Connelly Crime Family Trilogy

by Winters, KB

  And the longer he held me, the safer I felt. It was all over.

  Finally.

  I didn’t know what to do or how to feel so I gave in to the only emotion I could and let myself cry until all of my tears ran out.

  Chapter Thirty - Five

  Rourke

  “You did the right thing, Rourke.” Patrick’s voice was unusually gentle and calm considering that less than three hours had passed since we faced the Milano’s head on. “Don’t doubt that for one second.”

  His words were meant to reassure me, but they didn’t. I knew Margo was safe in my room upstairs waiting for me, but that didn’t bring me the joy it should have. And it was all the fault of Daniel fucking Milano, may that piece of shit rot in hell.

  “I don’t doubt it. I did what I had to do, but I can’t stop seeing it,” I admitted to my uncle. Rarely did he tolerate any display of weakness, but I was too fucking tired to even think of that.

  “It’s not something that goes away. Ever. But it does get easier to live with.” I saw something in his eyes I’d never seen before. Regret. And I didn’t know if that scared me or reassured me that we weren’t animals.

  I nodded at his words, staring off into space until my vision blurred. The whiskey in my hand somehow made it to my lips and burned my chest, but I didn’t remember drinking it. Or refilling it. Even with blurred vision I could see Daniel’s face as it disappeared under the barrage of blows I landed on him. Every discernible feature disappeared under the force of my anger, my desire to seek revenge for what he’d done to Margo.

  Then the bastard had smiled and that just pissed me off, and I hit him, again and again and again until all I heard was a shaky breath once in a while. Eamon pulled me away, but I didn’t look away from Daniel’s face until he disappeared from my sight.

  “He ain’t dead and I’m grateful for that.”

  I nodded. “I know and I’m sorry—”

  “No,” Patrick held up a hand and puffed that damn cigar again. “I’m grateful you didn’t kill him because he’ll serve as a constant reminder of what happens when you fuck with my family.”

  Patrick clapped me on the back and called the others into his office.

  Eamon, Shae and Conor walked in, all looking exhausted and ready to fall into bed.

  “You all right?” Conor gave me a careful look but took me at my word.

  “I won’t keep you boys for long because we’ve had a long day. The Milanos aren’t ruined but they’re close. Byrne and I have agreed to let Lorenzo keep what he has, unless he steps out of line. Again.”

  Patrick lifted his whiskey with a grin. “Good night and I expect you all at dinner Friday night.”

  That was two nights away and the closest Patrick would come to giving us a choice. Or a day off.

  I was happy for the break. I’d left Margo to shower off Daniel’s blood in one of the guest bathrooms, and when I stepped inside my room, I didn’t think about anything but the woman standing on the middle of the rug in nothing but a towel.

  “You’re a beautiful sight for these poor eyes,” I said with my arms open to welcome her.

  She smiled at my words, beautiful with her fresh face and damp hair. Her tits swelling over the edge of the towel. “Except for the whole Cyclops thing I got going on you mean?”

  She pointed at her eye, now swollen shut despite the ice she held in her hand even now.

  “It’s like a sci-fi fantasy come to life,” I said, closing the distance between us and stroking her forehead as gently as I could.

  She laughed and nothing had ever sounded so fucking sweet to my ears. “All you’re missing is some blue or green body paint.”

  “Paint, huh?” Her good eye stared up at me as she released the towel with a flick of her thumb. “I guess this is pretty plain and boring?”

  I took in the sight of Margo’s naked body. Even with the bruises, she was perfect and lush, and I already knew how soft she was. Touchable. Irresistible.

  “Never plain. Never boring,” I scooped her up in my arms and gingerly set her across the bed so I could take her in. “Even with all the bruises, you’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Do you feel okay? Do you need anything?”

  “I’m okay,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving me, Rourke.”

  “Shamrock was a big help. He told me about how you stayed with him while the bullets flew, keeping him alive until it was over. He said you were a lifesaver.”

  She nodded. “It was the least I could do, but he saved my life as well. And I know you were the driving force behind coming to get me.”

  I didn’t know how to tell her I would do anything for her so I didn’t say anything and make an ass of myself trying.

  “It was a joint effort and your tips helped. A lot.” It amazed me just how much she risked to make sure we didn’t all die before rescuing her. “Brave as hell but just as stupid,” I added, laughing.

  She rolled her eyes but those plump red lips were pulled up into a proud smile. “That’s what my tombstone will say, ‘she was brave as hell but just as stupid’.”

  “I’m so fucking glad you’re all right, Margo. I hate that Daniel did this to you.” Two fingers slid down the curve of her jaw, skin silky soft under my touch.

  “And I hate that you had to do this to him.” She grabbed my hand and pressed soft kisses along my bruised and bloody knuckles. “But I’m glad you didn’t kill him. Now he’ll live the rest of his life thinking about what he did.”

  “You forgive me for kidnapping you too?” I knew it risked pissing her off when I was so close to having her again, but I needed to know.

  She sighed. “No, I don’t. But I do understand that you thought you were doing what was best. Mostly for your family, but also for me too, a little.”

  Her reply wasn’t what I was hoping for. “And that’s not good enough for you?”

  She sighed. “Rourke, I appreciate that you want to keep me safe, but you are not the boss of me. You can’t just order me around like that. No matter what your reason.”

  That didn’t work for me. I protected what was mine and no person or thing was more mine than Margo Byrne. “I’ll do everything that needs to be done to keep you safe.”

  “And if you talk to me about it first, we might even agree before we fight.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her there would be no fights, but she put her fingers against my lips. “For the love of God, shut the hell up, go clean this mess off of you and come back to me.”

  I stood, half grinning, wondering how in the hell I’d fallen so deep for her. She was an enigma. Bitchy. Crass. Rude. Hard-headed and hot as fuck. I was also in love with her.

  I made my way to the bathroom, pulling off my clothes as I went. I didn’t know what this relationship—if I could call it that—would bring. But the thought of having a real relationship with a woman sounded amazing for the first time in my sorry life.

  ***

  When I walked back into my bedroom, Margo didn’t wait one second before she pulled me down on the bed until our lips fused together, and she didn’t let me go for a long time. She pulled back, her fingers roaming over my chest and drank in the sight of me and the hard cock springing from my body.

  “Margo,” I growled.

  Her lips twitched in amusement. “I love looking at you.” Her hands roamed the length of my body, front and back, before she stepped back and looked me over again, licking her lips slowly. “I love tasting you too.”

  When she pushed me on the bed, she dropped down on her knees. I could have come just from the sight she made, but when one delicate capable hand encircled me, stroked me, licked me from my balls to the tip, I groaned. Loudly. “Fuck, Margo.”

  “Soon,” she purred and took my cock in her mouth, her one good eye never looking away from me as she ate my cock.

  God bless her. What a champ!

  Instinct was to toss my head back and close my eyes, let my other senses take over, but I couldn’t look away. Not wh
en she flicked her tongue out so it scraped the underside of my cock. She moaned.

  My hips thrust and her smile widened in mischief as she swallowed around my cock. It was the best damn blow job I’d ever had, and I was too eager for her pussy to fully enjoy it. “Enough. I want your pussy.”

  Slowly, achingly slow, she pulled away, leaving my dick hard and lonely without her. “Where do you want it?” Margo climbed up my body, leaving a trail of moisture as she slid up my chest until her wet cunt hovered over my mouth. “Here, have a taste before you decide.”

  She smiled but the minute my mouth touched her body she shook and vibrated as a faraway expression crossed her face. I licked her slowly and thoroughly until she convulsed with the desire to come. Her ass was in my hands, and I gripped her tight and held her against my mouth while I made sweet love to her pussy with my tongue. She gripped my hair as pleasure washed over her.

  “Oh, fuck Rourke! Yes.” Her words were exhausted, satisfied and music to my fucking ears.

  Those words tore the last shred of my control, and I flipped Margo onto her back and surged into her, hard and fast, pumping into her body like I was on a suicide mission. The harder I fucked her, the more she begged for my cock. “Margo, oh fuck!”

  “Oh fuck, Rourke. Right there, yes!”

  I grabbed her tits and squeezed hard, fucking her so hard and intense that sweat slicked down my body, down her body, so much our bodies slid even harder. It was frantic and forceful, a raw hunger that I had never felt for a woman before. “Come for me, Baby.”

  She smiled sleepily, hungrily. “You first.”

  “Now,” I told her and pinched her nipples. “Now, Margo.”

  She wanted to fight it but the harder I pinched her nipples the harder it was to fight me.

  “Oh fuck me, Rourke! Yes! Oh, yes!” And then her pussy pulsed and squeezed around me until I filled her with my come.

  I collapsed on top of her, pressing her body into the mattress and she didn’t seem to mind, legs still wrapped around my waist while her hands gently slid up and down my back.

  “Margo,” I growled because there was so much I wanted to say, but I just didn’t know how. So I said her name, again and again until sleep started to claim me. “Margo,” I whispered and rolled off of her, tucking her into my body. “Good night, babe.”

  I felt her sigh in that way women did when they thought you were being sweet. Margo lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to the center of my palm. “I love you, Rourke Flannigan.”

  I wasn’t sure if I heard the words right because I was more asleep than awake, but I smiled and pulled her closer. My woman. Who loved me.

  What more could a man ask for?

  Hours later I woke up when the sun filtered into the room, a smile on my face, and a morning wood ready to be balls deep inside of my woman. Reaching out for her, I opened my eyes to an empty bed. An empty room.

  Margo was gone.

  Again.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Thirty - Six

  Margo

  “Coward.” I said the word to my reflection as many times as I could. Each time I passed a mirror, a window, hell any shiny surface I reminded myself that the traitor with the wild red hair and swollen blue eye looking back at me had run away from the man she loved.

  Left him after the most explosive lovemaking of her life. Yeah, I did that and every step I took away from Rourke broke my own damn heart. But in those moments, those gently explosive moments when our hearts beat as one and the last remnants of pleasure sizzled between us, my guard had crumbled to the ground. With the debris lying all around me, around us, I was powerless to stop the flood of emotions coursing through me.

  And I’d blurted out the one thing I never wanted Rourke to know.

  I love you. What the hell was I thinking?

  I wasn’t, which was why I’d waited until Rourke’s soft, deep even breathing nearly carried me off to sleep before I slid from the bed and dressed silently. All the while, I never took my eyes off the stunning beauty of his sleeping form. I watched him for longer than I should have, and then I walked down the stairs and out the front door.

  “More like ran,” I snorted sarcastically as I packed up another box of knickknacks I’d collected over the years. Yep, I left the bed of the man I loved—in the middle of the night—to pack up my house. Because I was a coward.

  A running, fucking coward.

  And now I felt worse than I had for the past few weeks because I knew that I’d put the nail in the coffin of our relationship when I left the way I did. But I had to get out of there. I had to get started on the next phase of my life, which included a mandatory six week leave from work because they were all terrified I might be suffering from PTSD after all I’d been through.

  Of course, I knew that was just an excuse they’d use to fire me when my six weeks were up. I smiled at the phone and assured my boss that I completely understood where he was coming from, deciding that six weeks of paid leave would give me plenty of time to figure out what came next.

  “Next.” It settled like rotten blue cheese in my gut, well just blue cheese because it stank like hell, and there was nothing in the world that could make me like it. Only unlike blue cheese, I had to move on. I had to figure out my next move.

  The doorbell rang three times in a row, urgent. Insistent. I froze and sucked in several deep breaths and let them out slowly. Deliberately. What were the odds it was another kidnapping? Whatever the answer was, I refused to take that chance. I grabbed the gun my dad had shoved in my hand when he gathered me in his arms and cried in my hair when he’d found me alive and safe.

  “Who is it?” I didn’t look through the peephole, and I didn’t stand in front of the door because I learned lessons quickly.

  “Open up the goddamn door, Margo.”

  Rourke. And he was angry.

  I unlocked the door and took a step back. “It’s open.”

  He opened the door and stepped in. He looked at me and then at the gun. “You’re afraid of me now?”

  “No.” That was a lie, I was terrified of Rourke because he made me feel things I had never felt for another person. And because he was the worst person in the world I could feel that way about. “I’m just more careful when I answer the door these days.”

  He nodded but I saw a flash of hurt in his eyes. This wasn’t about him; it was about me.

  “Smart,” he said. “How’s your eye?”

  “Ugly. Hurts, but I’ll be fine. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Seriously?” He posed the question with the most sarcasm that could be squeezed into one word.

  “Going to offer me a drink?” he asked.

  “This way,” I said, and showed him into my kitchen. I opened the cupboard over the refrigerator and he brushed past me and made a beeline for the Jameson on the top shelf. Without asking if I wanted one, he poured a splash into a coffee mug, which he then topped with coffee I had brewing in the coffeemaker.

  “Help yourself, Rourke.”

  He grinned. “I will, thanks.” After searching in my fridge for some cream and further doctoring up his coffee, his long legs folded under the kitchen table and he sipped his concoction. Slowly. Like I wasn’t even there.

  “You left.” It was an accusation.

  “I did. I’m sorry, but I had to.”

  Big brown eyes looked at me, saw right through me, and my lies. “No you didn’t. Tell me why you left.”

  “I can’t, Rourke.”

  “You can’t keep your mouth shut to save your life, but now, when it means everything, you can’t open it up and speak? I call bullshit.” His words weren’t angry, they were matter of fact. Almost amused.

  “I got scared, okay? Loving you, telling you that I love you was not part of the plan. Not ever.”

  His shoulders sagged. “Because I’m a lowly gangster?”

  “Yes. No. Yes. It’s because you live a life that will constantly put me in danger and…” I didn’t know what to say n
ext so I spit out the first thing that came to my mind. “Goddammit, Rourke, I love you, but I really don’t want to live the rest of my life this way.”

  The past week had been hell, the kind normal people would never be able to imagine if not for the magic of Hollywood.

  “So that’s it, we don’t even get a shot?”

  What was he talking about? “A shot at what, Rourke? You don’t want to be with me, not really. I’m a loud mouth with a bitchy streak. I’m not a neat freak and I don’t listen to you.”

  Those were just a few of my flaws but it was enough that he would see the truth.

  He smiled. “Those things are all true. But they don’t matter to me one fucking bit. Not as much as you do.”

  I nodded, confused by his words and wondering if maybe I didn’t make it out of that porn mansion alive. Maybe this was hell, being this close to the best thing that had ever happened to me, knowing I couldn’t have it. Couldn’t keep it.

  “Wait, what?” He’d just said I mattered, but I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “You heard me, dummy. I love you.” His words were crisp, clear and impossible to misconstrue.

  “Did you just call me a dummy?”

  He let out a laugh that tugged a smile across my face. “You hear the wrong thing on purpose, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “So sue me.”

  “I love you Margo. Despite the fact you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want to love me, I am fucking in love with you.”

  His expression was so gentle and affectionate, so full of love that I felt something like hope swell in my chest. Expanded it so much that it was hard to breath for a second.

  “You…why me?”

  “Why not you? Who else is going to give me shit every step of the way to make sure I don’t get too full of myself?” His eyes sparkled with love and amusement.

  “You have your gangster family for that.”

  His smile only grew wider as one long finger beckoned me over. “But they’re not as pretty as you, my wild Irish beauty.”