A man like me has demons. So many I can’t count them, but when I close my eyes at night, they come for me. All the sins of my past, the lives I’ve taken, the things that brought me to this point. But holding Snow as she sleeps soundly, her body relaxing into mine despite herself, it allows my body to relax and sleep to take me.
When I wake up, I’m not sure what woke me at first. There’s no sound in the house, the sun is still hiding below the horizon, and Snow is still curled up safely in my arms. Her sweet pussy has soaked my hand, but I’m careful not to give her any stimulation. I meant it when I said she would have to beg for my cock, and I won’t be making her come until I’m balls deep in her cunt.
Something vibrates across the carpet, and I groan. It’s my phone. I forgot to get it out of my pocket when I undressed last night and perhaps that’s the biggest indication of how much of a distraction Snow truly is. I’ve never put anything, or anyone, above my work. Even when I spent all my free time stalking her, I still dropped everything when work came calling, but it’s different now she’s here with me.
I disentangle myself from her warm body and carefully climb from the bed, trying not to disrupt her. She had a hard night and I only made it worse, she deserves a few hours of sleep before she has to start planning our wedding.
I fish my phone out of my pocket and creep into the hallway, closing the door behind me, paying no mind to the fact I’m stark naked. Mrs. Chambers goes home to her husband at night, and security doesn’t patrol within the house when I’m home. Honestly, they wouldn’t step foot in the house at all if I could help it. I hate the idea of other men being near Snow. But it’s unavoidable.
When I look at the screen on my phone, the backlight like the sun in the dark hallway, I see Storm has tried to call me four times. Immediately, I tap his name and hold the phone to my ear. He doesn’t chase anyone, and for him to have called so many times something must be wrong.
“Elijah.”
“Storm, you called.”
“How’s my sister?”
“I’m sure Doc told you she’s fine physically. But she’s a bit shaken as you can imagine. She’s asleep right now. What did you find out?”
“Nothing. The guy’s a fucking ghost. Everett managed to pull a photo of him as he was slipping the mask on out the back of the restaurant, but he doesn’t exist. Not in any country, any database, nothing.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. He said he’s never seen it before. But that’s not why I’m calling. At the same time as the gunman was holding Snow at gunpoint, we had a shipment go missing. Happen to know anything about that?”
I tip my head back and barely hold back the growl of frustration. Of course I know they don’t trust me yet, why would they? I’ve been their enemy for as long as we’ve all been walking this earth, and that’s before adding everything I was forced to do to my cousin growing up. They have no reason to believe that I want to be allies rather than enemies, and that’s what I tell my temper as it threatens to flare. “No, Storm. I don’t know anything about a missing shipment.”
He’s quiet on the other end of the line for a few moments, considering my answer before he sighs. “I need you down at the docks to meet Rayne and Everett.”
I turn to face my bedroom door where Snow sleeps soundly on the other side. I don’t want to leave her like a thief in the night, but if I want this alliance to work, and if I want the Saint James family to agree to me marrying their sister in a week’s time, I need to jump through whatever hoops they tell me to. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Good,” he says before ending the call.
I creep back into the bedroom and can’t help but stare at the lump in the bed. In all the years since I bought this place, I’ve never had a woman here. When the need for a tight wet hole got too much, I would fuck one of the girls at the strip clubs we owned quick and dirty. There was never a reason to take things slow with them, but it’s different with Snow. She’s going to beg for my cock, I know she is, but the longer I have to wait for those words to fall from her lips, the harder it is to control myself around her.
As quickly and quietly as I can, I dress in a pair of black sweatpants and a matching sweater before crossing to the bed where Snow is burrowed into my pillow. My lips twitch into a smile, her consciousness is at a constant battle with what her subconscious wants, but even in her sleep she seeks me out.
I drop a kiss to her cheek and quickly jot a note on the pad on the bedside table to let her know where I’ve gone. She doesn’t need to know what I’m doing, but while she’s learning to trust me it’s best I’m as open and honest with her as I can be.
When I turn back to the door, I can’t bear another glance at the bed. My body screams at me to return to her warmth, but business has always come first, and now that I’m in bed with the Saint James family, both metaphorically and literally, I need to play their game until they trust me.
The cold Chicago air whips off Lake Michigan and surrounds me, causing me to shiver. It’s cold as fucking shit out here, and more than ever I wish I was home with Snow, her sweet body pressed against mine as she snores softly beside me.
I’ve been out of the house for two hours and I’ve already checked the camera in my room three times. The pull to Snow only grows stronger every day I have her in my grasp, and now that I’ve allowed myself a taste of her, my need is only going to grow stronger.
“Did you find anything?” Everett asks, tearing my attention away from my phone. We’ve been at this for far too long, but they won’t call it. Whoever pulled this job is a professional. They haven’t left so much as a fucking cigarette butt, which is perhaps the most suspicious part of this whole thing. The docks are full of smokers. In my experience, there’s something about this type of work that breeds smokers, and for there not to be one discarded cigarette for a mile, they must have had one hell of a clean-up crew.
“Not a fucking thing.”
He eyes me warily, watching me for the telltale signs of a lie, but he’s not going to find anything. Even if I were behind this, I’ve been besting Everett since we were kids, and that’s not likely to change now. But I’m not, and this loss of shipment impacts me just as much as it does them. If there’s a new player in town, it means we both have something to worry about.
“Anything on the cameras?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. They hacked into the feed and had old footage playing over and over which is why our security team didn’t pick anything up.”
“Anyone you know of with that kind of access?”
“Only you,” he replies pointedly, the accusation in the words obvious. He’s not trying to hide his disdain for me or my involvement with his family, but he’s barking up the wrong tree.
I sigh, slipping my phone back into the pocket of my sweatpants. The sun is poking out of the horizon, the slightest bit of natural light streaming across the docks. It won’t be long before Snow wakes up without me there, but there’s not a lot I can do about that right now. “I fired everyone who worked for the Russo family before the hit. My team is so depleted there’s no way we could pull off a job of this size and to this extent in the time they did,” I tell him honestly. “I’m afraid with all likelihood this is much worse than you have allowed yourself to consider. There’s a new player in town, and they’re taking our alliance as an invitation to start making moves.”
