I fucked her fast and deep, barely pulling my cock halfway out before slamming back in, needing her around me, needing her tight walls, her hot wet depths surrounding me, needing the surprised moan she let out every time I hit that deep spot. Her hips worked restlessly against me as I thrust, her pussy rubbing against the base of my cock, hitting her clit.
"Come Janie," I demanded, my voice low and rough, feeling the urge to bury deep and come. "Come," I said again as I slammed forward. Her hips jerked and she cried out my name loudly as her pussy clenched my cock in endless waves. On a growl, I buried to the root and came hard, groaning her name in her ear.
I collapsed onto her, holding up some of my weight on my forearms as I struggled to control my breathing. Beneath me, her body trembled slightly with aftershocks. I pressed upward, my nose rubbing hers for a second before I looked down at her. Her blue eyes were opened, fully focused on me and I smiled as I realized that just seconds after an orgasm, she was ready to talk.
"Hold that thought," I laughed, pressing a kiss to her lips before making my way toward the bathroom. I disposed of the condom and washed my hands. I was reaching for the towel when I felt her forehead press into the center of my back. Slowly, as if trying not to scare me, or maybe herself, her arms moved up and around my stomach as her body pressed into me. "You okay?" I asked, unable to see her in the mirror, my body completely blocking her from view. I felt her nod against me then plant a kiss in the middle of my back. Her arms loosened and I turned in her hold, reaching down to frame her face. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"It's never nothing," I said, stroking my thumb across her cheek.
She huffed out a breath before her eyes found mine. "Fine. So I love you, okay?"
As far as declarations went, it wasn't exactly romantic. But it was so Janie- abrupt, blunt, mildly confrontational. It was so her that it beat out any other way she could have possibly worded it.
"Okay," I agreed, nodding, fighting to keep my lips from twitching.
"Okay? Okay! That's how you respond to that?" she asked, brows drawing together. "I've never told anyone that before. Not in years. Not even Lo. And you just say okay?"
"You done?"
"Um, no. I'm not done. That was really..."
"You're done," I said, grabbing the back of her neck and hauling her up onto her tiptoes as I leaned down and took her lips, soft, long. My tongue stroked over hers until all the tension left her body and she swayed on her feet, grabbing my arms to stay upright. Then and only then, I let her go, waiting for her eyes to drift open before telling her.
"I love you too, Janie."
Her eyes went liquid and she blinked frantically. One tear slipped out and she swatted it away before I could catch it. She was silent for a long minute before the light started dancing in her eyes.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"That was actually a complete sentence!" she declared, smiling huge.
I found myself smiling back.
Not even a declaration of love could tame her.
And that was just how I liked it.TWENTY-FOURJanieI'd like to say that Repo got his wish and we had an uneventful year, or even a month, or day. But the truth of the matter was, everyone was on edge for the better part of the next year. Internal Affairs swooped into Navesink Bank and tore every file apart. They glanced into every officer and detective's personal finances, looking for kickbacks that everyone knew were there. All the organizations stepped a little more hesitantly without their safety net to guarantee protection from incarceration.
As predicted, a fair bit of blame fell onto Marcus' shoulders though he was completely innocent. Once IA discovered how deep the corruption went, what it would mean to have to reopen all the cases that had been closed involving half a dozen criminal organizations over a decade whilst simultaneously investigating all the officers, detectives, county clerks, judges, the district attorneys... yeah they decided a scapegoat was the way to go. They hung the weight of Lex's dirty work on Marcus' shoulders while laying off or relocating a third of the rest of the force.
Collings kept his job largely in part to what I had offered up to him in exchange for Wolf's freedom, though he made it clear it was the first and only time he would ever make actual evidence disappear. He would go on letting the streets run themselves so long as innocent individuals didn't get wrapped up in it. He would give all of us the wide berth we needed to keep doing what we were doing. He also assured us his new new blood was like a twenty-seven year old version of himself- just doing what needed to be done, not getting personally invested in any of it, but also not taking bribes.
As for Marcus, well, that wasn't something that was immediately clear. When he disappeared from the hospital, I had figured the Grassis had, well, fitted him with cement shoes or whatever-the-hell way the mob went about disposing of bodies. But when I ran into Luca and Matteo a few weeks after, they were asking me what I had heard about his whereabouts. So yeah, he was still a wild card. It didn't take a genius to know that made him a threat. But that threat was most likely directed toward the Grassis. And while they were nice enough people, I didn't really care what trouble they found themselves in so long as me and mine were left out of it. They could handle themselves. The Grassis had a foot in Navesink Bank before it was anything more than cherry fields and fishing villages. They weren't going anywhere. They certainly weren't going to get pushed out by some two-bit pimps.