FOR THE SECOND TIME IN my life, I woke up with the heat of a man at my back and his morning wood pressed into my butt crack.
I liked it, for the record. But only because it was Bishop. Maybe it was proof of just how little experience I had, but it was hard to picture waking up like this with anyone but him.
He liked to spoon, keeping me tucked in close to his body all night, and I slept like a rock in his arms.
But now the light of morning spilled through the shades, and I had to force myself out of his bed before I overstayed my welcome. Yes, he’d told me he wasn’t letting me leave last night, but that was then.
My body twinged in places that hadn’t twinged in a long time. Bishop’s chest rose and fell behind me, and I carefully lifted his arm to sneak out from under it.
Except my careful sneaking wasn’t very careful.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Bishop’s sleep-roughened voice broke the silence of the room.
“I’m getting up.”
“That’s a terrible idea.” His arm tightened around me, and he pressed a kiss to the back of my head. “I think you should stay right here. Are you sore?”
The question sent a shaft of embarrassment through me that I shouldn’t be feeling considering everything we’d done together, but I couldn’t help it.
“A little.”
“I’m sorry, cupcake. I should’ve taken it easier on you.”
I twisted my body around so I could see his face. “Why would you have done a stupid thing like that? That would have been a terrible idea.”
His concerned expression shifted to one of satisfaction. “Just trying to be a gentleman. Not sure I know how.”
“Maybe you should just worry about being you.” I shifted the rest of the way so I was facing him in the circle of his arms and pressed a kiss to his lips.
“I think I can handle that. Are you working today?”
I nodded. “Yeah, from twelve to six.”
“That means we’ve got time to get breakfast before my first appointment.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Gotta feed my girl.”
My girl. Two words that sent a shaft of belonging through me and made me never want to get out of this bed.
“But first, we should probably shower together. Just so I can make sure you get all those hard-to-reach places nice and clean—after I dirty them all up again.”
Heat bloomed between my legs, but I kept my tone nonchalant. “I think I could manage getting out of bed to do that.”
Two hours later, we left Bishop’s to head to my apartment so I could change out of my dress. We ventured to a little hole-in-the-wall place Bishop preferred for breakfast and settled on a bench near the front while we waited for them to set up our table. Beside me sat a stack of newspapers people had left behind.
My father’s picture, albeit small and in the dot style that particular paper was known for, stared back at me from a column on the front page. The headline read WILL THE CASSO EMPIRE CRUMBLE?
Bishop stood to hit the restroom, and I grabbed the paper.
Dominic Casso’s seemingly untouchable empire has come under attack from all sides. Feds have crippled the economics, and rival families are attempting a power grab while he’s investigated on several counts of racketeering and fraud. Through it all, Casso remains a stoic head to what is suspected to be one of the most profitable organized-crime families since the 1970s. A long, detailed history of my father’s rise through the ranks followed, but no new information about what was happening.
If I knew anything about Dom, he wouldn’t let a single charge stick. He’d been questioned many times in the last ten years, which was when I started to become aware of the nature of his business, and nothing had ever stuck.
There had been no trials, no sentences, and nothing else that could slow him down. But he had to believe that whatever was happening right now was different from those other times because he’d never sent me away before.
I reached the end of the article where there was speculation as to how many illegitimate children Dom had fathered, and the current count was two. Two sons, that was. Very few people within or outside the family knew that I was his daughter and not his niece. Maybe it made more sense since I was forgotten half the time anyway and had been raised by his half sister.
I was folding the paper up and setting it aside when Bishop came back. His gaze darted to the front of the paper as I added it back to the pile. I didn’t expect him to snatch it off the stack.
His eyes scanned back and forth as he read the entire article that I’d just finished before shaking his head and dropping it back on the pile.
“Seems like they’ll never take that bastard down.” His words carried a harsh edge, like it was something he took personally.
“You follow this stuff?” I asked, not sure why I risked the question. Maybe because I wanted to get a feel for his knowledge if I was ever allowed to tell him who I was.
“As much as the next guy. You would think we were still in the ’70s with how much that guy gets away with and the cops’ inability to do jack shit about it.”
The hostess came to tell us our table was ready, and I was glad I didn’t have to come up with an answer. Bishop knows who my father is. It was a revelation I didn’t want to consider. My past and my present were supposed to stay separated with a neat line, not collide while we were waiting for breakfast.
It wasn’t until I was at work that night that the next reminder came.