When He Desires: A Dark Mafia Romance (Fallen God Book 1)

The moment Blake comes home from work on Monday, I’m on her. She barely makes it through the front door before my lips crash against hers.

What has she done to me? Now that I’ve had her, I only want her more. Did I really think at one point that she’d stop invading my thoughts after I managed to sleep with her?

I want to laugh at that past version of myself. What a fucking fool.

She’s in my head all the time, tempting me, taunting me, teasing me, and she’s got no idea.

I pull her out of her winter coat while she kicks off her boots. Her eyes dance with lust and warmth as I lift her up into my arms and carry her into the bedroom.

My hand slips under her shirt, then under her bra. When I swipe my thumb over her nipple, she moans and reaches for my belt.

“I’ve been thinking about this pussy all day,” I mutter against her ear, cupping her over her jeans as she works my zipper open. “Are you wet for me, Sunshine? Did you daydream about my cock filling your tight little hole while you were working?” I slide my hand inside her jeans, past her panties, past her sopping-wet folds.

“Yes,” she whines. Her small hand wraps around my erection, and she gives it a few careful strokes, but they’re enough to wreck me. I work her jeans down over her hips just enough on her thighs to give me access to her panties, and then I toss her on the bed. I prop her ankles over my shoulder, hold her wrists above her head, and pull her panties aside, thrusting in with one smooth stroke.

We both groan at the same time. It feels like coming home.

She lets me hold her down, lets me use her. Her climax comes first, a rough, rippling thing that sucks me deeper and deeper until I can’t fight it anymore.

“Fuck. Here it comes,” I growl.

She’s still pulsating, still milking me as I spurt inside her tight, wet cunt, and it’s the kind of feeling that obliterates all thought. I don’t know how long I pump into her. I’m barely aware of pulling out and collapsing on the bed beside her. Minutes blur. The only hint at the passage of time is our ragged breathing.

Eventually, we manage to get our jeans untangled from our limbs. She curls into me, wraps herself against my overheated body, and starts to trace my tattoos with the tips of her fingers.

“What does this one mean?” she asks softly.

I crack open my tired eyes and glance down at the spot she’s pointing to on my ribs. It’s a fish with a man’s face coming out of its mouth.

It means silence. It means loyalty. It means brotherhood.

But I can’t tell her that, and I don’t want to lie to her, so I do what seems to be my new default. I try to distract her when I don’t have an answer to give her.

I roll on top of her, making her yelp, and I slide down her body. She’s so fucking soft everywhere. My tongue darts out to circle her nipple and then I move lower and lower until my lips touch her inner thigh, just inches away from her pussy.

My cum is dripping out of her, and the sight of it drives me insane. I push it back inside with my fingers and suck on her clit. Her hips buck against my face, she tugs on my hair, and then she explodes.

She doesn’t ask about the tattoo again.

When her body finally goes limp, I tuck her under my arm and drag my knuckles over her spine. “How was your first day back to work?”

She buries her face against the side of my neck and groans. “Terrible.”

“What happened?”

Her palm slides up my chest, and she props her chin on top of her hand, her eyes meeting mine. Worry swirls within. “Brett insisted on talking to me. He’s obsessed with you, Rowan. First, he apologized about what he said at the party, but then told me this nutso theory that you had something to do with the fire.”

I keep my body still and my expression neutral, but can she feel the way my heart’s suddenly picked up speed?

“Where did he get that idea?”

“He dug it up from the dark confines of his messed-up brain.” Blake sighs. “I told him he’s insane.”

Insane or perhaps smarter than I thought he was. But it can’t be more than a vague suspicion on his part. No one saw me. I made sure of it. It was the middle of the night, and there was no one around to see me picking Blake’s lock and sneaking into her house.

“I just hope he doesn’t go around causing trouble for you and your business.” Her stunning eyes are warm and tinged with concern. “I know he’s just making things up, but I worry that others might believe him. The night of the mayor’s party, he showed me a background check. New York wasn’t listed on it, and so he tried to make it seem like that was proof you lied about coming from there.”

A cold, hard stone appears in the pit of my belly. What the fuck? Brett’s digging into my past?

My anger swells. I should give him a warning, the kind he won’t be able to ignore. A conversation on the outskirts of the town should do it.

Then I remember myself.

That’s what Nero would have done, but Rowan doesn’t operate like that. Brett doesn’t have anything real. He has no idea who I am. He’s fishing, and he won’t find anything about Rowan Miller, so all I have to do is simply let him waste his time.

“Rowan?” Blake asks softly. “You look upset.”

“I’m not. I’m just thinking about what you’ve said.” I let out a low breath. “He can run as many background checks on me as he wants. I’ve got nothing to hide. And if my clients believe some stupid rumor that’s not backed up by any evidence, they’re not the kind of clients I want to have.”

She watches me, concern flashing in her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. But I don’t like that you have to deal with him, Sunshine.”

“I know. But I managed to do it for months. I can do it for a few more until I get everything sorted with the house.”

My heart stills. “A few more months? And then what?”

She blinks at me. “Once the house is repaired, I’m going to try selling it again. And when I do…” She shrugs. “I’ll leave.”

I sit up. “Hold on a sec.”

Whatever she sees in my eyes makes her get off the bed and pull on her robe. “Why do you look so surprised? That’s always been the plan.”

“That was before. This is after.” She can’t possibly still think about leaving. I mean, I know we haven’t talked about it yet, but I thought it was obvious she’d stay given what’s been happening with us.

“After what?”

“After us. I thought this was going well,” I say, doing my best to ignore my rising panic.

She folds her lips over her teeth. “It is going well. But we both know it’s not forever.”

“We do?”

Her expression turns forlorn. “You’ll get bored of me eventually, and maybe it makes me selfish to want to leave before that happens, but that’s what I want. I don’t want to wait for the day when you’ll lose interest.”

Anger surges through me. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t see how I’ve fallen for her. The words have been there, on the tip of my tongue, but I’ve held them back because I wanted to be sure she was right there with me. And now I see that I was right to do so, because we’re clearly on two different pages when it comes to us. “So all this time, you haven’t been giving us a real chance?”

She exhales. “Rowan, I like you. A lot. But you said yourself that you’re not interested in anything serious.”

“I wasn’t talking about you,” I growl. “I thought I made it clear you’re different, Blake.”

“And I want to believe you, but I just can’t. The last time I believed something that seemed too good to be real, I got burned.” There’s a sheen to her eyes now. “I can’t go through that again.” She turns and walks out of the bedroom.

I drag my palms over my face.

God, I’d love to kill Brett. This is all his handiwork. He hurt her so badly that she doesn’t want to risk giving herself to anyone again.

But I’m not him. I want her, and I’d never hurt her.

Words won’t be enough to convince her to stay. I have to show her that I mean it.

How? When the repairs to her house are finished, she’ll put it back up on the market. I could delay the repair work, but I don’t want to lie to her any more than I already have.

So I have a month, maybe two.

I need to figure something out.

The next day, after we wrap up our site visits, I drag Sandro to Riverbend Mall. It’s the closest shopping center around here, and since Christmas is in just over a week, it’s bursting with decorations. We walk by a guy in a Santa suit sitting by a gingerbread house and a long line of kids eager for a photo.

“What are we doing here again?” Sandro asks, glancing around the place.

“I need a Christmas gift for Blake.” It’s not much, but it’s a start. If I’ve got somewhere between six and eight weeks to prove to her I’m boyfriend material, I’m going to take every opportunity I have to show her that I’m serious about her.

I have to get her something meaningful. Something that’ll show her I’ve been paying attention and not just trying to get her into bed with me. This isn’t a fucking fling. I’m not going to get bored of her.

Just the memory of her words sends a rush of annoyance through me. She really doesn’t get it. I guess I can’t blame her. She has no idea what my state of mind was before she waltzed into my life and changed everything. She has no idea how she’s saved me.

“What does she like?” Sandro asks.

“Books. I’ve already thought about replacing the ones she lost in the fire, but she has nowhere to put them at the moment. I also don’t have a list of the ones she had. If I ask, it won’t be a surprise, and I want this to be a surprise.”

“I took a picture when we came over.”

I turn to look at Sandro. “You took a picture of the books?”

“Yeah. She had them all organized by color, I thought it looked neat.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and pulls up the image.

I squint. “The spines are a bit hard to make out.”

Sandro zooms in on the photo. “Yeah. But maybe if you take it to a bookstore they can help you find the right ones.”

“Send it to me.”

I’m about to start searching for the closest bookstore, one of those big ones that could help me find even the special editions Blake was so passionate about, but then my steps halt.

Hold on. What’s that?

I stop in front of an empty storefront. There’s a sign hanging in the glass window saying it’s for lease. It’s a small shop with intricate metalwork adorning the window, a heavy wooden door, and checkerboard tile on the floor.

I step up to the glass and peer deeper inside. Shelves line the walls. It takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing. When I do, a grin spreads over my face. “Forget about the books. This is better.”

Sandro steps up beside me. “Huh?”

“This storefront. It’s perfect. Do you remember what Blake told us when we came over for Thanksgiving? She’s always dreamed of opening her own bookstore.” And she’s mentioned it to me a few times since then. Fuck, she’s going to lose it. There’s no way she’ll want to leave Darkwater Hollow after I get her this. She can quit her job at Frostbite and start her own business right here.

“Dude, you started dating her less than a month ago.” Sandro sounds aghast. “Fake dating, to be clear. I’m still not totally sure when it became real. Get her some heart-shaped earrings or something.”

I turn to Sandro and grab his shoulders. When he sees the wide grin on my face, he pales. I probably look like a lunatic. “I’m getting her that store. I’ll lease it for her. You’re going to contact the mall’s leasing office and get an agreement drafted.”

“Wait, hold on—“

“This just became your top priority.”

He groans and shrugs my hands off him. “I’m not sure what’s worse, you burning down her house to get her to move in with you, or this. What the hell is it about this girl that makes you do this insane shit?”

“I like her, all right?”

“So it’s getting serious?”

“More serious than anything I’ve ever had before.”

Sandro throws his hands up and walks in a circle before coming back to me. “Tell me you haven’t spilled your secrets to her.”

His tone dampens my spirits. “I haven’t, damn it.”

“So what if this keeps getting more and more serious? Are you going to keep lying to her indefinitely?”

“If that’s what I have to do.”

His eyes narrow. “Does it bother you that she’ll never know who she’s really dating?”

“If she knew who I was, she wouldn’t be dating me, so no. It doesn’t bother me.”

It’s only after I say it that I realize it’s a lie. It does bother me. It bothers me that she will never know my past, the past that made me who I am. The family, the friends, the enemies. The good times and the bad.

It shouldn’t, because I know revealing the truth to her would end us, but there’s a twinge of sadness in my chest at realizing she’ll never truly understand me. She’ll never see the darkness that’s fueled me for so long, the darkness that I don’t think will ever fully go away.

Even now that I have her, I still feel it pulsing deep inside my ribcage. Buried but not completely extinguished.

I don’t want any secrets between us, but there’s no way around it.

If the only way I can keep her is by keeping secrets, then that is my cross to bear.

I lift my gaze to Sandro. He’s watching me with troubled eyes. “How do you know she wouldn’t date you if she found out?”

“Her dad was in a gang. She hated him and everyone like him. She despises men who are criminals.”

I can tell he doesn’t miss the note of longing that slips into my tone. “You still miss it? The life we left behind?”

“Sometimes. Not as much anymore. Not since Blake.”

Some tension disappears from his shoulders. “I see.”

“Do you miss it?”

He gives me a sad smile. “Parts of it, sure. The thrill of breaking rules and getting away with it. The respect that everyone gave me when I said who I worked for. We had fun, didn’t we?”

I think back to Rafe’s wedding. To his wife’s birthday party—the last one I attended. To the nights when we pulled off impossible heists or negotiated deals that made us millions. “Yeah, we did.”

He runs his long fingers through his curly hair. “But I don’t mind going straight. At least I’m sure I’ll live a hell of a lot longer now than I would have if I’d stayed in New York. I met a girl the other day, you know?”

That’s big news. “Who?”

He grins. “She’s from Kansas City. Found her on one of the dating apps. Her name’s Kelly, and we kinda hit it off right away. We talked, and she’s the kind of person who skips right over the small talk and gets to the deep stuff, you know?”

“Sure.”

“Well, she was talking about how she wants a family one day. A girl and a boy. And it got me thinking that out here, my future wife won’t have to worry every day about whether I will or won’t come home from work in one piece. I won’t have to wonder if someone’s put out a hit on my family. It’s not as exciting, but it’s good in its own way, you know?”

I swipe my hand over my beard. “Yeah, I see your point. You think that’s enough for you?”

He lets out a breath. “I’m not sure. But I think so.”

I’m not sure either.

We let the silence sit for a long moment. Then Sandro takes out his phone and snaps a picture of the phone number under the For Lease sign. “I’ll give them a call.”