“I’ll wait right here,” I say, flopping back onto the bed and lifting my arms up over my head, arching and stretching happily. In this moment, everything is right. Everything is perfect. I’m married to the other half of my soul, tomorrow is Sunday and neither one of us has to work. We’re going to have a baby. I’m so happy, I could burst.
That is, until North answers the phone, curtly, and listens for a few seconds.
His face turns white as a sheet, golden eyes straying to mine.
“Are you sure?” he says, strangled. “He wasn’t supposed to…I thought we had years?”
My senses go on alert and I sit up, heart thudding, grabbing a pillow to hold over my breasts, because for some reason, I’m in need of armor.
“Thank you for letting us know,” North says, finishing the call. Dropping the phone onto the bed and staring just past me, looking a thousand yards into the distance. He doesn’t even seem to be breathing, but his jaw is tight enough to snap. “Gracie…”
“What?” I whisper, a terrible foreboding making my skin icy. “Who was that?”
Without answering right away, he lies down beside me on the bed and gathers me close as possible, his arms locking around me so tightly that I can’t draw a breath. “Grace…” The sound of his heavy swallow reaches my ears. “Curtis Tennison is out on parole. He was released early due to good behavior. He’s back in Boston.”
If I thought I was cold before, it was nothing to the icy blast that hits me now, making me shiver violently. I try to make sense of those words, replaying them over and over again. Not wanting to believe them. Not wanting them to be valid. Or real.
Five years ago, my father threatened North’s life. For having the nerve to date me.
He vowed to have North killed.
Curtis Tennison, a notorious Boston gangster, was the man who would have arranged the hit. Maybe even the one to pull the trigger. And he would have done it, too. If I hadn’t worn a wire during a conversation with my father and implicated both him and Tennison in a real estate developing scheme—and worse. Bribery. Corruption.
I exposed them both. Sent them to prison.
My father has been released and lives his life quietly now, outside of Boston, with my mother. Tennison was supposed to have several years left on his sentence. We had time to prepare for him walking the streets again.
Sure, the police told the gangster that my father turned over evidence. As far as we know, Tennison isn’t aware of my involvement. But I don’t trust that. Not with Tennison’s connections on the wrong and right side of the law.
And that means, I could be in very serious danger from the man I sent to prison.
“North…” I whimper.
“Look at me,” he says, his forehead dropping to mine, eyes intense. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Ever. You are safe and protected.”
“The b-baby…”
He makes a sharply hoarse sound, before taking a quiet moment to get himself back under control, which he does with a visible effort. “No one touches my family. I will handle this, Grace. You will trust me.”
“Handle it?” I burst out. I try to sit up, but he pins me down with his body, locking my wrists above my head in one hand. “North, you’re not going to handle anything. You’re going to stay away from Tennison. He’s poison. You’re going to stay away from him. Promise me. Promise you’ll stay far, far away from him.”
“Gracie.” His voice is much calmer now. Smoother. But it’s not lost on me that he won’t grant me the promise and because of that, a finger of dread traces down my spine. “As far as we know, law enforcement never told Tennison about the wire. About your involvement. There is no need to panic.” His mouth melts down over mine like silk. A silk distraction. He hums comfortingly into the kiss, only breaking contact to grasp the back collar of his shirt and pull it off over his head. And now? Now I know he’s trying to distract me. I can never think straight when he’s shirtless, row after cord after slab of muscle on display. I’m ashamed to say it works like a charm, too, because as soon as his rippling stomach meets mine, I moan, my knees lifting automatically to perch on his hips. “There’s my good girl,” he murmurs, bathing my neck in an exhale, cinching his lower body into the space between my legs, humping me with a grunt. “Let’s get back to what we were doing, baby. Get back to what’s important.”
I struggle to hold on to my concern under on the onslaught of need. Desire for my magnetic husband. “North…I’m scared.”
“No, you’re not.” Gritting his teeth, he lets go of my pinned wrists and reaches down, positions himself at my entrance and pumps his shaft into me, seating himself fully with a growl. “You’re not scared because I’m here. I’ve got you. Look at me, Gracie. Look me in the eye.” He ticks his powerful hips back and slams forward, forcing me to trap a scream in my throat, never taking his gaze off mine. Oh God, the perfect pressure. The thickness of him. The promise of North’s brutal brand of pleasure is nothing short of heaven on earth. It’s everything. I already have my heels digging into his buttocks, trying to yank him deeper. I’m already whimpering, panting. “Tell me you’re not scared,” he demands, ramming into me again, my sobs filling the room. “Tell me you know your man is going to take care of you.”