“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She stood there in that baggy shirt, dirt and dried blood splattered across it. “I’m a mess, huh?”
“I’d have you this way always if I could.”
“Then have me again.” She lifted a brow, and my dick jumped immediately. She needed rest, but I saw the hunger in her eyes, the way she was pushing herself to stay alive, to test her own limits.
“Let’s go to the shower.”
“You think I’m so fragile all of a sudden, Cade? You just killed a man in front of me, and I realized something during that time.” She strode over to my window. “I wonder if the city will know it too. If my family will accept it. Will people see that if you hadn’t slit his throat, I would have? That I have that in me? That I’m okay with having it in me all of a sudden? That I’m okay with every fucking emotion now?”
Jesus.
Hearing her say it out loud shouldn’t have made my cock hard immediately. Yet I loved Izzy when she was mad, loved when she embraced what she really wanted—and if that was killing an asshole, I probably would have sat there watching and smiling the whole time.
I came to stand behind her and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Are you ashamed of that?”
She sighed as she stared out at the city. “I think I’m coming to terms with it. I’m not all good. I’m different, and different’s okay. It’s what makes me who I am, and I need to be me.”
I nestled into her neck. “I’ll show you how good it will be for you, dollface. Let me take you to the shower.”
She turned her head to look up at me, those hazel eyes vibrant and alive, searching my features. “Why? I want the world to see you taking me like this. Dirty and a mess. Raw and different and ready.”
She took her time taking her tattered shirt off, sliding it inch by inch over her body before dropping it on the floor. The moonlight shone on her curves and had me memorizing every shadow and highlight.
I fucked her with the city as my backdrop and wondered if it’d be enough to show them that she belonged to me.
Then I fucked her slow into the night, made love to her, and told her she was mine forever. I meant it. I lay awake figuring out how to make it all right, how to make sure she was never taken again, how to make sure she’d always be mine.
Did I deserve for her to be mine when I knew deep down I’d always be some sort of danger to her? Someone would always have it out for me and my family.
I found that I loved her, and that meant I had to determine whether I loved her enough to let her go.
29
Izzy
“Where are we going?”
Cade had somehow managed to get me to sleep in after showering and then fucking all night. And in that time, he’d had a suitcase of my belongings—including spray paint—sent over. I searched the bag and was able to pick out a pink T-shirt with Coolio on it and shorts. If my whole wardrobe wasn’t a tribute to the nineties outside of work, I didn’t want it.
He’d hurried me into his Tesla and told me nothing else until he murmured, looking out the window, “To your family’s.”
“Um...” I stuttered. “That’s not a good idea. My brothers will—”
“Be happy to see me?” He chuckled and then cracked his knuckles. “I’m aware no one wants to see me right now.”
Everyone knew the situation because Dante had told them. They’d all been texting me this morning. Gossip in my family traveled like wildfire. Dom was probably the most persistent, only because he was the oldest, and Lilah was already married to someone in the mob, so she’d given our family a good enough scare before.
Declan: I’m at Mom and Dad’s. I flew in. You’d better get here now.
Me: Please don’t start. We’re already on the way.
Declan: We? No.
Declan: Don’t bring him here. You need to rest and heal.
Me: I am. I’m with Cade and safe.