Page 122 of Sins of Innocence

With this woman? It can never be anything that simple. It's pure connection. And that's as fucking terrifying as it is unexpected.

"You are mine and I am yours." I flip us so I'm on top and she gasps as my newly engorged dick hits her inside in a different way. "Mafia marriage or not. There's no walking away for either of us."

She is everything I didn't know I needed.

I was happy alone.

No, that's a lie. I wasn't happy, but I was content. Now I have a wife and three daughters, a mother-in-law and one of my employees is basically my new sister-in-law. So much family at once should be giving me hives, but all I can think about is how to entrench them further into my life.

And whether or not I can convince Áine to have another baby with me.

Even if she never wants to, I have three perfect daughters. And any asshole who thinks he can imply otherwise will feel the pain of my fists.

Or my knife.

I will cut Kenneth Shaughnessy's tongue out before I kill him.

"You." Thrust. "Are." Thrust. "Mine." Her, and everyone attached to her. "All of you."

"You better mean that," Áine cries out as pleasure buffets her body.

"I do," I say for the second time today, these vows I'm making during sex as profound as the ones at our surprise wedding.

Her climax triggers my own and I let it come, let my seed mix with her slick and mark her again.

As mine.

My new favorite fucking word.

"Am I ever going to take my dress off?" she asks as our breathing slows down and falls into sync.

"Gimme a minute." Because just the thought of taking her dress off her and seeing her completely naked for the first time is doing the impossible: making my damn dick stir.

We finally go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, but I still come to consciousness at 4:30 am like usual.

What is unusual is that I feel no desire to jump out of bed and start the day. It's not the short time I've been asleep. I've operated on nothing but catnaps for days before.

But Áine is tucked against my left side. Warm and naked, her head is on my chest, her breathing even and slow. One of her hands rests right over my heart, like maybe she's claiming me like I claimed her.

She was already dozing when I carried her back to bed after a bath and she's been asleep ever since. The shocker is that I slept all that time too.

Having her next to me didn't trigger my atavistic instincts for self-protection honed so sharply by my life before the mob and made only stronger since.

I have slept next to people before. In the field, in circumstances that required it. Fitfully. A slight movement would have me lunging into full wakefulness. Not with Áine.

She wasn't in this position when we went to sleep. I was spooning her, my hand cupping one breast, my other arm under her head. But in our sleep, I shifted to my back and she turned over, moving to lie half on top of me.

And didn't wake me up doing it.

I lie still, taking that in.

She makes a small sound and slides one soft thigh over mine without waking.

I put my hand on her hair reveling in the right to touch these silky strands. Because she gave it to me.

No, she didn't have any choice about marrying me. Not if she wanted to keep herself and the girls safe, but she did have a choice about letting me touch her.

About letting me restrain her.