He had to use his knees to spread her thighs far enough apart for him to fit and then prop himself up so he wouldn’t mash her sore body where some asshole who needed to be dragged from the very depths of hell just so Val could torture him and send him there all over again had bruised her. He scooted down her body again so he could dip his head to brush kisses on her belly and then swirl his tongue around her belly button. “Need to know, baby. How could you push me out of your head so easily? I talked to you every single night. Told you about my shitty day. All the things I was worried about. How I was so certain Miceli was behind kids disappearing, but I couldn’t find the pipeline. How I felt knowing those kids were scared. Hurt. Trapped. No protection. My fault for not finding them. Needed you, Emme. I fucking needed you.”
He rubbed his face over her stomach, the stubble along his jaw causing abrasions on her soft skin. She’d always had delicate skin, and the sight of his marks on her always aroused him, not that it ever took much.
“I’m sorry, Val. Yes, I heard you whispering. I couldn’t always understand you. I tried to drown you out with music. With anything I could to get your voice out of my head.”
Her honesty was painful even to her; it was there in her voice. Her hands were back in his hair, trying to soothe him with gentle strokes, gentle caresses. He wasn’t certain a lifetime of soothing would ever take away those nights of wondering how many children had been taken from their homes, or off the streets, out of shelters, snatched from a park. How many had been left to a lifetime of sex trafficking because his leads had always ended up in dead ends?
“You cut the ties between us after that first year.” It was an accusation.
“Not entirely. I tried,” she admitted. “It was so painful to love you so much and know I couldn’t have you. I needed to be free if I was going to move on.”
He sank his teeth into her hip, that sweet curve that had always driven him insane. It spoke of pure femininity to him. Emmanuelle was all about curves. He loved her breasts, hips and ass. She had gorgeous legs, but those curves drove him up the wall. Right now, just the fact that she could contemplate needing to be free of him and moving on deserved a little punishment. He bit down hard enough to cause her to gasp before he lapped at the spot and then kissed and sucked it gently.
He looked up at her. “I guess I can’t get too upset with you.” That was a fucking lie. He was furious, but he’d learned a long time ago to lock that shit up tight. “I got to such a low point when I couldn’t get a line on where they were holding the kids, or who was grabbing them, that I considered having sex with Marge or one of her girls at Miceli’s Dungeon in his strip joint.”
Val said it deliberately, knowing it would hurt her. Knowing she would hate it and that she was responsible. Knowing it was the truth. He held her responsible for him even thinking about it. He’d lain awake night after night, detesting himself for not being enough, not being able to prove Miceli or his crew were involved in the trafficking of children. It was bad enough when he knew it was adults, but children? That got to him as nothing else could have and made him feel an absolute failure.
Emmanuelle had deserted him and wouldn’t answer him no matter how he’d tried to reach her. She’d blocked him. He’d tried seducing her body from a distance. He’d tried pleading. He’d tried ordering. Mostly he talked to her, shared with her. Talked out loud to bounce ideas off of her, hoping she would hear and respond, want to help him. She never did. She cut him off. Cut out his heart. Left him in the dark with screaming children and accusing eyes filled with horror.
“I didn’t have any way to get the information I needed. Becoming a man-whore was my last resort. You weren’t coming back to me. You made that clear. It felt like you ripped my heart out, Emme. My soul. There was nothing left and after I found a place where I didn’t feel, I thought I could do it.”
He nuzzled her belly again, let the dark shadow on his jaw slide over her soft skin and leave faint red marks behind. “I thought I didn’t feel anything. I thought there was a black void. I can take a man apart and go somewhere inside me where there is nothing at all, Emmanuelle. Nothing. Just a blank space. I face another woman putting her hands on my body, or her mouth on my cock, and there’s no blank space. I can assure you of that. There’s pure rage. It comes up so fast and so ugly it scares me. I don’t know how it is for you, but there is no chance that I will be cheating on you. If that happened, you can believe the woman wouldn’t survive it.”
He felt a shiver go through her body at the dark edge to his voice. At the honesty. She knew he was telling her the truth because he was. She hadn’t been with another man.
“I’m so sorry, Valentino. Your world feels so frightening. I don’t know why.”
Now her hands moved in his hair to comfort her, not him. Sometimes she curled her palm along his shoulder, feeling the muscles running beneath his skin.
“I had no idea or I never would have put you in that position. I hate that you even thought about going to another woman just to get information. I would have tried to get it for you. Maybe I am a coward, so out of my element, but just the thought of a man like Miceli being able to do what I do, which could eventually happen, is terrifying. Once you have someone like me in your family, what’s to stop another crime family from taking our daughter by force? Or you deciding that family is a good, decent family and telling them about the ropes binding shadows? Worse, we’re at war, and the price to stop it is giving our daughter as a bride to another family? Or another family is looking to merge territories and wants peace with you and again, that price is our daughter?”
She clearly had studied the ways of the families. What she was asking was entirely possible; the last two were huge possibilities. Daughters were raised to know that they could marry within the families for business purposes. Sons often did the same. Arranged marriages weren’t unheard of at all. The families were much more careful now. They conducted business out of the spotlight and had many legitimate businesses. But yes, their daughter easily could be the bride in an arranged marriage.
“I can’t tell another crime family about the myth and you and me. That story is handed down father to son. If they don’t hear of it, if their father stops telling it, as many have, that’s on them. If our daughter is in an arranged marriage, we, together, will make certain it is one she will want. Whoever she is with doesn’t need to know she has the ability to go into the shadows, and you said yourself, it is possible she won’t be able to.”
“She will have the genetics to pass on, Val,” Emme said. “And if the marriage is arranged, how can she want it?”
“I meant we would never arrange a marriage with someone she didn’t want.”
Emmanuelle’s hand moved to the nape of his neck, fingers massaging the tight muscles there. She had strong fingers for being so delicate. She’d always had such a strong will. He’d loved it and detested it. Emme went his way until she didn’t, and then there was no convincing her. He had to be more careful with this second chance, yet he knew himself. He was a man who took charge and expected those around him to follow his lead—especially his woman.
“I’ll love you until the end of time, Emmanuelle, and beyond. No matter how crazy or angry you make me. Just don’t do this again. Don’t throw other men in my face. It was all I could do to give you time. I can’t do this again. We can work all this out. Just don’t do this again.”