Chapter 2
Chapter Two
WILL
I don’t know whether to be relieved she knows so I can stop lying to her or furious that she’s now been sucked into the very thing I’ve been trying to protect her from all this time.
Right now, it’s definitely both.
The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt Emilia, but that’s exactly what I’ve done—in order to protect her.
“I tried to tell you before…”
Her brows furrow over confused, darkening eyes. “What do you mean? You never?—”
I step closer, so badly wanting to touch her, but I don’t dare while she’s trembling and I don’t know if it’s because she’s afraid or pissed— at me. “I did .”
She just didn’t want to hear it.
Wouldn’t let me get a fucking word out.
That anger I’ve tried so hard not to direct at her starts to seep into my blood again. She so easily believed the worst about me. And tonight, even if it was only for a few minutes, she thought I could actually be involved with Rocky and his smuggling operation.
“That day when you saw me with Cassie…”
Emilia’s eyes flare with a red-hot fury that almost instantly morphs into something far worse—hurt and betrayal. “You mean when I walked into the bar and found you with your tongue down that blonde’s throat?”
Shit.
The pain in her voice, the utter despair in the way she says the words, breaks me almost as much as seeing her walk through that door to witness it in the first place.
“It wasn’t what it looked like. If you would have just let me explain?—”
“Explain what ? Why you cheated on me?”
She pushes off the keg, trying to get past me, but I know if she walks away now, I won’t ever have a chance to get her back again.
My chest brushes hers, and I can’t stop myself anymore.
I capture her face between my palms, so soft and smooth under my rough, calloused fingertips and palms born from years of working on the boat and behind the bar here. “She’s an FBI agent, Em. She approached me almost two years ago and told me they believed Rocky and his crew were running heroin, meth, coke, you fucking name it, through the northern lake ports.”
Emilia’s eyes widen. “Because Valentina and Cutter won’t let them bring drugs into the docks through Chicago…”
“Exactly.” I brush my thumb across her tanned cheek, now pinkened with her anger. “She asked for my help. She knew I had a stronger chance of getting them to trust me than anyone else and asked me to help set them up.”
“Because of who our fathers are…”
I nod slowly, waiting for her to connect the rest of the dots. “Who better to approach than the son of Warwick Pike? You were never supposed to get involved. You were never supposed to find out. It was all supposed to be done behind closed doors, and you showed up early that day when we were waiting for Rocky and his crew to get here. You saw me with her?—”
Her jaw tightens, and she fists her hands at her sides, unwilling to touch me. “You kissed her.”
The sheer agony in her voice slices at my chest because I know how I would have felt if I had been the one to walk in on her kissing someone else—I’d be sitting in prison right now for killing the fucking bastard.
I tighten my grip on her face, forcing her to keep looking at me even if she wants to pull away. “I had to. It was the only way they were going to talk in front of her—if they believed she was with me and could be trusted. But that’s all it was. Do you understand? It was an act. ”
A single tear escapes from her shimmering eyes and rolls down her cheek, over my thumb. “The way you hate me isn’t.”
I freeze. “Hate you?”
Her tears completely spill over now. “I’m not blind or stupid, Will. I’ve seen the way you look at me. How angry you are?—”
“Christ, Emilia, I don’t fucking hate you.” I fight through the emotion clogging my throat. “I hate the fact that you wouldn’t let me explain, that you immediately believed the worst, that you didn’t trust me, that you said you should have ‘expected something like that from me’ when I never gave you any reason not to trust me in our entire lives. I hated how much that fucking hurt.”
And finally saying the words now feels like a ten-thousand-pound weight has instantly been lifted from my chest.
“I only love three things in this world, Em—my parents, the water, and you . That’s never going to change. It hasn’t changed.”
Her bottom lip quivers. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Shit.” She squeezes her eyes closed, forcing more tears to cascade down her already-streaked cheeks. “And what about those guys?”
I release a heavy sigh. “I will call Cassie and update her. She was supposed to be here for this meeting but got hung up elsewhere. Rocky has been using middlemen to take the deliveries until now. They couldn’t pin it directly on him without more. When I do get this shipment and make the delivery— directly into his fucking hands—this will all be over. He and his crew will be arrested. And that’s all I want, for it to be over so that it’ll be safe for you.”
“What about you?”
That fact that she cares draws my lips into a grin. “I can take care of myself.”
Her perfect lips twitch into a partial grin. “But I’m the better shot.”
“You always were.” I search her eyes, looking for any signs that the woman who once looked at me with so much love and trust is returning. “So…do you believe me?”
I want her so badly to say, “Yes.” After all this time of her believing the lie, I need her to see the truth and know it has always been her and always will be.
She stares into my eyes for what feels like an eternity, or maybe it only seems that way because she’s avoided doing it for so damn long and I’ve missed seeing them so much.
Finally, Emilia nods slightly. She leans into my hand and sags against me, pressing her body fully to mine. “Yes…I believe you.”
“Thank fucking Christ because I’ve missed you so much, Trouble.”
I wrap one arm around her waist and use the other to guide her mouth to mine so I can crush my lips to hers. Holding her steady, I devour her, tangling my tongue with her own, tasting her and craving even more.
All the things I’ve been missing and longing for are in my hands now.
I kiss her like my life depends on it because I finally feel I’m getting it back. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel to return to what we once had—to what was meant to be.
Since the first time I laid eyes on her when Rion and Gabby brought her home from the hospital, I fell in love. I may have only been three, but I knew. From my best friend to the love of my life—Emilia has always been the one .
She moans against my mouth, and my cock hardens between us, pressing into her belly, throbbing with the need to take her again. To claim her. To prove to both of us that we can finally put the demons of the past where they belong.
Every single part of me needs her.
I need to get closer.
I need more.
I need Emilia.
Reaching down, I lift her onto the keg, and she spreads her legs for me, allowing me to slip between them and press my hard length against her core.
A little groan falls from her lips, and she tunnels her hands in my hair, tugging at the strands almost frantically. That familiar little bite of pain makes pre-cum leak from the head of my cock, and it aches almost painfully.
“Fuck, woman, I’ve missed the feel of your hands on me.”
Emilia whimpers, kissing me, then dropping her hands to tug at the button on my jeans frantically.
Thank fuck we’re on the same page again.
The stormy seas that have been my life for the past year and a half are finally starting to clear.
And all I see is the light.
All I see is Emilia.
Emilia
The wild shaking of my fingers makes getting him naked far too difficult. It can’t come fast enough. I need to feel his hot skin against mine, his cock filling me again and completing me in the way only he ever can.
His tongue glides along the seam of my lips, and I open for him, allowing it to sweep over mine, giving me a taste of the sweet and spicy bourbon he must have just downed and the passion he has always held for me.
It feels like a thousand years since he’s touched me like this. Since his little groans of pleasure and approval have rumbled from his chest against mine.
And I can’t wait another second to have all of him.
I manage to undo the button on his jeans, but the zipper sticks as I try to draw it down.
A frustrated growl falls from my mouth into his, and he chuckles, then kisses me harder, more urgently, shifting his hand from my hip to assist in freeing him. He pulls his gun out from his waistband with the other and sets it on the stack of boxes beside us, within reach, should we need it.
The metal tines finally give way, and my hand finds his thick cock.
Fuck, I’ve missed this.
Missed him.
He groans into my mouth, his hips rolling forward to push his length against my palm as I stroke him. My body is as primed and ready as his, trembling and aching. To be back in this man’s arms again. To feel his touch. To absorb his kiss. To know all of it was real and that everything I thought I knew about Will Pike was true.
A sense of euphoria I haven’t felt since the last time Will kissed me like this washes over me, mixing with the frantic need coursing through my system that’s bordering on unbearable.
Things have always been combustible between us.
But this feels like so much more.
Like jet fuel being thrown on an already raging conflagration.
My skin burns with the need to feel his calloused touch everywhere.
He tears his mouth from mine, and I whimper my objection.
Will kisses his way to my ear, one hand against the back of my head, holding me in place as the other digs into my hip. “I want nothing more than to drop to my knees to eat your cunt and taste you again, but I need to be inside you more right now…”
God, yes.
That.
I tighten my grip on his length, stroking him faster, harder, more desperately. My pussy throbs and clenches in anticipation, and I glide my thumb across the leaking pre-cum, spreading it over the thick head of his cock that always catches in that perfect spot deep inside me.
He pulls back and helps me slide down until my feet hit the floor, then reaches for the waistband of my jeans and tugs them down, taking my thong with them, in one swift motion. Turning me to face the keg, he pushes on my shoulder blades, forcing me to place my palms flat against the top of it and offer my bare ass to him.
“Fucking hell, woman.” He brushes all my hair over my left shoulder, exposing the right side of my neck, and kisses along the column, sending shivers through me as he presses his hot cock between my ass cheeks. “I’ve dreamed about this every night.” Another kiss. “Having you in my arms again.” Another. “Your taste.” Another. “Your lips.” Another even higher. “Your hands all over me.” He finds that spot just behind my ear that makes my pussy weep. “My cock buried in this sweet cunt of yours and that breathy little moan you always release as I drive into you…”
I shudder against him, my nails scratching the metal surface under them, and he grins against my skin, reaching between us to glide his fingers through my slick folds.
“Jesus, Em, you’re so fucking wet for me. Did you dream about this, too? Did you miss me?”
Miss him?
The words seem insufficient for what I’ve felt.
The yearning that consumed me every day, battling the sheer rage I felt at him for his betrayal.
I nod my agreement, trying to push away any of those lingering feelings that don’t belong here anymore. Nothing should stand between us. No more secrets. No more lies. No more anger.
Will grips my chin in his rough fingers and tilts my head back until my eyes meet his steely gray ones. “Say it.”
“Yes.”
His fingers move through my arousal, slick and gliding but not stroking me where I really need it. “Have you let anyone else touch this cunt?”
Fuck.
I shake my head, a needy moan slipping out of my lips. “No.”
“Thank fuck…” He drags the head of his cock through me and nips at my mouth. “Because I haven’t touched another woman. You’re it for me, Trouble. You always have been. Do you believe that?”
I nod.
“ Say it.”
“ Yes .”
He plunges into me in one long, hard thrust that rocks me forward against the keg. I cry out, the sound swallowed by the music playing out in the bar and the old wood walls and beams of the small room surrounding us.
Oh, God…
“ Fuck! ” He growls low in my ear and stills inside me, then pulls his hand from between my legs and slips his wet fingers into his mouth. “Just a little taste of what I’m going to have later. And Christ, it’s even better than I remember.”
He rolls his hips, making the head of his cock hit that perfect spot and drawing another low groan from my chest, then withdraws and slowly pushes back into me. Allowing me to feel each glorious inch of him as he fills me completely.
The tempo he sets of long, slow thrusts is maddening.
Each retreat has me arching to keep him close. Every drive and roll of his hips winds me tighter.
He somehow maintains control when I can tell he just wants to unleash. Wants to make up for all the time we spent apart. Wants to apologize in the best way possible for everything that’s happened.
And I will let him.
But not like this.
This is brutal torture.
I thought living without him, believing he betrayed me after a lifetime of loving each other, was too painful to bear. Yet, this is somehow worse. Being so close yet feeling so far from reaching that epoch.
If he keeps up this agonizing rhythm, I won’t make it.
I’ll die right here waiting for the orgasm he’s keeping from me.
His fingers tighten on my chin and hip. His ragged breaths against my ear come harsher, along with increasingly sharp thrusts.
I can feel his restraint about to snap, and I want it to.
Because William Pike, when he lets loose, is the most beautiful and terrifying thing in the world.
And he’s all mine again.
He always was.
I just didn’t know it.
“Please, Will…”
I whimper, and he presses his lips to mine, swallowing the sound as he continues his slow, relentless assault.
My body trembles and heats, but it won’t be enough.
We both know it.
He knows what I need, what I want, and he’s intentionally withholding it.
I know what he wants to hear, what he needs to.
After what just went down in this room, he has to know I’m safe and that I’ll be okay. That he’ll never lose me, for any reason.
I drag my mouth from his and meet his lust-soaked gaze. “I’m yours, Will. I won’t let anything come between us again. And if anyone tries, I’ll put bullets in their fucking heads.”