Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel Page 12

  I can almost touch her. I can almost…

  With a small grunt, I lash out.

  I grab her throat, listening to a tiny squeak escape her lips. One hand at her neck, the other on her gun, I incapacitate Dani completely.

  I wrench the weapon from her grasp, throwing it.

  The second I do, I pull her body into mine… and then I crush my lips on hers with all the force and lust and longing I can manage into a single kiss.

  I want her to trust me with her body. I want her to trust me with her everything.

  And right now—at this moment—I don’t know any other way.

  I break the kiss.

  “Don’t you know I would kill for you?” I kiss her again. Harder.

  “Don’t you know that I’d fucking die for you?” I join my mouth with hers again.

  Resistant at first, Dani’s lips, her body and her resolve melt between my palms. Running my fingers up her neck and through her wet hair, I place my body in the nook between Dani’s beautiful thighs.

  I nudge her knees further apart with my own. And when she separates them, I lift her into my hands.

  I palm her ass underneath of her skirt with every inch of my fingers and then I sit her naked skin on the hood of the wet car.

  Touching. Teasing. Exploring.

  In the middle of the fucking pouring rain.

  And I don’t give a goddamned shit.

  Panting, huffing, letting our breaths surge through the air like London fog, we play the most exquisite game of “give-and-take.”

  Give me pleasure. Take my pleasure. Make my pleasure.

  I want to do it all.

  I place a hand on her lower back. I stroke the other underneath her skirt. Half soaked from the downpour, half-wet from Dani’s center, my fingers pull at the lace and cotton just below the hem of Dani’s outfit.

  Ripping at the hanging remnants of the panties beneath, I push them to the side completely.

  Mouth still on hers, my fingers fumbling with my own zipper, I release an erection harder than gunmetal steel.

  I place it at the lips between Dani’s thighs, and as I swallow her loudest of moans, I plunge myself into her, reveling in the tightest fit I have ever felt.

  Letting my cock be swallowed whole by her wet, pulsating slit… and all the ecstasy it has to offer.

  And in that moment, I know I will never love anyone the way I love this woman.

  I never realized that I’ve loved her from the moment we met.

  It wasn’t just that night that changed the trajectory of my life…

  It was her.

  The second I held her in my arms, I knew I’d lay down my life and limb for this girl.

  I want to move slowly (God help me, I even try), but it is impossible. Standing there, with her knees grazing my hips, I stroke Dani with long, powerful thrusts, sliding out of her body on beat, pounding my cock inside her on the second.

  Until we build up a rhythm.

  Mouths apart, her teeth gnashed into the skin at my shoulder, I feel the building of a wave, a verifiable crest that rises and rises and rises.

  With a pull of her long, beautiful blonde mane, I make Dani reconnect her gaze with mine. And as soon as I do, I touch the crest.

  She comes with my name on her lips.

  And I stare into her sea-green eyes the entire way through.

  My explosion comes shortly after, and with each pulse of my still steeled dick, I ride the wave down, supporting Dani’s sapped limbs with my hands, making sure to never let her go.

  The rain finally lets up, turning to drizzle, and there are so many things I could say.

  So many things I want to say to the woman in my arms.

  And in the midst of us catching our breath and sinking down from this incredible high, I, somehow, can only think of one.

  I stare at the hood of the Jaguar on which Dani sits.

  “Where…” I huff with one long breath, “did you even get this god damned car?”

  For the first time, Dani looks down. She glances back up at me… and smiles.

  “I told you I was my father’s daughter…”

  She shrugs.

  “I’m a motherfucking Gafanelli.”

  LET THERE BE LIGHT

  BISHOP

  And a Gafanelli, she was.

  In true Gafanelli style, Dani doesn’t let me off the hook so easily.

  Our night of passion is nothing but an intermission in our mission, and though she remembers her self-identity again, her memory is still full of holes.

  It’s as if the gunshot that almost killed her has literally shattered the pieces of her memory away.

  The return of information to her psyche is like a traffic rush, and throughout the day, I can almost sense the thoughts that race back to her mind.

  I can also sense the memories that remain at a stand-still.

  Like me, for instance… and definitely my relationship with Robert Fletcher.

  Skeptical, hungry for answers, she insists that I bring her with me when I tell her the plan that Jax and I concocted to confront Robert Fletcher’s ex-campaign manager Isaac Duvall.

  She insists that she be a force in helping me bring that bastard down.

  She insists that she be allowed to confront her shooter head-on.

  I compromise by carefully filling in the holes she’s lost since she was shot six weeks ago.

  My escape from New York. The shooting. Her family. Our potential demise.

  It was bad enough that some unknown player had entered into our game and tried to take Dani out. But what made matters worse was that after the attempt on her life, the Gafanelli family had decided to change the rules.

  The way they saw it… either I had conspired with someone (namely that scumbag of a senator, Robert Fletcher) to kill Daniela, or as her bodyguard and the one and only “Crow” in the organization, I had committed the one act I was never supposed to.

  I had failed.

  Either way, they wanted me dead.

  Yesterday. Not today nor tomorrow.

  The Gafanellis didn’t deal in any uncertainties, and as far as they were concerned, there was a big question mark over the head of Donny B, “the Crow”—AKA Donovan “Dead Man Walking” Bishop.

  The “cunning one,” the Crow, was my traditional name. “Dead Man Walking” was my new one.

  They’d murder me just as soon as look at me.

  And when Dani went missing… all bets were off.

  The Gafanellis just assumed I’d taken her. What they didn’t realize… was that Dani had offered to go with me.

  She’d run with me, stuck by me so that we could buy the time to clear my name… and somehow, somewhere along the “ride,” she had fallen for me.

  Fallen for me in the same way that I’d fallen for her without knowing it.

  The old Dani knew I could never hurt her. The new Dani didn’t. And it hurt me like hell to keep the secret of who she really was.

  But I didn’t want a bullet in my head while I’d slept.

  Because Dani, after all, was still a Gafanelli.

  I’d assumed part of her would always be a Gafanelli

  But she isn’t… because now she is a Bishop.

  And the new Daniela Bishop is even better than the fucking original.

  Despite my dreams of doing so, I’d never touched the old Dani.

  I couldn’t.

  And when we decided to marry to be able to walk around the other side of the world without garnering too much suspicion, we’d never even consummated the union.

  I was still nothing but her bodyguard. And she was nothing more than my ward.

  But now that’s all been shot to hell.

  And I’m thankful for every fucking minute of it.

  I touch her hair as she lays gloriously naked in the bed of this new Parisian apartment, scarcely hiding my desire to do more.

  I have to stop myself from taking her again ‘cause if I begin, I’ll never quit. She’s inserted herself into m
y DNA. I’d literally have to lose every drop of my blood to get her out.

  And even then, I don’t know if the feat would be possible.

  I kiss her swollen lips.

  “We need to get out of this damned bed before we become permanently attached to it.”

  “Why?” she replies muzzily. She reaches for the handcuffs. “Don’t you want to play another round of ‘Hostage’?

  “Not if it involves me having my own gun pointed at my chest.”

  “But look at how well it ended up the last time!”

  She laughs, showing full white teeth for the first time in days. I’m tempted to kiss her again.

  This new Dani 2.0 has all the trimmings of the first Dani. Except this time, it’s now combined with the fact that she’s mine.

  She’s everything I never knew I needed.

  My cock grows harder just acknowledging the simple thought.

  She rolls away from me.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asks.

  “We…” I slap her bare ass, “aren’t going to do anything. I am going to meet up with Penelope. Figure out how we can get to Duvall.”

  I swing my legs out of bed, naked, and I stroll over towards my suitcase. I start putting on a new set of clothes, and as I do, Dani watches me.

  She sits bare-assed on the heels of her tiny feet. Her gorgeous tits seem to point in my direction.

  When I finally slip my shirt overhead, I glance at her face. Hard determination gleams back from her heavily lashed eyes, and she frowns.

  Shit. I underestimated how easy my exit would be.

  The look on Dani’s face is one I’ve seen before, and if I want to make it out of the room alive, I’d better listen to what she has to say.

  Like any other Gafanelli, she knows her way around the handle of a gun. And she has the meanest right hook I’ve ever seen.

  I wait for her to speak.

  “Why don’t you let me interrogate Duvall?” she asks.

  I blink, feeling stunned. I don’t want her to know it.

  “I knew you wanted to help, but this? I didn’t think you’d want to.”

  “You didn’t think I wanted to… or you hoped I didn’t?”

  “Dani, I…”

  “No ‘Dani’s,” please… I need control of my life back. It’s all starting to come back to me. Almost everything right up until the accident…”

  “I don’t think your shooting was an accident,” I interrupt harshly.

  Dani nods. “Yes. I know it wasn’t. That’s why it’s important that I figure things out for myself now. I don’t want to live in fear anymore. Not of you. Not of my family. Not of anyone.”

  Dani stands up out of bed, walking towards me.

  “Let me do this, Donovan.”

  It’s the first time she’s said my name. Ever.

  I’d been “Donny B” to all of the Gafanelli’s since I met them ten years ago. I’d been the face of the Grim Reaper to all of their enemies since they named me “the Crow.”

  I’d never been Donovan.

  Not to Don Gafanelli. Not to Jax…

  Least of all, to Dani.

  I’d been her guard, her glorified babysitter. She was the beauty… and I had to be a beast.

  Now I was her fellow escapee, her partner-in-crime, and her lover.

  I’d never looked at myself as Donovan. Never wanted to. But I had to admit: I fucking loved the sound of it on her pretty lips.

  But to add insult to injury, she reaches a hand up to rub underneath my jaw, and it is a touch I feel all the way down to my lengthening dick.

  Saying no to Dani was never an easy feat.

  Saying no to a naked Dani with a convincing argument and a body that won’t quit is un-fucking-fathomable.

  PAPA’S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG

  BISHOP

  Buzzed up by her secretary, I knock on Penelope’s Parisian office door for the second time in as many days with a distinctive tap.

  “Ughhhh,” I hear from the side. “Back already…? Fine.” I hear the muffled slam of another drawer. “Come in already, Bishop.”

  I turn the doorknob to P’s large oak door.

  I grin.

  “Don’t give me that, P. You knew I was coming. Your secretary called it in so you could buzz me up.”

  Penelope swings her long head of hair over her shoulder. In a new suit fitted with a beige jacket and pencil skirt, she scans me over.

  She sits behind her desk, smiling with an evil glint in her eye.

  She taps her nearby keyboard.

  “Yeah, I know,” she comments flippantly. “Just felt like giving you a hard time.”

  I start to chuckle, and she joins in.

  The second she sees who’s walking in behind me, the laughter stops.

  Dani, tailored in her denim jacket and form-fitting black dress, struts inside Penelope’s office as if she owns it. Her “old-found” Gafanelli confidence is back, and she walks with the natural charisma of her Mafia princess upbringing.

  It’s so engrained in her that she doesn’t even know it.

  I smile to myself, glaring at the profile of her beautiful physique.

  I extend a hand towards the beautiful woman at my side.

  “Penelope, this is Dani. Dani—Penelope.”

  In shock, Penelope reaches across her desk to shake Dani’s delicate hand. Her mouth opens slightly, but then she shuts it just as quickly, returning to that same hard-ass lawyer reserve I’ve come to know so well.

  She waves her hand in front of her.

  “It’s so nice to see you, Dani,” Penelope grins. “Please, sit, sit.” She motions towards a chair, and Dani begins to take it.

  Penelope looks over at me with barely concealed bewilderment in her eyes.

  “You, too, Bishop.”

  At that, I take the seat beside Dani, resisting the urge to put my hand on her bare knee.

  We huddle closer together.

  “I don’t want to overwhelm you, P… We just wanted to see if you had a chance to get any answers.”

  But P’s eyes are still stuck on Dani.

  “I’m sorry for staring,” she blurts stolidly. “It’s just… you’re so beautiful, Dani… And I mean that as the highest compliment. Ya see, we met long ago.” P almost blushes. “You probably don’t remember it, but I…”

  “Of course I do.”

  Dani surprises me with her response.

  “It was Penny, right? Bishop once introduced us at one of my father’s dinner parties long ago. I had forgotten a lot until recently… though, I can’t imagine how I could forget your face.”

  This time, Penelope does blush.

  She folds the papers on her desk with quick, efficient hands. When she gathers them into a separate pile, she crosses her fingers in front of her. As she folds them, I can see that they are slightly shaking.

  I pray that Dani doesn’t also notice the change.

  I cut into the conversation.

  “Sorry to break up this little lesbo love fest you ladies have going on here—God knows how I’d like to see that play out—but can we talk about something a little less ‘loving’? Like who was that fucker that broke into our loft and attacked us in Annecy?”

  The two ladies’ gazes divert back to my scowling face.

  Penelope sighs. “Yeah, sure…” She puts both hands on the keyboard at her desk.

  “This is what I received from that cocky-assed bastard friend of yours, Jackson.”

  She strikes a final button on the keypad and turns the screen towards us.

  “His name is Acel Martelle, as you already saw with his I.D. He’s actually on the Paris police force. Been there for four years… and he has a reputation for being a gun-for-hire in certain circles…”

  “Certain circles?” Dani pipes up. “What certain circles?”

  “Corrupt ones.”

  Penelope fixes Dani with a serious stare.

  “He’s been transferred from at least one other city for allegedly ta
king bribes from criminals whom he has arrested. He seems to be on the take—always trying to fit into one wealthy, political group or another.

  Penelope points to her computer screen.

  “The man has no moral compass.”

  “So what did he want with us? What was he doing at our place?” Dani asks.

  “Long story short?” She pauses. “Trying to murder you…”

  The air grows thick.

  “But I wouldn’t peg him for the shooter in New York,” Penelope adds.

  “He’s a low-level creep, at the bottom of the food chain. He would’ve been hired as the first level of offense. If he failed—once he failed—the second line would be brought in.”

  Penelope frowns.

  “They’d keep sending higher levels until ultimately one of them finished the job.”

  I look over at Dani.

  She remains calm despite being informed about the prospect of additional hitters. She clasps her hands together, maintaining her Gafanelli cool.

  “So do you think it could be connected to what happened to me in New York?” she asks.

  “I do,” Penelope looks up, “Being the lead attorney for New York governor, Shelly Price, has it “perks”… and its “price.” I get front row seats to all manners of organized crime.”

  She exhales roughly.

  “There’s always some threat centered on the political higher-ups—always some blame to be placed. And now with senatorial elections this year, she’s been backing Maryland transplant, Gordon Pike. Hell, just for that, she gets more death threats than I get those annoying penis implant e-mails.”

  She taps a finger on the tabletop.

  “It’s my job to be informed—to use all of our collective intel… Needless to say, I take her threats more serious than the next Powercock Pump ad in my inbox.”

  Penelope gives Dani a pointed look.

  “So… what do we do now?” I interject. “How do we nip this shit in the bud? Find the fucker who actually did shoot Dani?”

  “Well, annoying bastard or not… Jackson was right. You’d want to start here.” Penelope enters something in the search engine on her computer and turns the screen so we can see it.

  It’s Senator Robert Fletcher.

  In the flesh. Smiling on the campaign trail as if life is simply seamless. As if his daughter’s fate isn’t held in a delicate balance.