I clutched my aching hard on tighter to gain some control. A stronger man would leave her now. Walk out the door with the taste of her on my tongue and the scrape of my beard on her thighs as punishment. No, a stronger man wouldn’t have let her back in.

She’d broken something irreparably. We’d never again play these games. Cards on the table. All in, or fold.

Husband was a title meant for other men. Not ones like me.

I’d always been disposable for her. She might make me her husband, but she would never count me as an equal. I’d forever be the guy she dragged from the slums. A show piece, a good lay now and then, but never someone to reign beside her.

Never a king to her queen.

“Pierce,” she said, drawing my attention back to her. She held up her hands, asking me what was wrong. More like, why wasn’t my head between her legs anymore.

I kept my face blank. A mask it took ten years to harden. “We have business to handle first.”

She dropped her head back onto the bed. “Helluva time for that, St. James.” My name sounded more like bastard in that tone.

“I’ve been thinking about what you came here for.”

She lifted her head again. “In what, the five minutes you’ve been down there?”

I slapped her outer thigh, as close to her ass as I could reach with her laying splayed on my bed. She gave me a satisfying yelp. “Baby Girl, I can multi-task.”

She shifted her legs closed and rolled to her side, tucking her arm under her head so she could peer up at me easier. “Talk.”

I shook my head. “I’m not the one who will be talking. You came here to get something from me. You need to ask me like a polite human being. Civilize yourself for once.”

She narrowed her eyes and sat up with a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I haven’t seen you since you snubbed me at your father’s funeral, and you show up here asking for favors. No, miracles. And you didn’t just ask me. You sprung it on me while trying to seduce me. I’ve told you a hundred times, I hate games.”

“For a man who hates games, you sure know how to win.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “I don’t play games. I play you. You’re the only one who makes demands of me. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve come a long way since we met. I don’t take orders anymore, and I sure as shit don’t bow down to another family’s whims.”

She huffed and slapped the bed between us. “This is not a fucking whim. You think I’d come here—to you—on a God-damned whim? There’s not a single whimsical thing about you.”

I rolled my eyes and let out a long sigh, my patience fried and crispy. “I’ll mark that on my grave.”

“What do you want me to say?” she asked, still fire and fury.

Proof right there she’d never back down or give an inch of herself to me. I’d be the one giving, with her always taking, claiming, laying waste.

I stood up and grabbed my pants off the floor.

She scrambled to the end of the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Getting a drink. Don’t worry, Princess, there’s a vibrator in one of the bedside tables. Help yourself and then take a hike.” I kept the pain from my tone, delivering the insults in the deadpan monotone she should be used to by now.

She never cared enough to realize it was where I went to retreat. To hide. And that was all I wanted to do right now. Get the hell away from the taste of her and the smell and the fucking sight of her.

No. I turned my back. “Just go, Kat. I’m not the man for you. This was stupid, of both of us.”

Silence answered me, and after a few long minutes, I turned to find her sitting, still naked, on the edge of my bed. Her hair had begun to dry and coil around her face. “Tell me why. Give me a straight answer. Tell me why you don’t think this will work, and I’ll go without a fight. You’ll never see me again.”

That’s what I wanted, right? To never touch her perfect lips with mine. Never have to fight with her before we can get to the sex.

I decided to try honesty. It was probably about to backfire in my face, but I had plenty of booze to take away the ache when she left. “You aren’t capable of giving yourself to anyone. If we got married, I’d spend our entire lives handing myself over to you, and you’d spend it crushing every bit of me I’m stupid enough to release.”

She jerked back and blinked a few times, the light catching the wetness on her lashes. When she dropped her chin, I thought for a second she might cry, but her voice greeted me clear and cold. “I’ve never been good at giving myself to anyone, because there has never been anyone worth it. I saw what marriage did to my mother and the kind of disgusting man my father turned into. I vowed I’d never put myself in that position. When I finally settled down, it would be with my equal. The only person worthy enough to stand beside me.”

My heart thumped against my ribcage like a rogue pitching machine trapped behind a batting cage fence line. Was she telling me she thought I was worthy enough, or did I want to grasp onto the compliment because it was the only kind thing she’d really ever said to me outside of sex?

“What does that mean?” I settled on asking, instead of trying to wrangle her words into their proper meaning.

She shrugged, that little tilt of her shoulder which always set me off. I didn’t know if she did it deliberately, or she had no idea how much I wanted to roll her over the bed and fuck her until I gave her something to care about.

I hurled my sweatpants back to the floor, stalked toward the bed, and leaned down to brace my fists beside her thighs so I could look into her eyes. She didn’t fear me, nothing sparked there but curiosity, arousal, and a superiority complex she’d probably never shake.

“What are you going to do?” she challenged.

I latched my hands under her knees and jerked her forward so she fell back on the bed. Then I rolled her on her belly and ran my hands over her ass cheeks. A man could dream about an ass like this.

I reached under the bed for the box of condoms I kept there, tossed one on the mussed coverlet, and grabbed my dick while I stared at her ass. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t think straight enough to play games. Then we can have a real conversation.”

She snorted, and I swatted her ass hard enough to leave a pink handprint. The moan she stifled in the sheets told me she needed more of that.

“If you want to leave, this is your one and only chance.” I told her. She didn’t get up or tell me no, so I grabbed her thighs and pulled her up onto hands and knees from the back.

Once I slid the condom on, I dragged my fingers across her pussy. Oh, she was still dripping for me.

“Any last words?” I joked as I aligned the head of my cock with her opening. I said the words to lighten the moment, each felt heavy, thick in my gut. As much as my body wanted her, my brain and heart tried to remind me why it was a bad idea.

She squirmed back into me and said, “Yeah, stop talking and get to it.”

I gave her another slap, pushed the doubts away, and slid inside her. She sucked in a loud breath as I held my own, acclimating to the hot hold of her body.

Once my nerve endings settled enough, I clutched tight around her hip bones and took up a brutal pace, pounding into her as much as she pushed back into me. The slap of skin on skin. The warm, molten core of her gripping me, and the breathy sighs she gave me every few seconds were enough to test even my stubborn resolve.

I needed to push her to the edge, force her to open up to me in the only way I’d ever been able.

I continued my assault, flexing my fingers every so often as to not hurt her. She wouldn’t care, but I would.

A drop of sweat rolled down the center of my chest, and she dropped her upper body to the bed, pressing her arms and cheeks and face to the sheets.

I knew she was close to coming as her legs began to quiver and her pussy started to grab me tighter. I slowed a little, gaining more control over myself, and denying her the end her body screamed for.

“Tell me you like that,” I said loud enough she could hear me over the slap of her ass against me.

It took her a minute to find words. “I like it. Please, Pierce, stop teasing me.”

I reached one hand over her thigh between her legs to find her clit and slowed my pace further, barely pushing in and out of her now. “I haven’t even begun to tease you yet.” I circled her clit with my fingers and marveled as her back flexed and she shifted her grip on the gray linen.

She would always be so perfect like this. Completely herself. No pretense, no games, no lies. Right here, when I shoved inside her, I could see the real Kat. Every other version, I could never be sure.

“Say my name again,” I panted, moving faster again.

She whispered it, dark and breathless. “Pierce.”

And her body took over. Her thighs quaked against my own, her tight little box gripped me harder, and I knew she’d gone over the edge. The second her fingers released the sheets, I took my hand off her clit, clutched her hips tight again, and dragged her body into mine.

The spark of her orgasm ignited mine, and I fucked her until there was nothing left of me. I’d surrendered everything. She’d just never opted to take it home.

My heart hammered in my chest, and I held on tight as the last of my orgasm pulsed through me. She let out a breathy sigh and collapsed her legs flat to the bed. I followed her down and rolled over next to her.

Sweat pooled at my temples, and I watched a tear of it glide down the beautiful arc of her back and disappear in the dark. I stripped off the condom, tossed it in the trash, and scooted closer on the bed.

“Kat?”

“Mmmm…” she said, throwing her hand over to pull me into her. I curled up behind her body, molding ours together.

The sweat, come, tears, none of it mattered as I shifted her close to me. Our pulses beat together fiercely, and I decided I’d try the honesty thing one more time.

“Kat, are you listening?”

She gave me another sleepy noise of assent. I wiggled a ring off my little finger and then curled my hand up her waist to trap her left palm between my fingers. Then I slid my mother’s Claddagh onto her left ring finger.

She jolted against me and then held her hand up into the light of the window. “You can’t give me your mother’s ring.”

“If you are going to be my wife, then you’re going to wear my family’s ring.”

She rolled over to face me, her brow damp with sweat. A crease started between her eyebrows as she stared into my eyes. We said nothing, and nothing needed to be said.

This Irish Mob Prince was about to marry himself a spoiled, rich, pain in the ass, mafia princess.

And heaven help us both.