Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 37273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
After stepping outside, she moved toward him. Even after six months she still felt these little butterflies in her belly when she was around him. He never talked about what he did, but he also didn’t glorify it. He was a crime boss, and although she didn’t know if she would ever be okay with that, she accepted it because she had fallen in love with the man he showed her.
“Hey, baby.” He embraced her right away, ran the tip of his nose up her neck, and inhaled deeply. She loved when he did that, because she felt like his prey and he was memorizing her. “Ready for dinner?” he asked against her head, and she nodded. Truth was she could stay like this all day.
They were a couple, but he was so much more than that to her, and it was evident by the touches from him, the words of possessive dominance that he whispered to her, that she was more to him, too.
He pulled away from her only long enough to open the passenger side door of his SUV, and then he was closing it behind her. She watched him walk around the front, stop before he made it to the driver’s side, and glance up at her.
He winked, gave her a lopsided grin that totally changed the hard exterior he exuded, and then finally climbed in the vehicle. They sat there for a moment, and when he reached over and grabbed her hand, her heart picked up beat.
“You get to pick what movie we watch and where we eat,” he said on a grumble, and she knew he hated when she got to choose because she always went for the low-key places to eat, and the chick flicks.
After she told him the restaurant to eat at and movie she wanted to see, he pulled out into traffic and headed out of town. She may still have her own life, live by herself, and take care of herself, but Marra realized that her world had certainly taken a turn for the better when it concerned Joey.
Maybe one day they would move onto the next level: marriage and babies, and a life where she couldn’t ignore the business he ran. But right now she was liking the way they were moving forward, slow and steady, and that he was allowing her to set the pace as well.
He might be dominating and controlled in every aspect of his life, but with her he was giving her the space she needed to fully realize that if this was what she wanted, she had to jump fully in.
He certainly wasn’t the man she’d envisioned herself being with, but whether it was fate, destiny, or just her finally opening her eyes, she was at a good place in her life right now. Love tended to do that to someone, it seemed.
Who would have thought being with a boss for one of the most feared Italian crime families in the country would feel so… right?
Epilogue
One year later
The last twelve months had gone by faster than Joey had ever known was possible. But maybe that’s what happened when a person was happy, when they had the one person by their side that completed them.
Marra was his, always would be. Over the last year he’d grown even more possessive of her, his alpha-ness so consuming there was no doubt she felt it with every fiber of her being.
Joey had to always make sure she was protected, the darkness he harbored inside of him making sure she was safe above all else, especially after everything that had happened the past year.
He wanted her as his wife, the mother of his children, and he’d have all of that. Marra might not be a part of his world in the grand scheme of things, but she was too immersed in him, in the life they shared, that she’d always be engrained in it no matter what. And it was because of that, Joey would make sure she was taken care of.
Joey knew what type of man he was, the type who was considered a hardened motherfucker, the one who made his living off crime, made his money from illegal—and some legitimate—venture. He was also the type of man who made sure anyone who thought to cross him knew exactly the wrath he’d inflict on them.
He wrapped his arm around Marra’s waist, bringing her naked body closer to his. “Mine,” he whispered against the crown of her head, loved the lemon scent that always surrounded her. He’d fucked her good and thoroughly just an hour before, but shit, he was ready for her again. He slid his hand down to cover her belly, wanting his child growing there one day, and one day soon.
He moved his hand over her hip to cup the roundness of her ass, his other palm moving to the front to cup her pussy. She hummed right before a moan left her when he started rubbing her clit.