Chapter 3
“You have friends?”
“Shit, Dane. I think he means you. Big surprise,” Cap said.
“This guy have a name?” Dane didn’t want to get excited yet. Definitely not worried. He’d been threatened by the best of them and he was still ticking. Barely.
Tom shrugged. “He says his name is Todd Mangas. But who knows.”
Dane nodded. He didn’t like the feeling creeping up on him now, a slowing down of his blood flow, a dropping in his body temperature.
He didn’t know anyone by the name of Todd Mangas, but he couldn’t say that the name meant nothing to him.
In fact, the name meant cunning fox. One of those facts Dane happened to know, but wished he didn’t.
The feeling of apprehension seeped out from his bones and took hold in his gut.
“I’ll be here when he shows up.”
Tom nodded. “It’ll be after hours. Says he wants my answer—along with a wad of money for a down payment.” Then he looked at Cap.
“Maybe I ought to be there too.”
“What would be the fun in that?” Dane said. “Mangas would assume Tom ratted him out and then do some damage on the QT. I think it would be more constructive if I witnessed things and then called you in for an arrest that will stick.”
“Fine. I’ll call New Bedford for some background. What about Shana? She coming with you?”
Dane shrugged. He didn’t want her to, but she’d kill him if she found out and he didn’t include her.
Damn.
*****
“I’m surprised you told me about your protection gig at the Lucky Parrot.”
“Why would I keep all the fun to myself?” He smiled and flipped a tendril of her hair through his fingers as he walked her to their back door as if they were on a date. He’d have to get used to the idea that this would be a permanent arrangement, that they would be dating forever.
“Not to change the subject, but have you thought of what we should do to celebrate Valentine’s Day?”
“Isn’t roughing up some out-of-town bullies good enough?”
“Funny.”
“I’m serious. Tom says they’re coming in day after tomorrow. That’s Valentine’s Day.”
She frowned and pushed through the door. She unloaded her small pistol from her bag and put it in the kitchen drawer where they kept their guns then went for the freezer where they kept their tequila.
It occurred to Dane as he watched her sashay about casually tossing guns and liquor that theirs hadn’t been the most conventionally romantic relationship. Maybe he ought to do something about that.
Hell if he knew what.
“Any ideas?”
“You’re the idea man. Surely you’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day before with some past flame—”
“Speaking of past flames, what did you and Dirk do for Valentine’s Day?”
She poured three fingers of tequila in each of two glasses and handed him one. Then she raised her glass to him before slugging back a good sip.
“The usual dinner and roses. On a yacht.”
Dane didn’t respond to that. Not immediately. He knew when he was being baited.
Hell, he’d asked for it. But he could call the bastard’s yacht and raise him one.
“That’s good. I wouldn’t want to be too conventional. I was going to suggest dinner with wine and chocolates on a private jet headed for Bermuda.” He held his glass, didn’t take a drink. Not yet.
She stopped with her glass halfway back to her lips. She probed him with her usual microscopic seriousness, her smart green eyes flashing. After a few beats wherein he remained inscrutable, she spoke.
“You’re serious.”
“As a priest.”
She put her glass down and threw herself at him. He couldn’t have planned it better.
She pulled his face to hers, backing him up to the refrigerator and pinning him and made his blood go from room temperature to boiling in three seconds.
If it weren’t for the fact that he hadn’t actually planned a thing, he’d have enjoyed her gratitude without that cinder of guilt stinging his chest.
She kissed his lips, the dimple in his cheek, his jaw, his chin then he nuzzled her ear. She backed up a fraction, still holding him, his arms still around her, his hands still on her world-class rear, and smiled up at him as if she adored him, as if he were a rock star or a mythical god.
“When do we leave?”
He had no idea how he would pull it off, but he would. He vowed not to let her down.
“Right after we beat up the thugs from New Bedford.”
“Can you tell I’m thrilled?” She ran her hand down into his pants to make her point clear. “You know we’ve never been on vacation together. All the traveling we’ve done and it’s all been business—or running for our lives.”
“It hasn’t been all bad, has it?” He was starting to lose his voice with the distraction her hand caused.
“Bad? More like exciting as hell.” Her smile faded.
“But not romantic.” He read her mind. Her hand stopped moving. Damn.
“You are a girlie girl deep down in spite of the tough act, aren’t you?” His smile twitched when her hand squeezed. Bingo.
“You would know.” Her voice was husky. She moved her face close to his.
He needed to pull this off. Not the trip, because that was just logistics and he had an army of friends who owed him to help pull that off.
No, he hoped he could pull off the romantic mood, the leading man kind of romance, be like the guy in poems and love songs.
It wasn’t his usual style. He didn’t go in for the vulnerability involved in romantic gestures and endless declarations of love.
But he did love her with everything in him. And he did not want to disappoint her.
He touched her lips with his, focusing only on that point of contact, the feel of her lips on his, the moistness, the warmth, the pillowy give.
He ran his tongue along her bottom lip, feeling each crease, the plump fresh skin like a soft plum split open, juicy.
Then he pulled her mouth in, nibbling and sucking and devouring, capturing her tongue, tasting her, wanting to consume her.
He’d tightened his hold so that she pulled her hand from his pants and circled him, pushing her hips against him, arching into him in that primal way that made his cock twitch and strain.
He became aware of his heart beating hard against hers, against the cushion of her breasts. It was time to drag her to bed.
*****
There could never be, in all the universe, a more maddening, exciting, nerve-end thrilling, adrenaline-inducing man.
At least not to Shana’s way of thinking.
She hadn’t been expecting to find someone.
Her standards had been impossibly high, comic-strip, action-hero high.
And yet here he was, in her hands and pressing her to him, pulling her into their room, into bed, into his manly kingdom.
The scent of him, the feel of him in her hands, the powerful hold of his arms vibrating with strength and need, took her breath away.
Landing on the bed, panting, she watched his glassy eyes as he lay on top of her, pressing her into the messy sheets, covering her, surrounding her.
“You didn’t have anywhere you needed to be, did you?”
“Yes.” She wanted to defy him and she wanted him to convince her to stay.
He propped himself on one forearm and with the back of one hand he caressed her cheek and stared into her eyes with nothing but love showing. Streams, rivers, floods of golden love flowed over her until she wanted to cry.
“No.” The word sounded strangled. She had to tell him. “I want you, I want to stay with you, here, forever.”
“I thought so. I’ll make it worth your while.”
He was back to his more playful self, his overly confident self. It was as if the vulnerable giving she’d witness a blink ago had been her imagination. But she knew it wasn’t. She could still feel it there in his finger-tips as he stroked the skin of her neck and collarbone.
“Will you love me forever?” she sighed the words as her skin tingled and her blood warmed and buzzed to life.
“I will. And you will love me more and longer.”
She laughed—or tried to, but it was a hoarse grunt.
All of her energy, her focus, her entire consciousness was on him, feeling his skin on hers, his hot breath against her throat, her face, then her breasts.
The sound of his voice murmuring lovely wonderful things.
They were those nothings a man whispered into his lover’s ear and they meant everything to her.
When Dane said them they were real and true and as solid as he was, as he always would be.
She opened her eyes to see him as if waking. Would he always be?
And did it matter? This deal was for better or worse.
For the thousandth time since she’d met him, he spoke as if he’d been a party to every thought in her head.
“Will you take care of me when I’m old and feeble, Shana?” His mouth hovered over hers, his eyes, half lidded yet alert, penetrated hers as he stared back at her.
“Yes.” She lifted her mouth to touch his and felt electrified as if the universe were sealing her promise with this jolt to make sure she would remember. As if she would need the jolt for extra resolve.
He didn’t smile, didn’t acknowledge her answer or the shock to his lips.
He took those lips and moved them, sparking with energy, leaving a trail of intense fiery nerve endings vibrating down her body.
Down the column of her neck, over the mound of her right breast, scraping her nipple so that she cried out and almost came, then lower.
He moved his mouth and his lips and tongue and teeth down her rib cage, raising goose flesh, to the hollow of her abdomen between her hips.
He held her hips in his hands as he flicked his tongue in her naval, kissed it and moved lower still.
When his mouth reached her pubic hairline, she writhed, wanting him, needing him.
It was a stupid move. She knew it would make him slow his exquisite torture.
The rough stubble of his chin scraped her tender mound and she arched up.
He gripped her hips and held her still, moving his mouth close, kissing the perimeter of her hot heaving center, like the rim of a volcano.
“Dane, please.” She choked out the words, panting, realizing she sounded desperate. She heard the deep-throated laugh while she held the top of his head in place, feeling the sweat-dampened hair at his temples.
In a quick, breathtaking move he took her clit in his mouth and sucked hard. She cried out at the blinding, heart-stopping pleasure-pain. It was as if the circuit board of her sensors went momentarily off-line due to a massive overload of stimulation.
Without her awareness, Dane had moved. Or was he that quick?
She didn’t know how, but his body now covered hers, his full hard cock pushing against her, slick and rubbing her clit until she clenched hard and let the orgasmic wave take her.
He didn’t wait. He pushed inside her pulsing, creamy heat.
She clamped her legs around him and lifted her hips to take him in all the way.
His face was buried in her hair, his breath hot, heavy, and strangely comforting and exhilarating at the same time.
He pumped and she rode with him fast and furious, holding on with her legs and arms, meeting his hips with hers, slamming together and apart again and again in a tumult of impetuous need and ravenous love.
The never-ending ride had become her world, like this was all there was and all there should be.
And then he stopped, deep inside her, and exploded, his cum pumping and flowing inside her then from her, urgent and wild.