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  The look Damon shot at Normandy made the hair on the back of Slade’s neck rise. Normandy shook her head, silently telling him that she would never go along quietly with Sweeney Barese’s grandiose plans for the future. Slade saw the other man coming to a decision, saw confusion sweep through his eyes before sadness settled in them. He braced himself, getting ready to launch himself into his wife to get her out of harm’s way.

  “I’m so sorry, Normandy,” Damon whispered.

  Just as Slade took a step toward her, Damon abruptly turned the barrel of the gun on his father and shot. Surprise was the last look on Sweeney Barese’s face as he crumpled to the ground. He was dead before he hit the floor. Kix hurried forward to disarm Damon, yanking the gun away and securing it by putting the safety on and sliding it into his pocket. Knowing it was now over, Slade rushed to Normandy as she rushed toward him and they met halfway, wrapping their arms around one another. Slade buried his face in the crook of her neck and breathed in her scent as his heart thundered with relief that she was safe.

  “I think I’ve aged ten years in these last twenty-four hours,” he whispered.

  She gave an amused little snort. “Let’s not do this again. Yeah?”

  “Agreed.”

  He pulled back and saw Kix talking with Damon, who stared at his father’s body. Slade couldn’t even imagine what was going through his head. His own father had been a shit of a man, but even he’d have drawn the line at killing the old bastard.

  “Did any of your men die?” Damon asked.

  “No,” Kix replied.

  “Good.” Damon rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ, what did I do?”

  “You saved my life,” Normandy murmured.

  Damon wiped his eyes. “I had no choice. He took your father’s life, and I believe in an eye for an eye.”

  “Do you want us to take care of the body?” Kix asked.

  Damon shook his head. “We’ve got a doctor who’ll sign off on a natural death. I’d rather no one knew what the fuck he did or what happened here.”

  Kix nodded. “I understand. We’ll be out of your jurisdiction by morning.”

  “Yeah,” Damon said, clearly distracted. He looked over at Normandy. “Can we meet tomorrow?”

  Slade tensed. “Why?”

  “Just thought we could come to a new peace agreement between the Barese and the DiLuca Borgatas.”

  Normandy glanced up at Slade.

  “It’s up to you,” he said. “But I’ll be by your side.”

  She looked back at Damon. “All right.”

  “We’ll call you in the morning,” Kix said.

  “I’m sorry about your dad,” Normandy said softly as Slade took her hand to leave the carnage behind.

  “Yeah,” Damon said sadly. “And I’m sorry about yours.”

  Chapter Nine

  Normandy held onto him as they rode from Illinois back across the bridge to Missouri, a dozen motorcycles that sounded like thunder as they rode in formation. Slade patted her hands linked across his stomach and vowed to himself he’d do whatever it took to keep her. He loved his Brothers, but he loved her more.

  As soon as they left the river behind, Kix led them to a motel, where The White Death bought out all the rooms. He gripped Normandy’s hand as Kix approached, holding up a keycard.

  “Figured you two would want to have your own room.”

  Slade grabbed it. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  The room wasn’t much, with the décor stalled somewhere between the seventies and eighties, but it was clean and it offered a hot shower. He let Normandy go first, giving her time to process everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Lord knew he needed a moment to get the images out of his brain. He didn’t know how much more his heart could take with the fear of losing her.

  When it was his turn to wash up, he let the hot water ease away his tension and swirl away down the drain. He wrapped a towel around his hips and joined her in the bedroom. She sat on the bed and towel-dried her hair.

  They stared at one another for a long time, but he knew words weren’t really needed. Not right then. Instead, he held out a hand to her and she set the towel aside to grip it. He pulled her to her feet, cupped her face, and claimed her mouth.

  His hand slid up her rib cage until he found the curve of her breast. He cupped the shape, molding her to his palm as he gently squeezed. Her nipple pebbled under the thin material and he traced over the turgid peak with his fingertip. She arched and gasped as he kept lavishing her skin with soft kisses until he came up for air. Her gaze wandered over his body.

  “You have some new tattoos,” she observed.

  “Yeah. Not much else to do in a motorcycle club at night when you’re not interested in the free pussy.”

  “You weren’t interested in free pussy?”

  “I’m not saying I didn’t look, and a few times I jacked off to one of the men getting a blow job. Hell, it’s not uncommon for a girl to strip and get on a dick. But as for my dick … my heart and my mind were too wrapped up with you. I’m in love with you, Normandy. I don’t want any other woman in my life or in my bed.”

  She held up her arms to him and Slade bent over to capture her lips in another soul-melting kiss, sliding his tongue in to dance with her own. They maneuvered onto the bed and he straddled her body. He wasted no time stripping away clothes, revealing her perfect breasts with the tips pointed in invitation. He bent his head and closed his mouth over one, lavishing it with his tongue and teeth, tugging tenderly until she lay beneath him writhing. Her nipples were ripe little berries, and fucking gorgeous.

  She didn’t have the stick-thin malnourished look that so many women favored, thinking men liked to fuck skin and bones. Although she was naturally slender, she was soft and round in all the places a woman should be round. Real breasts and an ass he could grab and hold onto as he rode her. Slade worked his way down her body, taking a moment to lick her belly button. As he continued his downward path, he bypassed the apex of her thighs, where he could smell her musk beckoning him. God, he wanted nothing more than to sink his steel-hard cock into her wet cunt and pump her until they both splintered apart.

  He had missed this, missed her. He placed a hickey on the tender skin to mark her before opening her pussy with two fingers. As soon as his tongue rasped against her sensitive clit, her body arched like it had touched a live wire. Her hands buried in his hair, pulling it almost too aggressively. But he loved it. It gave everything an edge that pumped through his blood, lighting him on fire. He licked and sucked her in, sliding one finger into her heat. She bucked against his hand.

  “Michael!” she cried.

  “Fuck, you taste like honey,” he moaned, blowing against her weeping core and causing her to shiver. “I want to spend the rest of my life right here between your thighs.”

  He pushed another finger inside and took her little clit between his teeth, sucking hard.

  “Michael, please!” she begged. “I need you.”

  “I know what you need, my love.”

  He rose to his knees and took hold of one of her thighs to rest it over his hip, which lined his cock up directly with her open slit.

  “You’re mine,” he repeated, taking hold of himself to push inside her.

  “Yes!” she cried.

  As soon as he entered her wet depths, he felt their souls joining, becoming one. It had always been good between them, but now there was something deeper that snapped between them. Gossamer threads cementing not only their love, but their devotion to each other.

  “Fuck!” he groaned when he bottomed out all the way inside her. His balls rested snugly against her. “There is nothing better than being inside you, Normandy.”

  “I need you so badly, Michael. Please!”

  Her plea drove him wild and he pounded into her harder, deeper. Her tight little cunt was sucking him in, turning his brain to mush. He was fast losing control, but he so wanted this moment to never end. She felt so damn good wrappe
d around him, skin to skin. Although their lovemaking earlier had been nice, it had just been a momentary measure of pleasure to ease the fear and relief he’d had over thinking she’d been killed.

  “Normandy,” he ground out. “Are you close, sweetheart?”

  “Yes!” she cried. “Yes! Michael!”

  Knowing her trigger point, he reached down to pinch her nipple, twisting it a little to add a little pain, and that was all she needed to fly apart. Her pussy spasmed around his cock and her incoherent cries of pleasure pushed him over the threshold. He came with a loud shout, burying himself deep as his cum filled her pussy.

  They lay holding each other and his fingertips traced patterns across her back. “I’ll never leave you again,” he vowed.

  “You better not, mister.”

  He kissed the top of her head, content with holding his world in his arms.

  Chapter Ten

  For logical reasons, Normandy didn’t want to meet Damon Barese in the diner her father owned. Slade held her hand as they stepped into neutral territory at a twenty-four-hour truck stop off the highway. Kix and the rest of the Brothers gave them plenty of space for the truce negotiations, although they kept vigil in nearby booths.

  Damon came in on time, dressed in black with his hair slicked back. Overnight he’d gone from being the heir to running the show, but he wore sorrow like a heavy cloak. He sat opposite them and nodded thanks at the waitress who set a cup of black coffee down in front of him. He took a deep breath.

  “I can’t make up for what my father did to your family,” Damon said without preamble. “But I’d like to try for a new truce.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust the Barese name again,” Normandy said.

  “I get that,” Damon replied. “Lord knows I’d feel the same way if our roles were reversed. But I want to propose a working relationship.”

  “I don’t even know where the DiLuca Borgata is headed,” she said. “I don’t think it’ll be in the drug running or gun running business, though. I don’t have the drive or the wherewithal that my father and brothers had. I’m just an accountant.”

  “I understand.” Damon glanced at Michael. “Then how about protection?”

  Michael cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “I consider the Mississippi run to still belong to the DiLuca name and now, to The White Death, as well. So my proposal is protection, not only making sure the product gets to where it’s going, but making sure we don’t step out of line in your territory.”

  Michael glanced at Normandy. She gave an almost imperceptible one-shoulder shrug. “Before we say yes, we have to go over numbers, rules and boundary lines.”

  “Of course,” Damon replied. He held out a hand. “Then we’ll sit for negotiations?”

  Michael shook his hand. “We will.”

  Damon gave them a small smile and left. Slade gave a nod to Kix and glanced at his food. He added salt to his eggs.

  “Eat up, we have a long ride ahead of us.”

  She sighed and pushed the food around on her plate.

  “It won’t be the DiLuca family anymore, though,” she said. A small frown wrinkled her brow. “I’m the last. Even if we have children, they’ll be Slade.”

  Slade swallowed his bite and shook his head. “No, they won’t be. As we speak, my paperwork is being run through the legal system to change my name.”

  “Change your name? To what? I like Michael.”

  “Not my first name. I’m taking my wife’s last name.”

  She blinked and her mouth fell open. “W-what?”

  “Michael Slade DiLuca. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “I… I … what?”

  He winked at her. “It’s the twenty-first century. I think it’s a little old-fashioned that a wife has to take her husband’s name. After all, you can’t be the last DiLuca. You have a brand new Borgata to run.”

  She smiled. “I do?”

  He nodded. “I like the idea of going into the bodyguard business. Good environment for having a family. I see us having defense training studios and all the latest techno gadgets. I’m sure Mac will have a perpetual hard-on.”

  She blinked back tears. “I love you, Michael Slade.”

  “Don’t forget, wife. Michael DiLuca, now. And I love you, too.”

  The End

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