My Irish Mafia King

Chapter 9

Nine

LUCY

“ A re you going to physically stop me from opening the bakery?” I challenge Ronan the next morning.

“No, of course not, but?—”

“Then I’m opening,” I snap. “I haven’t worked this hard for this long to let the mob beat me down. Shane has been trying to break me for months, and I haven’t let him. I haven’t let my customers see the fear or the pain or any of it, and I will not start now. Are we clear?”

Before waiting for an answer, I walk downstairs, leaving the apartment behind and letting that work mode fall over me. It’s time to focus. It’s time to forget about everything else. Before Mom passed, I promised her I’d make The Celtic Crust a success.

I unlock the front door and flip the closed sign to open . A moment later, a familiar figure walks across the street. My belly goes tight and tingly, like it always does when he approaches, but it’s for different reasons this time. Killian wears a shirt, sleeves rolled up, faded blue jeans, despite the cold.

When he pushes the door open, I take a step back. He stops. “I will not hurt you.”

“I never said you were.”

He runs a hand through his light blonde hair, seeming on edge. Too much caffeine and not enough sleep, maybe. “You didn’t have to. You’re looking at me like I’m some kind of animal.”

“Can you blame me?”

“That’s fair,” he grunts. “But I’m not here to justify myself. I’m here to tell you... your trip to Ireland is coming sooner than you thought. Today, in fact. You’ll get a first-class ticket, all the excursions you want, all the museums and the nature walks and?—”

“No,” I cut in.

He clenches his fists, his forearms swelling with muscle, his chest seeming to expand. He’s never looked so powerful, never looked so intimidating. The morning sunlight shafts through the window against his pale hair, seeming to form a crown of light.

I’m not dealing with the restaurateur anymore. I’m dealing with the mafia prince.

“No?” he snaps.

“You heard me.” I fold my arms. His gaze flits to my neck... to the place where the pendant normally sits. He looks hurt by its absence. “Before Mom passed, I promised her I wouldn’t let the mob ruin her business. That’s a promise I intend to keep. I’m not running from them.”

“Lucy...” He takes my hands, holds them tightly. “Be reasonable. I can’t let you stay here.”

“It’s not your place to let me do anything,” I tell him. “Unless you’re going to kidnap me – traffic me...”

He groans and wraps his arms around me, pulling me against him. His heat pushes through his shirt and presses against me, every inch of me warming. “If I had any clue what Shane was doing to you, I would’ve put a bullet in his head months ago. If I knew about that other crap, I would’ve torn the whole Family down when I had the chance.”

“So you won’t force me to leave, then?”

He leans down, our faces so close that his warm breath shivers over me. Somehow, my hands find their way to his shoulders, gripping tightly as if he can save me... again.

“It’s for your own good,” he says. “If something happened to you, I couldn’t forgive myself.”

“Why? We’re strangers.”

“Is that really what you think?” he whispers. “You haven’t felt like a stranger since the moment I walked in here…”

I place my hand on his chest as he leans in further, knowing where this is going, both wanting it and being terrified by the idea.

“What you did to Shane… have you done it to others?”

“Yes,” he snarls.

“Is that the real you, then?”

“ This is the real me. This is what I really want.”

Months of pent-up tension erupt when he crashes his lips against mine. For a moment, everything else disappears, stops mattering. Stops existing, even. I open my mouth to taste him, my tongue finding his. He groans and pushes me against the counter, his manhood thick and hard against my belly.

I move my hands from his shoulders to his neck, digging my nails in. “What are you doing?” I gasp.

“What I’ve wanted to do since the day I walked into the Crust,” he moans.

“You think kissing me will make me want to leave?”

“I’m not thinking anything right now,” he growls, kissing me again.

I wrap my arms around him as he lifts me off my feet and places me on the counter. He presses his groin against mine, and something melts inside me. All the tension drains into the blistering warmth of what we’re doing. My hips move as if they have a mind of their own, like I’m chasing the end of a rainbow and pleasure is the pot of gold.

He gasps, slipping his hand to my back, under my shirt, pressing his palm against my bare skin where it simmers like it belongs.

“Stop,” I whisper. “What if somebody sees?”

He takes a shaky step back, his lips red, his eyes wild. “I’ll take you somewhere nobody will see…”

“No,” I say fiercely, going against my instincts, my desires. “You don’t get to turn my world upside down and then give me everything I’ve wanted for…”

“Tá tú chomh hálainn le réaltóg,” he says, his voice lilting. “That means you’re as beautiful as a star, Lucy. Because it’s true… you drew me here with your light. Admit it; you’ve wanted this since I walked in here half a year ago. Just like I have. But I fought it with every fiber of my being. I fought it because I knew you were better than me… you deserved better than me.”

I gasp when he pulls me away from the counter and cradles me in his arms, carrying me as though I weigh nothing. Holding me tight, he carries me into the backroom.

He pushes me against the wall. I wrap my arms around him, knowing I need to stop this, knowing I’m giving him the wrong idea. But I’ve thought about this countless times, imagined what it would feel like for him to push against me with lust swelling in his rock-hard body.

Between the kisses, I gasp, “Mo slánaitheoir.”

“I’m nobody’s savior,” he growls. “I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“And the right thing is fucking me in the kitchen, is it?”

He slowly lowers me to my feet. My body tingles all over, my nipples feeling ultra-sensitive in my bra. My sex aches just as needy.

He takes a shaky step back. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I’m not right for you.”

“More mixed signals…”

“Listen to me, Lucy. You need to lea?—”

“Don’t tell me to leave,” I snap. “I’ve already told you. I made a promise to Mom. I won’t let them intimidate me.”

“You don’t know?—”

I grab his shirt, standing on my tiptoes and getting in his face. “Don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m dealing with. I’ve been dealing with Shane since before you walked into the freaking Crust. Every single week, he’s been here, making threats, shaking me down. I know how bad the mob is. I saw how violent it can be. I saw how violent you are…”

“That should make you want to run as fast as you can,” he snarls. “I’m not telling you to leave forever, just until this is over.”

“I’m not abandoning the Crust. That’s the end of it.”

His lip twitches into a smirk. He frowns it off his face like he’s pissed at himself. “Are you always this stubborn?”

“My mom was the only family I had before she got sick. Dad was an abusive asshole. When he died, me and Mom considered it him doing us a favor. After that, we only had each other… Do you seriously think I’d break a promise I made to her? Nope, not happening. So why don’t you do whatever’s necessary to make sure I can run my business and stay safe?”

He shakes his head, moving away from me, looking at me with an icy cold glare. “I could make you leave, Lucy.”

“You could kidnap me, sure. But will you?”

“You saw what I’m capable of. Who I really am.”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

He grits his teeth. “Fuck.”

Before I know it, he’s got his hands on me again. He grabs my hips and pulls me against him. His touch simmers through the fabric of my clothes. I’m hotter than I understand, and it makes it far too easy to lean in for another kiss. He leans away, stinging me. He looks like he’s in pain from the effort of resisting a kiss.

“If you’re staying in the States, I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Us,” he whispers, trembling, as he takes a step away from me. “Lucky charm… you mess with my head. You made focusing on restaurants difficult enough, let alone a mafia war.”

I try not to let the rejection show, but it hurts. Maybe that’s why I get mean. “It’s not like I planned on getting with a violent psycho, anyway.”

“We understand each other, then,” he says gruffly. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll shelter you from the storm. But don’t for a second think I’m the same young man who gave you that ring all those years ago… To save you, Lucy, I’ll have to become a monster. Oh, wait, you’re right… I already am a monster.”

Wait , I almost yell at him when he turns away, fists clenched, rushing from the kitchen.

I want to tell him I didn’t mean it. That I understand. That I’m grateful for what he did. Without him, Shane would probably still have a prisoner upstairs.

But then the moment is gone, leaving me with his taste on my lips and the memory of his body making mine sizzle.