As I picked up a piece of bacon and crunched into it, I noticed his plate was nearly as full as mine. I had to force myself not to eat too fast, so I paused and drank some coffee. “Damn, that’s good.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
I looked up at him, and my breath caught. He was so damn gorgeous, and he loved me. He really loved me. As I held his gaze, his eyes filled with heat. Despite the pain in my head, my body responded. “Nothing that wouldn’t make my headache worse.”
When we finished eating, I sat up taller and stretched tentatively. “I should see if I can stand up long enough to shower, then you can drive me home.”
“What?” I couldn’t tell if Devil was shocked, angry, or both.
“Surely your family doesn’t want me—”
“You’re not leaving here until you’re better. Even then I’m not sure I’m going to let you out of my sight.”
“That’s going to make going back to the department really damn hard. What did you tell them exactly? I probably need to—”
“Not today. Today you need to rest. If you want to call someone tomorrow, you can. You have a head injury, and this is not the time to worry about work.”
“You’re sure it’s all right if I stay here?”
“Yes. This is my home, and you’re mine. You’re staying.”
Devil helped me shower, then tucked me back into bed. I already felt ready for a long nap. He kissed me gently.
“Get some rest. I’ve got business to take care of, but I’ll check on you in a few hours, and you can call me any time.”
“I assume you’re not going to tell me what this business is about.”
“You know I can’t tell you everything, but I need to make sure our business from last night is wrapped up tight.”
“We’re always going to have secrets from each other, aren’t we?”
Devil nodded. “Probably.”
“We need some rules.”
“Yeah, we do, but we don’t have to make them now. All you need to know is that I’m not going to walk away from you, even if you try to arrest me. I’ll just wrestle you to the ground and fuck you until you relent.”
“Jesus, Devil. I do not need to be hard right now.”
He slid a finger over my chest and down to the waistband of the sleep pants he’d let me borrow. “Be a good boy, and I might suck you off when I get back.”
“Great. Now that’s all I’ll be able to think about.”
33
Devil
I rushed downstairs thinking my cousins were waiting for me to head to our downtown office. Instead, Lucien called me into the family room. When I entered, Angelo and Sabrina were with him. They were all looking at me.
“Joe’s not leaving.”
“Of course he’s not,” Sabrina said. “Come sit down.” She patted the chair beside her.
I wanted to run back upstairs and curl up in bed with Joe, but I had to face this. It was time to figure out how to have Joe and my family too.
“Do you want Joe to stay until he’s healed or for good?” Lucien asked.
That was the first time Lucien had called Joe by his first name, and it was not at all what I’d expected him to say. “If I had my way, he’d move in for good, but I don’t know if he’ll agree to it. I didn’t know if you would either.”
“You know this is as much your house as it is ours, right?” Angelo asked.
There’d been times I told myself otherwise, times I’d worried Lucien would try to push me away because I’d defied him. I’d even worried Angelo would let him, but looking back and forth between them that morning, I knew that wasn’t true. “Yes.”
“Good,” Lucien said. “Do you know what Joe’s plans are once he’s healed?”
“He offered to quit the police force, but I told him it wasn’t fair of me to ask him to. I don’t want him to give up something that’s important to him, but he said he’s not sure he wants to go back.”
“If he does, how do you plan to reconcile that with our business?” Sabrina asked.
I’d been wrestling with that question for weeks. “Do you think I can?”
Angelo laid a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think you have a choice. I saw the way you look at him. You’re not going to let him go.”
I wasn’t. “But I’m not going to walk away from all of you either.”
“Then you’ll find a way to make it work.”
“I can’t ask him to be our informant or to clean up our messes.”
Lucien nodded. “We already have people for that.”
“I don’t want him to press charges against us, though, so…”
“He can recuse himself from any cases involving members of our family,” Sabrina said.
She made it sound simple.
“Have you talked to him about it?” Angelo asked.