arrangement keeps the peace. We don’t know exactly where she is, and they move her regularly. Finding out where, busting her out, it’s risky.”
“And why take the risk when you know she’s safe?”
“Safer where she is than on the street.”
“Especially after being locked up for so long,” she said. “God knows what kind of contact she’s had with the outside world. If any.”
“We don’t make waves. Don’t reveal the arrangement and they keep her alive.”
If she’d printed anything that even hinted at McDade cooperation with her investigation, Dorsey could’ve been killed in a second.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning her head just enough to rest her lips against him. “For your loss and for my interference.”
“You didn’t know,” he said, still finger combing her hair. “Now you do…”
“I’ll leave it alone. I already told Steeple I would.”
“Without getting answers?”
“You said you’d tell me,” she said. “I trusted you would.”
He kissed her head. “Vex wants out from under his father. He believes Silvio’s weak and wants to be more aggressive.”
“Hence his Russian dolls,” she said. “He’s trying to build his own base.”
“Aye, to ultimately challenge Silvio… or kill him.”
“That’s why he was in your office?”
“I give him cover for certain things, sponsor some of his operations, and we get a cut of the bigger pie… when there is one. He’ll give us intel and sabotage his father’s attempt to block the Harvest deal.”
“So you and Evander are allies now.”
She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“As long as he’s useful.”
“You can’t trust him,” she said, aware Evander said the same thing about her. “I trust your gut, your instinct, but don’t ever put your life in his hands. He’d sabotage even himself on impulse. If he has the chance to screw you over, he might take it. Even if it means screwing himself. Sometimes he just can’t help himself.”
“My guard’s up.” She kissed his chest. “But I am curious how this will play out. Doesn’t hurt to have an intel source, or to be close to the epicenter at the time of detonation.”
“Just protect yourself. Don’t believe Evander, or any Manzani, will do it for you.”
“I don’t have final confirmation on your father’s position,” he said. “I’m doing as you asked and reserving judgement on his motivation. Babcock confirmed your grandfather has been asking questions and your father is around City Hall more than’s required.”
“If Silvio wants him to deliver votes or intel, he has to get close.”
“I’m concerned he’ll get desperate.”
“Then what happens?” she asked, shifting the angle of her head. “I think what Silvio did to me proves he’s close to desperate.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You didn’t give them the information they wanted, but you got hurt. Very hurt. Sends a message to a guy.”
“You think Silvio was sending you a message?”
“Or your father.”
She loosened. “We wondered if Silvio had something on him. Maybe he’s protecting the rest of us.”
“Maybe.”
Another maybe. It was so infuriating.
“I can call my grandfather. See if he has any reason to be worried. I’d ask Lach, but he’ll want to know why I’m suddenly so interested in…” She was suddenly so interested because her father had revealed himself in the way he’d questioned her. By asking for information, he’d given her some useful intelligence in return. “Wow…”
Sitting up, she left his arms.
“Macushla?”
She didn’t want to say the words but found his eyes and forced them out. “We’re done, aren’t we?”
“It’s getting dangerous,” he said. “The Byrnes, the Manzanis, even the Gambattos want to take us down. The McDades have to be bold. Assert our dominance. There could be payback.”
One hit the other, so the other hit back. Where did it end?
“You’re not afraid of that. Not afraid the other families will make a dent in what you’ve built. You’ve taken over every piece of Gambatto territory and then some. The other families come for you because you’re powerful.”
“Aye,” he said, sitting up, shifting the pillows to lean against the headboard.
“So why now? It’s been the same since we’ve been…” She couldn’t say together because had they ever been? “Why come here if you were just going to dump me anyway?”
As her rage rose, she flipped around, but he seized her wrist to yank her back, forcing her body against his in an unyielding embrace.
“Being mine puts you in danger. More danger than being the superintendent’s daughter, an alderman’s granddaughter, any of it,” he snarled. “You know how you survive being with a guy like me? Do you want to know what it will take?”
“What?” she huffed, struggling in his arms.
He clamped her tight, so tight her chest hurt. “Everything.” Searching the ire in him, she needed more. “You do it by using me.”
“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?”
“To you I’m…” He thought about it for a second before meeting her eye again, stroking the hair by her temple. “Do rún.”
“You’re do rún?” she asked, trying to copy the accent. He kept caressing but gave a single nod. “I didn’t know the language was so sexy.” She sighed. “I’d love to just lie here and listen to your words all night. Your accent melts me all the way through. And you’re going to take it, take the way you make me feel, away forever.”
“Tonight is ours,” he said.
“Evander will come looking for me tomorrow.”
“And I’ll tell him we both lost you.”
Rising, she straddled him, taking hold of the headboard behind him to support her weight. “I’ll always be in your corner too… No one can take what only we know.”