Rachel Dyken - Entice

Mil

“You don’t have to do this,” Chase whispered for the third time once we got back to our room.

I had my cell phone out and the number dialed. All I needed to do was press send. But my damn hands kept shaking.

“We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way.” My body wouldn’t stop trembling. “This fixes everything¸ don’t you get it?” I stared at my phone. “The De Langes will trust me. Your family won’t take the blame. In the end it works.”

“Listen.” Chase grabbed the phone and threw it onto the bed, his hands cupping my face. “I. Can’t. Lose. You.”

“Chase.” My voice cracked. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His green eyes pooled with tears. He looked fierce, like he was ready to go into battle, sword raised. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

His mouth covered mine for a brief hot kiss.

“Promise me that when I tell you to get down, when I tell you to get out of the way, when I yell at you to move so I can take a bullet for you, promise me you’ll move.”

“Chase,” I forced a smile, “you’re not going to have to take a bullet for me.”

“Please,” he whispered, his lips touching mine again. “Please don’t choose that moment to be brave or stubborn. Please let me protect what’s mine. I didn’t protect you all those years ago when your dad beat you. I wasn’t there. I never got the chance to play the white knight.”

“So that’s what this is about? You want to be the white knight?”

Chase shook his head and swore. “Screw the white knight.” He gripped my chin in his hand. “I want to be your savior.”

“Oh.” I inhaled, choking on the air as his mouth collided with mine again. His tongue tasted like wine. It was a taste I was starting to crave. Everything about Chase’s kisses were possessive, warm, obsessive. My body crumbled beneath his touch. What had I done before Chase? I couldn’t remember, didn’t want to.

“Make the call, Mil.” Chase handed me the phone. “And when you’re done, I’m going to give you a new brand.”

“A new brand?” I asked, confused.

He touched the ridges of my scar. “I’m going to destroy that bastard, but before I destroy him, I’m going to love you.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded my head instead. Chase walked over to the bathroom, turned, and winked. “Good luck. I’ll just be taking another long shower while you have that conversation. I know you can do it, but you need to do it without me looking over your shoulder.”

“Okay.”

“Mil?”

My head snapped up. “Yes?”

“You’re a bad ass, just remember that. You’re a De Lange. You eat nails for breakfast, right?”

“Right.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

He shut the door behind him, leaving me blanketed in silence. I looked at the green dial button and pressed it.

It was answered on the second ring.

“So, the boss finally calls? You going to tell us to stop dealing with the feds? Or were you going to offer up yourself and your new little family as a sacrifice?”

My uncle had always been a jackass, but at least he didn’t beat his children. I knew he was bitter because the De Langes, for the most part, had agreed to let me be the boss, though half of them hadn’t even been present for the meeting Luca had strung together. Most of them had been paid off because, yes, they were just that desperate for money.

“Joe,” I said dryly. “Always such a pleasure.”

He snorted. “Make it quick. I’m busy.”

I swallowed and looked at the bathroom door then closed my eyes. “I have a job for you.”

The phone went silent.

“Joe?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m listening.”

“I need someone taken care of.”

“Name.”

“Vito Campisi.”

“I’m sorry, could you repeat the name? It sounded a hell of a lot like you just asked me to kill the closest thing to a godfather the five families have seen in a hundred years.”

“I did,” I said firmly. “Twenty million for his body. I want him injured, but alive. He should be in Vegas. Oh, and Joe?”

“Twenty mil?” His ability to use the F-word in so many ways was quite impressive. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” I cleared my throat. “I need it to be clean. No tracing it back to us.”

“Where you getting the money?”

“Since when have you cared?”

“Since the feds have been breathing down our necks after Lonnie promised information on the rest of the families.”

“That’s just the thing, Joe. This is being funded by the Alferos.”

More cursing.

“The Nicolosis.”

He was going to go to hell for all that cursing.

“And the Abandonatos.”

“So let me get this straight.” His voice strained. “You mean to bring the head down on the five arms… to what gain?”

“To end what my father started,” I said in a low voice. “Campisi was the one, Joe.”

“The one?”

“He was the one who bid on me. He bid two million dollars for my virginity and for our family’s blood. My father was going to sell our family out to him. He’s been pulling the strings from the beginning, and I mean to end it right here, right now.”

“We’ll either die trying, or it will go down as the greatest kill in our family’s history,” Joe said, his voice softening.

“There are other assassins I can—”

“I’ll put out the contract.” He cleared his throat. “Does it need to be us or can it be—”

“Get the Russians. Get the Irish. Get the damn Mexican drug cartel. I want them all. Do you hear me, Joe? I want the man to be so damn terrified of his own shadow that he ends his own life. I want him to be so petrified of taking a piss in the dark that he carries his gun to the damn toilet. Are you understanding what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Joe clipped. “Yes, boss. I do.”

“Get it done.”

“Consider it finished.”

The phone line went dead. I was grinning like an idiot because the pieces were finally falling into place, and it was my family helping me put them back together. If my brother were still alive, I think he’d be proud of me. I think he’d tell me I was insane, and he’d probably be doing a lot of yelling like Chase had. But he would have hugged me afterward and told me I was a bad ass, just like Chase had.

Phoenix’s memory would live on because I was going to finish what he’d started. I was going to redeem our family if it was the last thing I did, and I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore.

I rubbed my scar. The man didn’t own me. He may have branded me, but hell was coming for him in a blazing chariot of fire — and I was the effing driver.

Chase

The water dripped down my body, but I hardly felt it. In that moment, I wished for spider senses or super-hearing so I could see how Mil did. It wasn’t that I doubted her; I just knew that this was some scary shit. I also knew that if I had to do what she was about to, I’d have to take a couple of shots of whiskey and wave my gun around like I was some bad ass before I ordered a hit on one of the toughest sons-of-bitches I’d ever heard about.

In my mind, ordering a hit on the Capo was like ordering a hit on the devil; somehow, he’d just find a way to drag you back to hell with him.

I leaned against the shower and waited five, maybe ten minutes. I should probably get out soon, but I wanted to give her enough privacy to do what she had to do. As much as I wanted to be her strength I knew I couldn’t. This was something she had to do on her own. It was her first act as boss.

I ran my hands over my face and nearly fell on my ass when I felt breasts press against my back.

Holy shit. Either I’d died and gone to heaven, or my wife was a goddess sent by the angels. I turned, slowly.

She just stood there, a look of pure joy radiated from her face as water cascaded down the valley of her breasts across her flat stomach and down her long lean legs. My lungs burned. I realized too late that I’d forgotten to inhale. My focus had been so intent on the perfection in front of me that I’d literally stopped breathing. I pulled in a shaky breath and with my eyes followed the trail of her long wet dark hair as it fell across that perfect skin. I watched in eagerness as water dripped from that same hair and slowly slid down to her navel. My knees almost buckled when I followed the water trails all the way down to exactly where I wanted to be.

My body tightened.

Mine. That was mine. She’d been mine since I was fourteen. She’d been mine since the first time I kissed her. I was the first to explore those breasts, to kiss that neck, and I’d be damned if anyone else would ever get the opportunity to touch what was mine again. Mine. Mine. Mine. My body hummed with the primal urge to claim her.

I licked my lips in anticipation as my body burned in ways I’d never experienced before. First hot and then cold as if it couldn’t decide what it was but knew only one solution — Mil. Her gaze hungrily swept over my nakedness, pausing at my chest and quickly moving on, finally settling on me and all my glory. With a twist of her lips and lift of her eyebrow she tilted her head and whispered huskily, “You gonna use that thing?”

Yeah, like that wasn’t just like playing with a loaded gun.

I didn’t even realize I was moving until my lips crushed hers in a frenzy to taste, to explore, to claim over and over again until she begged for rest. I pressed her against the tiled wall. She sucked in a sharp breath as our legs tangled together. My tongue stroked her neck then nibbled, but it wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough? With a feral growl I shifted her weight and it was all I needed. I lifted her higher, angling myself perfectly and thrust into her hard and fast, not thinking about anything but marking her as mine, being hers and nobody else’s.

Each give. Mine.

Each take. Mine.

Each scream. Mine.

This was it for me, everything I’d always needed and wanted, found in the one girl I never realized I was missing. In that moment, pieces of the puzzle that was Chase Winter, shattered to the ground. The past? Didn’t matter. But right now? Feeling her warmth, tasting her desire? It was everything. I pushed harder, faster, she met me with each thrust, grabbing my body tighter against hers.

She screamed my name as we both found our release, a freaking explosion that robbed me of my vision, balance, and sense of time. I’d have held her just like that. Forever. I wanted to freaking set up camp in that shower and never leave. But she slumped against me, boneless, most likely exhausted. She slid slowly down my body, a sexy smile dancing across her lips. “Well, that was nice.”

“Nice?” I repeated.

She nodded and shimmied by me, collecting what was left of the soap I was using and started lathering it across her body. Hot damn. The tease moved the soap down her hips, around her ass, my eyes trained on that soap like it held the secrets to the world. Her hands moved to her breasts and I swear I almost blacked out as the soap lathered around one of my most favorite parts of her body, playing hide and seek.

Dear God, I was going to pass out on the spot. Already my body was responding to her again — how was that even possible? She handed me the soap and turned around. Growling in frustration, I told myself to calm down and helped wash her back, when really all I wanted to do was grab that mop of black hair and give a little tug while pleasuring her again.

I finished with her back then moved the soap down one of her perfectly formed legs. I went up and down in rhythmic motion then stopped when I reached the inside of her thigh. I let the water cascade down her then moved my mouth to where the soap had been. With a gasp her head fell back as she grabbed my hair and pulled, pushing me harder against her core. Groaning, I don’t know how the hell it happened but I was ready for her. Again. Immediately. Damn, it really wouldn’t ever be enough, would it? I stood and gripped her hips.

“Wrap your legs around me,” I demanded.

“So we can hug?” she asked innocently.

“Right. I’m going to hug you so damn hard you get pregnant.”

“Chase!” She smacked me in the arm.

I was serious as hell. I turned off the shower and wrapped her in a towel, quickly drying the both of us off, and then lifted her onto the counter, again not taking any time to do it right. I nudged her legs aside and pushed into her. I really wasn’t in the mood for romance and flowers. This was need. Primal need. I was in the mood to make her forget everything about what she’d just done — about what we’d both be facing within the next twenty-four hours.