38. Cian
Chapter 38
Cian
July comes, hot as hell and rumbling like a storm just over the horizon. The only thing that hasn’t gone to shit the past three weeks is my relationship with Harper. In my bed every night is truly the best way to have her. Second only to having her in my bed every morning.
We’ve been inseparable since the day she told me she loved me, but the reasons why are ominous at best, grim at worst.
The night after Harper announced her intended break from the Kings, the administration got word that a major business deal might pan out. Shane and Donal traveled to Vegas the next day to seal things up themselves.
Before they got on their plane, I caught up with them.
I wanted to come clean with Shane about Harper and me, about choosing to leave the family myself, if she goes. Shane wasn’t fucking happy about it, but all he said to me in that crowded airport terminal was, “You sound like Finn.”
We’ll discuss this when we return , was his final determination at the time.
Fine by me. I was in no hurry to rush Shane to a decision on what to do with me. Usually, unless you’re connected to the don’s inner circle and have extenuating circumstances, the only way a person leaves the family is in a body bag.
When I left the airport that afternoon, I ran into Harper in the parking lot, where we had our heart-to-heart.
Both our fates hung in the balance. We were in limbo, awaiting judgment. And none of it mattered to us because we were—and are—still in love.
That day was the beginning of a kind of bliss for us, but for the Kings…
That day turned out to be a declaration of war.
No sooner had my friends warned me about the mole did we get word that Shane and Donal flew right into a trap. The expansion deal they went to Vegas to close? A sham. The De Lucas and the mole must’ve worked together to lure them there.
Shane and Donal were ambushed. Donal sustained injuries. Shane got shot a few times, too, but they don’t call him Old Bulletproof for nothing. Both survived. Finn wanted to head to Vegas the minute we learned what happened, but Shane refused to give him permission to leave New York. Both Finn and his father being out of state would be like leaving the estate undefended.
He didn’t want to play further into the De Lucas’ hands.
Shortly after Shane and Donal were ambushed in Vegas, Thomas was jumped by an unknown assailant in the city. He escaped with a minor stab wound, but his attacker got away.
While this chaos unfolded, news of Enzo De Luca’s death spread like wildfire through the criminal underworld. It always baffles me how someone so hated while alive can morph into a beloved man once dead.
Anti-Kings sentiment within De Luca circles and the Italian mob is at an all-time high. Scattered declarations of war from near and far have yielded skirmishes in New York, Philadelphia, and Nevada in the weeks since.
It would be worse if the De Lucas were still full-fledged, united under one powerful leader. Then, this would be an all-out war. Times don’t get darker than that.
But while a lack of cohesion helps keep the skirmishes to smaller proportions, we can’t track all the individuals or groups who sympathize with the De Lucas. We can’t predict when or how they’ll strike. These are unorganized, unofficial efforts to antagonize us and take us down a few pegs in response to public perception that we sent Leo De Luca to prison and killed their don after murdering his brother, all as some kind of power play.
Despite the fact that in reality, none of that’s true.
Killing Matteo De Luca, their previous don, was payback for what he did to Finn’s first wife. And offing Enzo was necessary for obvious reasons.
Tensions between us have only escalated.
Long story short, with a full-scale offensive being waged against us at home and in the desert and Finn trying to manage things in New York while advancing covert efforts to smoke out the mole, no one’s thinking about Harper and me. Or what to do about the disrespect we’ve shown the family.
No one cares. No one’s watching.
These have been some of the darkest, most high-stress, chaotic days of my entire professional life as an enforcer, and yet, I’ve never been happier. I get my knuckles bloody all day, but when I come home at night, Harper’s there, five plus feet of pure heaven.
“Let me shower first.” I want to wash the day’s grime off me, but she pushes me down on her California King bed as soon as I come through the door of her suite. Some nights we sleep here, some nights we sleep upstairs in my rooms.
Depends on where I find her when I’m done with work for the day.
“Why?” She straddles my thighs, unbuckling my belt. “Just so you can get all hot and sweaty all over again?”
Her eyes twinkle when she smiles at me. The sight of her happiness infuses my spirit with so much peace, I could float away. She’s spent the past three weeks recovering from everything that happened. She’s still not supposed to push herself, but her recovery has been textbook. When I first found her at that De Luca facility, I remember that primal worry deep down in my gut. What if she doesn’t make it through this?
But Harper made it through, mind and spirit unbroken.
She amazes me.
I’m convinced the way she handles my cock is the remedy for any bad day there ever was.
My eyes fall closed as she sucks me into her mouth.
“ Mmm .” Satisfaction rumbles in my throat.
Fingertips finding her hair, my muscles flex as she sucks the pleasure right out of me. She drags her tongue from base to tip, like the most diligent lollipop consumer in history.
Once she’s hot and bothered enough, she climbs off, drops the rest of her clothes, and then sits on my shaft like it’s a throne.
This has been her routine for the past several days. When I get back from work, she steers me to the nearest comfortable surface, blows me, and then climbs on top of me and rides my cock, however she wants.
And I lie there and watch her while she turns me the fuck on, knowing that after she makes herself come, I’ll get the chance to do it my way.
At first, she moves slowly, finding the angle she likes the best. Once she does, she rides me hard, like she’s trying to deepen the divide between her thighs.
I want her to watch me while she does it, but she usually won’t until I wrap my hand around her throat.
Her hooded gaze traces down my arm to my shoulder, my neck, eventually coming to rest on my mine.
When our eyes meet, it’s there.
This thing between us. I can’t explain it. When we look at each other, it’s like an invisible adhesive holds us together. An unbreakable connection.
She rocks her hips, whimpering my name, and I use the fingers around her throat to guide her closer until she’s hovering close enough to kiss.
Our mouths meet while she rides me, forceful and needy.
Against my lips, she moans, “ Yes, yes, yes .”
“Yes what ?” I dig my other hand into her ass.
“I love your cock.” A shudder ripples through her body. She lays her forehead to mine like she needs the extra support.
“Good girl.” I tighten my grip on her throat, just a little. “Enjoy it all.”
A man can only take so much provocation before he responds ten-fucking-fold.
It’s nothing to hitch my arm around Harper’s waist and roll us over. I hook my hands beneath her knees and spread her wide.
“Already?” She heaves for breath, cheeks dusted with bright spots of color. “I wanted to…make you come like that…”
“Oh, you will, honey.” I ease into her as far as I can go, smudging my own consciousness with mind-scrambling pleasure. “You always do.”
Harper and I both moan as I pull out and sink back in.
Her high-quality bed doesn’t make a sound as we move together, both of us approaching nirvana.
A short time later, we collapse on the bed, saturating ourselves in the afterglow. Tremors and aftershocks zip through Harper’s body, making her twitch beside me.
We fall into an easy silence. Later, we navigate to Harper’s palatial bathroom and clean ourselves up. I hop into the shower and yank Harper, who otherwise would’ve left me alone, in with me.
I don’t have to say it because she already knows, but I’m low-key obsessed with bathing her. My theory? There’s some kind of psychoactive drug in that bodywash she uses. Women must be immune to it, but as soon as that sweet scent gets into my nose, I can’t keep my hands off her.
Once we’re clean and dry and dressed, we migrate up to my suite. No matter where we end up having sex, it seems like we always fall asleep for the night at my place.
I pull her into me because now she’s my little spoon.
Falling in love is a metamorphosis, that’s what I’ve learned. Done right, it’s also the most life-affirming thing there is.
She snuggles deeper, her voice muffled by the pillow. “What?”
“Have you noticed that…” I drop a kiss on the crown of her head, “these days you spend almost every night in my bed?”
She nods, letting out a big breath when she’s done.
“It’s weird, right? I’ve…” She swallows. “I’ve never been this way about someone before.”
“Me either.”
This moment would be scary if we weren’t wrapped around each other like two boa constrictors. We fall back into silence for a few moments, and then Harper pipes up.
“Should we talk about why that is?” Her body tenses against mine, then releases. I squeeze her a little tighter.
What’s there to talk about?
“I think I just…love you forever.” With one hand, I rub down her side. “I’ve loved you since that night at the club, and I’ll love you on my deathbed.”
Once the words are in the air between us, the gravity of them sandbags me.Is this the right moment? Did I say the right thing? Harper’s silence throws me off, and then she rolls over to face me, tears in her eyes.
She hikes her leg over my hip, draping her arm over my chest. I roll to my left, pulling her on top of me. Our eyes meet in the dark, as they’ve done so many times, in so many ways before now.
“I love you too. Forever.” Harper sniffles, burying her head into my neck. I wrap my arms around her back, holding her in place.
I realize then—or maybe I already knew—that even if the world crumbled down around us, I wouldn’t give one single fuck.
As long as I get to have this , nothing else matters.
My cell phone shrills on the nightstand beside me. The abrupt beginning of the ringtone causes us both to jump.
I hate getting a phone call late at night. It’s never a good thing.
Harper glances toward the phone. “Who is it?”
I grab my phone and clock the caller ID. “Finn.”
Tapping the answer button with my thumb, I hold the device to my ear. I don’t get even one syllable out before Finn’s gruff, staccato voice is there, anxiety laced in every word. Something’s wrong.
“We’re in the situation room. Get up here. Now.”
I sit up a little, and Harper sits up with me.
“What’s going on?”
“Major development.” Finn pauses, strategic and ominous. “Is Harper there with you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t react.” Alarms go off inside me. Whatever he’s about to tell me is a fucking bombshell. “It’s Leo De Luca.”
Leo De Luca? The heir to the De Luca Mafia? The dipshit who’s in jail for the rest of his life? What the fuck kind of trouble could he have stirred up from behind bars?
“He’s out of jail.” Finn’s rough voice is grim as death.
Shock detaches me from the moment.
“He got out on a technicality. You can guess the rest.” Finn delivers the truth like it devastates him just to say it. “It’s official, Cian. We’re at war.”