“I missed you so much,” she murmured against my neck.
I didn’t have words heavy enough to express how empty I’d been without her, how happy I was to have her back in my arms.
I captured her lips again, kissing her slow and deep this time. If I couldn’t tell her how I felt, I’d show her.
Chapter Eighteen
Ashlyn
Joseph collapsed beside me, breathing hard. I rolled with him, keeping him inside me. He’d just given me yet another explosive orgasm, but I wasn’t ready to be parted from him. When we’d had sex last night, he hadn’t taken off his clothes. I’d needed him too desperately to care about it then, but now, I definitely appreciated his naked body.
He was even harder and bulkier than I remembered. I wasn’t certain what he did with his days—I had no clue what it meant to be a mobster—but whatever he did, it required more physical exertion than bartending. I’d thought he was massive and muscular when I’d first met him, but now he was impossibly more ripped. His abs flexed against me as I trailed my fingernails over them, memorizing the way his muscles rippled and danced beneath my light touch.
I explored further, running my palm over his hard chest and down his corded arm, feeling his strength. His masculine perfection was enough to make my mouth water and my pussy clench. He grunted as my inner walls contracted around his cock.
“You shouldn’t do that, angel,” he warned.
“Why not?” I squeezed again, and he groaned. He began to stiffen inside me, even though we’d just finished a few minutes ago. Knowing I had this effect on him made a sense of feminine power course through me.
He chuckled, low and dark. He shifted, withdrawing from me so he could manhandle me into position. He grasped my ankles and guided them up to rest against his shoulders before he moved over me. His weight forced my thighs close to my chest, spreading me wide for him. He gripped my wrists and pinned them at either side of my head. We’d played a few games like this back in Cambridge, but he was different now. More demanding. Less restrained.
My pussy wept for him, swelling and growing slick in response to the way he handled my body.
A sharp knock on the door made me yelp, shattering the moment. Joseph wasn’t in any particular rush to roll off me, and I barely managed to get my legs down and jerk the sheet over my body before the door opened.
I gaped at Marco where he stood at the threshold.
“Close the door!” I demanded, pulling the sheet up to my chin.
His heavy brows rose. “It’s my bedroom.”
“Joseph,” I said sharply, looking over at him. I expected him to come to my defense and throw his overbearing friend out.
He didn’t appear upset in the slightest. He’d almost beaten a guy for grabbing my arm once, but he’d allow his friend to walk in on us when we were about to have sex?
“What?” he asked his friend, but he still didn’t sound aggressive or even annoyed.
“I made breakfast,” Marco told him. “Finish up and come down, or it’ll get cold.”
A little noise of disbelief huffed from my chest when he sauntered off, not bothering to close the door behind him.
“What the hell?” I asked, looking back to Joseph. “You almost ripped Stu apart for touching me at the bar in Cambridge, but you let your best friend ogle me?”
“He wasn’t ogling you. He came to tell us he made breakfast.”
“I’m naked,” I reminded him, wondering what had happened to my fierce, possessive protector.
He gave me a lopsided smile. “And you pulled the covers up high enough that he could barely see your face. Marco won’t touch you, Ashlyn. You don’t need to be afraid of him.”
I scoffed. Of course I was afraid of him. Marco was even more heavily muscled than Joseph, and he lacked any kindness in his hard black eyes. The only times I’d ever seen him look remotely amused, it had been at my expense.
“Hey,” Joseph said, more gently. He took my hand in his. “I know he scared you yesterday, but Marco was just trying to help. He was trying to make you understand that he brought you here for your own good. We want to protect you. Both of us.”
I searched his face, studying him. He seemed completely sincere, but I wasn’t certain that he had an accurate view of his friend’s true nature. There was something dark about Marco, something deep in his soul. Joseph hated his life of violence—he’d made that much clear—but Marco didn’t seem at all bothered by it. He probably thrived on it.
“I want you to come back to Cambridge with me,” I announced. “After, I mean,” I said before he could start lecturing me about his enemies again. “After the danger has passed, I want to go back to school, and I want you to come with me.”