Bound To His Bride

“You’re comin’ with me, now.”

I shake my head, trying to find words, or the ability to scream, but I’m failing at both.

“Get your sweet ass off the floor, bitch,” he snarls, the smile fading quickly. “And let’s go.”

I stare at him, blinking, my pulse racing and everything spinning.

“Get—get out!” I scream. But the man just grins wickedly at me a he steps into the apartment.

“Naw, you’re comin’ with me, baby,” he sneers. His eyes trail down my figure, and something cold and sickly washes over me as his disgusting gaze lingers on my chest and my panties.

“But…” he drawls, sneering at me as he sets the gun down on the side table by the wrecked door. His hands move for his belt, and a wave of nausea washes over me.

“But maybe you and me could have a little fun before we—”

He grunts, his eyes flying wide and his mouth suddenly going slack. I stare, blinking, barely breathing as I watch his eyes roll back in his head, until suddenly, he goes toppling forward. I gasp and shove myself away, yanking my feet away just in time as the guy smashes face-first into the floor.

My breath comes in hard, jerking gasps, before suddenly, I realize I’m not alone. Slowly, my eyes drag up—up from the creep slumped on the ground, up over the black motorcycle boots and the dark denim jeans standing in my doorway. It’s when I get to the belt buckle that something familiar hits me. Drinking in the black t-shirt pulled tight across rippling abs and a familiar chiseled chest takes my breath away. The ink on his muscled arms is a dead giveaway, and the deep, body-trembling, toe-curlingly masculine growl that catches low in his throat drives the whole thing home.

I look up in to his face, and my breath stops.

My pulse skips a beat, and my entire traitorous body aches for him.

“You—”

“We need to go,” he growls quietly, his eyes locked on mine, this roaring fire blazing in that gaze as he steps towards me.

I shake my head, swallowing, blinking up at him.

Because standing in my doorway, his blue eyes flashing fire, his broad, muscled shoulders heaving, and his gorgeous, chiseled jaw clenched tight, is Colm.

…Standing right in front of me for the first time in six months is my husband.

I don’t know if it’s real. I don’t know if I’m dreaming. But then suddenly, faster than my brain or my heart can even process it, he’s closing the distance between us.

He moves towards me, stepping over the guy slumped on the floor as I gasp and step back until my butt is against the back of my couch.

“Colm—”

“Abby,” he groans. He doesn’t stop, only moves closer and closer to me, until I gasp as his huge, rock-hard body presses into mine, pinning me to the piece of furniture.

“You can’t…” I swallow. “You can’t just—”

“Yes, I can,” he growls quietly, his eyes blazing. “Just like I can do this.”

His arms slide around me, he pulls me tight, and my breath catches just before his lips crush to mine.

And suddenly, I don’t even care what’s real, a dream, or about anything else but his lips on mine.

3

Colm

This wasn’t the plan. But “the plan” can go fuck itself right now. The whole fucking world can go get lost, for all I care. Because for the first time in way, way too long, I’ve got her lips on mine, and the sweetness of her moan melting into me.

No, the plan was, after taking out the guys on the roof, I saw the other asshole ducking in to the front door of the building—Nino Soperta, a cousin of the Luctretas. To put it bluntly, Nino is who you call when you can’t get me. He’s the B-list version of me, if even that. But one look at him slipping into the front door, and I was running.

Down the stairwell of the abandoned building, across the street, up four flights of stairs to her building. I saw the van on the way over, too, with the other Lucreta boys lingering outside of it smoking cigarettes. They sent a small fucking army for Abby, which only means they almost expected me to try and stop them.

They didn’t “expect” enough, though, I can promise that. Not by a damn mile. They didn’t expect the fury of hell from me when Abby was threatened.

I’ve thought through fifty-thousand conversations with her in the six months I’ve been without her. A hundred-thousand first lines, or apologies. “The plan” was for everything to be set first—all my ducks in a nice clean row. I’d be out of the Lucreta family for good, and settled into the new empire I’ve created. I’d tell her everything—why I left, why I disappeared. Why her being near me was dangerous until I had everything set.