Honored: An Alpha Mob Romance (City Series Book 4) (16 page)

I was drenched with sweat and wild with desire and pleasure as I felt my orgasm slowly build in my core. He obviously could tell how close I was because I dipped forward, my hair hanging down around him as I slammed my hips harder, working them back and forth, riding hard, my lower back bending and sliding.

It came through me then, and my entire body began to shake. I moaned wildly, and he loved it, thrusting along with my rhythm. My back arched and tensed as I came, the perfect blissful blankness that follows overtaking my mind. There was nothing but him inside of me, his big dick, his powerful chest, his full lips, his smell and smile and everything about him pressed up inside of me as I came.

Slowly, it passed. He sat up, arms wrapped around me, and I felt small in his embrace, my legs wrapped around him. I kept moving my hips, softly, overwhelmed by how sensitive it was post-orgasm. He grinned at me and kissed my nose and my cheeks and my chin.

“Your knees sore?” he asked.

I grinned. “Probably will be.”

He rolled me over suddenly, keeping himself inside me, and pressed me down onto my back. He slowly began to work himself in and out of me again.

I reached up and grabbed his hair, grinning. “You going to come for me now?”

He grunted and pressed himself deep into me, and I gasped, releasing his hair. Without another word, he grabbed my hips and began to fuck me again, sliding in and out deeply, working up his pace. I could see the sweat dripping down his chest, and I reached up and grabbed my tits as he kept fucking me. I wanted him to look at me, wanted him to drink in everything. His whole face was wild with pleasure as he pushed into me, rocking deeply and hard.

Our moans and the slap of our skin filled the otherwise empty room as he worked himself into me. I could tell he was close from the way he gripped my body, pushing and pushing hard. I wanted him to come for me, needed it so badly; I didn’t know why, but I wanted him to release. I moaned, realizing that every noise I made drove him nuts, and his eyes locked on my tits and my lips.

His pace peaked, and I watched as his whole body stiffened. I could feel him twitch inside of me as his orgasm overtook him. He stroked hard and deep inside me, and I worked my hips for him, encouraging everything. Finally, after a few more deep strokes, his body relaxed and he finished. He slowly pulled himself away, collapsing next to me on the floor.

I laughed softly, my whole body tingling with pleasure.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

I could feel him smile as we both lay there panting.

“Didn’t expect that,” he said softly.

“Neither did I.”

He tilted his head toward me. “Not complaining, though.”

“Good.” I sat up and slowly got to my feet. He crooked one arm behind his head and looked up at me, his eyes taking in my body.

“In a hurry?”

“I’m going to use the bathroom. When I’m back, you’re going to tell me what all this shit is.”

His face darkened. “Is that why you fucked me?”

I clenched my jaw. “I’m not whoring myself out for information, you fucking dickhead.”

“Sorry,” he said softly, expression softening. “I’m used to people doing shit like that.”

“I’m not some mob slut or whatever.”

His eyes took in my naked body and a grin replaced his guilty look.

“That’s definitely true.”

“You’re impossible.”

Before he could respond, I turned and walked out of the room and into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it. I sat down on the toilet seat, put my head in my hands, and breathed deeply. I didn’t know why or what it meant, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was still so amped up from everything, and I needed to calm myself down. I didn’t want him to worry, because those few moments of pleasure, with Liam pressed inside me, were the best moments I’d had in what felt like a long time.

Even before I was nearly murdered in my own home. I had a decent life, but there wasn’t much to it; I had Petey and a few friends, but that was it. There was nothing special, no passion or excitement, just the daily drudgery of getting up in the morning and going to bed at night. I knew exactly what was going to happen when I got home from work, and the routine barely ever changed. I knew where I’d sit and what I’d watch, and that happened day after day. I loved my job, and I got a real sense of satisfaction from it, but that could only take you so far. There needed to be something else, some spark to set it all ablaze. For the first time in a long time, Liam felt like that spark.

But the circumstances were all fucked up. I was practically his prisoner, though I knew he was protecting me. I was wild and lost and hunted, and as much as I wanted him and knew he’d never let anything bad happen to me, I was afraid of him. He was from a family of criminals, violent and dangerous men. And that terrified me. I knew there was more to him, something else underneath his strength and his violence, but I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t seem to find it.

As I stood and sighed, I knew I’d have to keep digging. I needed to strip him of his defenses, try to lay him as bare as I felt.

I was going to get what I wanted. I was determined not to be a victim anymore.

I
pulled the condom from my still-hard dick and dropped it in a trashcan in the bedroom. I walked back into the empty room with the papers and slipped my boxers and my T-shirt back on, sitting down with my back against the wall.

I hadn’t expected her to come on to me like that. At first, I thought she was going psycho on me, and that I was going to have to subdue her or some shit. But then her lips were on mine, and I felt those perfect tits, and I couldn’t stop myself. I knew I should’ve stopped, knew that it was wrong to take advantage of her, or whatever the fuck it was, but I didn’t have that kind of strength. Especially not when her lips were wrapped around my dick.

Fuck, but she was perfect. Everything, from her hips down to the noises she made. I felt my cock stirring again, like I was some horny teenager, just at the thought of her.

I sighed, cursing myself. I’d known I had already been compromised, way too involved with her, but at least I hadn’t been fucking her. I mean, I had definitely wanted to, kept picturing her soft lips wrapped around my shaft, but shit. I had been controlling myself, trying to do the right thing.

But it felt so fucking good to do the wrong thing.

I heard the toilet flush and the faucet run in the other room, and I knew I didn’t have long to decide what I was going to tell her. I wasn’t sure if it was safe for her to know the plan; if they caught her, they could use what she knew as leverage. But then again, I felt like I did at least owe her something. And it wasn’t just because she sucked my dick like it was meant to be inside her mouth. She had been through some pretty intense shit, and she was still acting strong despite it.

I shook my head. I couldn’t keep bullshitting her. I couldn’t keep jerking her around. It was time to let her be a part of everything. Fuck, she already was a part of everything, and her life was as much on the line as mine was. The difference was, I had all the power, and she was stuck watching TV all day. Maybe knowing what was happening would be some small comfort, at least.

The creak of the floorboards announced her return before her perfect body slipped back through the doorway. She was still naked, and her thick blonde hair still tumbled down around her shoulders, languishing over her back. I stared at her perky pink nipples and her round breasts. She smiled at me as she pulled her shorts and panties back on and slipped her shirt back over her head. I wanted so badly to get up behind her, squeeze her tits and bite her ear, but we had work to do. We’d had enough distraction for one night.

“Still want to know what this shit is?” I asked her.

She blinked at me, like she was surprised that I was going to tell her.

“Yeah, I do.”

I nodded toward the box. “Papers, obviously.”

She made a face. “Don’t do that.”

I grinned. “Just a little joke.” I paused, trying to figure out how to explain it. “Like you said, it’s financial stuff, bank statements and transactions and checks and shit like that.”

“Whose is it?”

“The Mob’s, or at least it used to be.”

“You guys keep your money in the bank?”

I laughed. “Of course we do. Did you think we put it all in gold and buried it?”

She shook her head. “It’s just, how do you hide it all? I mean, from the IRS and stuff like that.”

“That’s called money laundering. That’s why we have restaurants and dry cleaners and all sorts of businesses all over the city. When we make some money illegally, we slip it into the revenue stream of those businesses, fudge the books, and boom, it’s legal, taxable cash.”

“Okay, that makes sense.”

“There’s a lot more to it, but that’s the quick and dirty version.”

“So what does that have to do with us?”

She walked over and crouched down in front of the box, leafing through the papers gingerly.

“Three years ago, I took over dealing with some of the money stuff the old boss didn’t feel like doing anymore. We have a pretty complicated system for moving money around between accounts.”

I shuffled over to the box and began to sift through it until I found what I was looking for. I held the paper out and Ellie took it, looking at the rows of figures and transaction statements.

“See, that’s a bank statement from a particular account held by one of the minor bosses. Shows what he had, where it went, stuff like that. Each boss takes some of his income and gives it as tribute to the main boss. In return, the main boss supports people when they need it with muscle or legal help or whatever.”

She nodded, looking over the paper. Her face was all screwed up, obviously thinking about what I was saying, and I wanted to kiss her pouting lips so badly. I clenched my jaw and concentrated.

“It was my job to make sure the other bosses weren’t trying to bullshit anyone. And, frankly, I didn’t find shit. But then the old boss was ousted, and Colm suddenly started hiring huge amounts of muscle, all these expensive dudes from all over the place. That got me thinking: how the fuck could Colm afford all of that? He was bribing cops and city officials like crazy, too. I’m talking millions of dollars in those first weeks. My territory was bigger than his, I brought in more cash than he did, but even I didn’t have that kind of money lying around, nobody did. But there was Colm, shelling out lots of cash like it was no big deal.

“So that got me thinking. My initial idea was, Colm had the backing of a more established boss. But as time went by, that became less and less likely. Really, Colm was making enemies of every single old boss. It made no sense that one of them was backing him, and anyway, there were only one or two that could have afforded it. Those two guys both fucking hate Colm.”

She looked up at me and something clicked in her expression.

“The only other explanation is that he’s been stealing all these years, right under our noses. Colm is a clever fuck, so I wouldn’t put it passed him, which is why I got all these records out of storage and began combing through them.”

“And?” she asked me.

“And, well, there are a lot of shady transactions.”

Her expression dropped. “What do you mean?”

“Little things, a few dollars here and there, but always to some random bank account. This goes back a while, back to when he first started in the Mob.”

“Is that enough?”

I shook my head. “No, but it’s a start. He was stealing, I’m beyond positive about that, but I need a little more. I need the definitive proof, and it’s somewhere in that box.”

She looked down at it. “Okay, so you’re telling me that this master plan of yours hinges totally on some sort of paperwork miracle?”

I laughed. “It’s not a miracle. It’s in there. When Colm started paying more attention to me, I stopped digging into it, afraid he’d catch on. But before I did, I grabbed every single document relating to his business going back years, and I shoved it all into that box. I just need to sort through it all and put it together.”

She nodded, looking thoughtful. “I can help with this.”

“No offense, but what do you know about laundering money?”

“No offense, but you’re just some Mob asshole. And I happen to be pretty good at this sort of thing. And—”

“Okay, okay,” I held up my hands, cutting her off. “You can help.”

Her face softened and she smiled. “Thanks, Liam.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“When do we get started?”

I shrugged. “Right now. Unless you got something better to do?”

She gave me a look and flipped the box, dumping the papers onto the floor. I moved over toward her and crouched down at her side, staring at the huge pile of papers.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

“Let’s just get it done as fast as we can.”

She frowned and turned back toward the papers, starting to page through them. I stared at her body, at her pale skin and smooth legs, and wished I could skip the paperwork.

But the paperwork would save our lives; fucking was just fun.

I
looked out over the room, at the stacks of paper, and realized I never wanted to touch another bank statement in my entire life.

Three hours of sorting. Three hours of meticulously going through each paper, figuring out what it was and sorting it into whatever pile we felt it belonged in. Three hours of mind-numbing boredom, although I had to admit that it was better than sitting up alone, wondering whether or not someone was going to break down the door and murder me.

And Liam was shockingly attentive. More and more it was becoming apparent that I completely misread him. I thought he was some muscled Mob jock who didn’t know the difference between a 401k and a W-4, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was savvy, clever, and had an eye for details. I felt a little bad for stereotyping him, but then again, who could blame me? He really was all of those Mob stereotypes, crass and crude and violent and tough, but he had another level to him that he didn’t show at first.