“I love your ass. We’ll work out later.”
That hung between them.
It made her draw up all kinds of sexy pictures in her mind. The room got hot, but she didn’t ask him to move his hand. She wasn’t an idiot.
Dimitri Gideon could touch her any day—in fact, all damn day.
“So who is going to pull this off?” she asked, trying to focus.
“Kat,” they all said together.
“Wait, didn’t she just have a baby?” she asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Yes, but breaking and entering is her thing,” Emma stated. “She’ll get in, get out, and never be seen.”
“This family…”
She didn’t have to say anything more.
It was self-explanatory.
It was freaking amazing.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
Sky Villa
When Curtis finally returned home, his wife, Katerina, was putting Sadie down for her nap. She came out and she saw him standing there.
Her heart skipped.
“Hello, Katerina.”
“Curtis.”
“Where are the kids?” he asked, trying to ignore her curt reply and focus on what Greyson had said. He needed to make this all about her.
“Petra and Sam are with tutors at my brother’s condo. Dimitri had one arrive today who speaks Romanian and English for Petra. They are working, and Sadie is asleep.”
She went to walk past him.
“Are you divorcing me?” he asked out of the blue because he couldn’t avoid knowing anymore.
She stopped but didn’t turn around.
“What?”
“Have you fallen out of love with me, Anfisa?” he asked. “Please just tell me. I can’t take it anymore. You won’t touch me. You won’t let me touch you. You’re drifting away, and I don’t know what I did. I don’t know how to find my way back to you.”
She turned, and she was crying.
“You don’t love me anymore,” she whispered.
WHAT?
He was horrified.
“God! This is my worst nightmare. I’ve feared this,” Curtis said. “My gut was right. We are falling apart.”
So much for Greyson being right. It looked like he’d been wrong on this one.
“How do I reach you, Anfisa?”
“I feel broken.”
He remembered what Greyson said. Make it about her not him. Okay, well, that advice might still be relevant.
“Can you explain that to me?” he asked. “Can you help me understand so I can change? I don’t want to lose you, Anfisa. I want to be what you need, but you won’t communicate with me. Help me.”
She stared into his eyes, and she saw his worry.
God!
She was worried too.
“I look at Sadie and I think about how my sister died on the same day. I’m a horrible mother. I can’t even be happy. I’m just like my mother.”
Oh, shit!
That was one hell of a burden to carry, and he knew it. In fact, he hurt for her.
“Oh, Katerina.”
She kept venting.
Kat had to. It was all she had left.
“I hold this baby, and I don’t feel anything but sadness. I’m trying to be a good mom, but now I see why mine left. I’m just like her.”
And immediately, Curtis felt horrible that she was suffering alone. It sounded like grief and post-partum depression.
“Katerina.”
“I wanted to run away. I wanted to leave her. I feel like my life has disappeared.”
“Is that why you are so quiet?”
She nodded.
He moved toward her.
“Can I hug you?” he asked. “Can I hold my beautiful wife?”
She began sobbing.
Curtis picked her up in his arms and carried her to the couch. He held her on his lap and comforted her.
“I know next year when Sadie turns one, it’ll be on the day my sister died. I can’t even be happy. I was so happy to be having our child, and now…now I can’t even celebrate. I miss Natasha.”
He let her vent.
“I don’t want her to grow up and have her think I was like my mother. I don’t want to be that woman. I just don’t know how to get past this.”
“Is that why you’re trying to keep her all to yourself? You’re trying to get her to love you?”
She nodded.
“Oh, Katerina. You’re a good mom. You’re the best. She’s going to be so lucky to have you.”
“I wish I had her the day before Natasha died. I wish I had her the day after. Why that day?”
He got it.
The baby started crying.
She went to get up.
“Stay here.”
He placed her on the couch.
“But she’s crying.”
He went to the kitchen, he made a bottle of formula, and he headed into his daughter’s bedroom. It was filled with pink girly things, and it looked like a princess lived there.
One did.
The first Croft grandchild.
Seeing his child calling for them, Curtis scooped her up, and she kept crying.
When he placed the bottle in her mouth, she stopped. Curtis headed out and pointed at their bathroom. “Grab a book, some wine, and go take a bubble bath. I’m on duty.”
“I can’t drink.”
He smiled at her. “Anfisa, she won’t die if she has formula for one day. Pump and dump. It’s all good.”
She watched him and the baby. Sadie was drinking the whole bottle.
“Daddy has her. Mommy, go rest. You grew her. I can feed and burp her.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yep. You need your old life back—even if it’s just a little bit.”
She got up, poured a glass of wine, and grabbed a magazine.
“Are you sure?”
Sadie finished drinking, and he put her over his shoulder and she burped like a little-stuffed piggy.
He laughed.
“Oh, me and my kid know how to bond. We like food. We’ll be fine.”
And he realized, they would be.
Curtis felt that connection to his child. He’d been wrong. It was there. She was cuddled against him, and she did love her daddy. Before, it had been the stress between him and Kat that scared him.
This…
This he could do.
Kat headed into the bathroom, filled the tub, and sank into the frothy bubbles.
It was only a matter of minutes before Curtis came in and she expected the worst.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s passed out on a food bender. I came to rub your feet while you soak.”
Kat stared at him.
He fished around for a foot and rubbed it.
“I would never divorce you, Curtis. You’re the only man I’ll ever love.”
He smiled at her.
Yeah, he saw that now. He could see that some of the weight was lifted off her shoulders just by telling him what was wrong, and he made a vow.
He’d make this better for his wife.
Somehow.
Someway.
He’d find a way to heal her heart.
“I’m sorry you feel alone. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”
“I need my sister back.”
When she began crying, Curtis kicked off his shoes and climbed into the tub, clothes and all to hold her.
And he finally let Katerina mourn.
It was about time.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
Commissioner’s Office
LVPD
In his office, he stared at the newspaper that was sitting on his desk. The front page was horrifying.
It said it all.
On it, his one detective, who had been offered a position as captain, was in a grainy snapshot making out with Dimitri Gideon. She was clearly well acquainted with him.
Well, holy shit!
Detective Poppy Wayne was taking a vacation from her job, and at first, he figured that she couldn’t take the heat of the cops on the crime scene.
Now he saw this.
It infuriated him and gave him one hell of an out. Oh, her mistake by fraternizing with a killer was going to be the way to break her.
Someone’s job was over.
HERS.
Heading out to his secretary, he stopped at her desk to give her the directive.
“I want every case that Detective Poppy Wayne worked on in my office. I’m going to do an audit.”
“You saw the paper, huh?” she asked.
“Yes, I did, and so did most of the city. While she’s not named, we can’t have someone who is making out with Greyson Croft’s bodyguard.”
“Lucky her,” his secretary stated.
“WHAT?”
“Commissioner, he’s hot. Look at all that hair. You can’t blame the girl.”
No, but he could end her career.
“Get the files,” he said, running his hand over his bald head. Hair was overrated.
His secretary began pulling up case numbers on her computer.
“There are a lot of them, sir. It will take a while. I’ll have them all printed out and to you by the end of the day.”
Oh, that would be great.
“That’s fine. I have time.”
Commissioner Raye returned to his office, and he was thinking about the Crofts.
As always.
What the hell were the Crofts up to?
They were digging into his wife’s disappearance, and now they were cozying up to their armed gunman and his detective. Was this their way of infiltrating his office?
Oh, hell no!
He hoped they weren’t going to try and pull the same shit that they did with Riley Henderson.
That was NOT going to fly.
Not then.
Not today.
Not ever.
Well, he’d find a way to handle the detective and cut this one off at the pass. There was no freaking way he was going to allow that to happen.
AGAIN.
He’d find a way to terminate her.
Jeffrey would find a way to end her career.
And then he’d be free of one more snitch.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
When they left Peter’s Café to head to their interview, Greyson was all stirred up. It had nothing to do with the case or the fact that they were planning to break into the police station, but everything to do with the fact that all through eating, his kitten had been toying with him.
He was hard.
Horny.
And needed his wife.
Only, he was thinking about her heart, and what could happen if he pushed her too far. Would the stitches tear? Would she have a heart attack?
Yes, the doctor said she was good to go, but there was that niggling fear that he could still lose her.
It scared him.
Glancing over at Emma, as he was driving, he noticed her nipples were more noticeable.
Was it because he was so damn horny?
“Are you wearing a bra?” he asked.
“No, I’m not. It’s in Chris’s pocket. Why?”
WHY?
Jesus, he was out of control. Already, he was thinking bad things, and they involved a naked wife.
He licked his lips.
Was it getting hotter in the ride?
He felt like his temperature was going up. Maybe he should put on the air.
When he did, Emma looked over at him.
“Uh, it’s spring not summer,” she teased.
“I’m warm.”
Come to think of it…he was right. Emma was all heated up after sitting next to her sexy cave-Croft through lunch.
Seeing it as a chance to stir him up, Emma began stripping out of her blazer.
Greyson was focused on her and the road.
His wife was taking things off, and while he wanted to be good, he wasn’t a saint—by no means.
When she unbuttoned her shirt a little, he saw the scar on her chest, and it ended his libido.
It stopped there.
DEAD.
He couldn’t do it. It had been quite a few days since he’d had sex, and every time he saw that wound, he became sickened by it and what might happen.
Greyson turned off the air.
Funny.
He was no longer warm but ice cold.
“Okay, what’s wrong with us?” Emma asked. “Why are you behaving like this?”
He pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about. In fact, he wouldn’t look at her.
“Grey.”
“I’m good, Emma.”
She looked at his lap.
The erection she’d worked so hard on through lunch was gone.
Tears filled her eyes.
“You don’t find me sexy anymore.”
He glanced over so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash in the process.
“WHAT?”
“You didn’t care if I crawled all over Chris, you don’t even get excited by me, and you just lied to me.”
She sat there and quietly sobbed.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said, heading for Sky Villa. They were half a block away, and they had reporters behind them. He pulled into security, and checked in.
“Welcome home, Mr. Croft.”
“I’m just switching vehicles. We have the media all over us.”
“Oh, no problem, Mr. Croft. Have a safe day!” the security guy said over the mic.
The gate lifted, and Greyson headed through to get them someplace where they could talk and have privacy. He could see Ilan’s car, and that meant Chris was upstairs in the condo.
It looked like they were going to have a parking garage intervention.
Greyson parked in the spaces for the penthouse, and he glanced over at his wife—making her the focus of ALL of his attention.
“Please don’t cry.”
She couldn’t help herself.
“I’m getting fat and you don’t want to touch me. How am I supposed to stop crying?”
He began panicking.
First, Emma wasn’t getting fat, and when she did get ‘fuller’ he’d be in his glory. The ‘fat’ she was referring to was Mac. It was his son.
“Emma.”
“You don’t touch me.”
“Okay, you’re right.”
She cried harder.
That was NOT what he’d expected. Normally, Emma was a very rational person, and this was clearly part hurt, part fear, and a whole lot of hormones mixed into one ugly mess.
“We’ll be getting divorced next!”
He wanted to puke.
Oh, God!
He needed a manual to go with this pregnancy. His wife hadn’t been weepy yet, but here it came.
“I feel horrible about you.”
She cried harder.
“NO! Wait! I meant, I didn’t protect you, and I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you if you’re not healed. I see that scar and I get panicked.”
She looked up with tears in her eyes.
“My scar?”
“On your chest where they opened you up. I can’t even say it without freaking out. You nearly died. I nearly lost you. I just picture your heart pounding hard from the sex and then you dying on me. One little thing, and I could lose you. I’m scared.”
She stopped crying and wiped her eyes.
Greyson was seldom afraid of anything.
It had her attention.
Greyson didn’t stop there. The cat was out of the bag, so he didn’t mind telling her everything.
“I want to touch you, Emma. I want to touch you so bad that I’m hurting, but I fear breaking you. What if I’m too rough? What if I do something and your heart…what if you die on me?”
She stared into those gray eyes.
They were stormy.
He wasn’t lying. He was being
honest.
“Greyson.”
“I am very attracted to you. I just fear losing my wife. I came so close. It was so damn close, Emma. I watched them do chest compressions. I breathed for you, so I could give you my life to save you. I was so scared.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Oh, Greyson.”
“You felt me in the restaurant. You know I wanted you. Trust me. When I showed up at that sex shop, and Chris was covered in your lipstick, I wanted to toss you over my shoulder, get a booth, and show you how I felt.”
Her heart skipped.
“I just can’t get past that scar. I fear that first contact. I’m not always gentle, and what if I hurt you?”
She understood his fear.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because you’d cry. Case in point…,” he said, pointing at her. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
She touched the scar on his face.
“I know how you feel. I came so close to losing you, Greyson. I saw you sitting in that chair, and they’d tortured you. They’d cut your handsome face. When I see it, I am reminded of it.”
He blinked.
“And then I’m reminded how lucky I got. They didn’t win. I did. I got you back, Greyson Croft. I got my husband back for a second chance. I celebrate that scar now. It means more time with you. Don’t let them take that from you. Don’t let Heath Spencer take your relationship away from fear. Then he’s won.”
He closed his eyes.
“I won’t break.”
Emma knew he was struggling, so she opted to help him. Reaching over, she grabbed his belt buckle and pulled it open.
He glanced down.
“Emma.”
She didn’t stop.
“I want my husband, and I’m going to have him,” she said, dropping the zipper to his pants.
Emma pulled him from his boxers and stroked him.
He moaned.
“I missed you,” she said, licking him like a lollipop. She let the warmth of her mouth do the talking.
That heat didn’t lie.
“Emma, I don’t think…”
She took him in her mouth and began working him hard. Greyson watched and couldn’t speak. While his brain was fighting it, his lower body was not.
Mob Justice Page 31
