OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(185)

“I know,” I said with a thin smile. “Thank you, Cole, for standing by your word and protecting me.”



“Don’t thank me, baby,” he said. “I’d do it all over again. I’d try to do it differently,” he chuckled, “but I’d do it all over if I had to.”



I hugged him tightly and buried my face against the dirty, sweaty t-shirt he was wearing.



“We need to get you home so you can get a shower,” I teased.



“And so you can put some clothes on,” he played along.



I grabbed the top of my towel and pulled it open, letting it fall around me on the bed.



“You mean you don’t want me to walk around like this?” I asked.



“No, I don’t mind that at all. I just figured you wouldn’t want everyone here at HQ to see you like that.”



“You’re probably right, but I don’t mind if you see it.” I put my arms back around him and kissed him.



While our lips and tongues worked together, I ran a hand along his strong jawline, and he pulled me down to the bed with him. We lay together like that for an eternity, our lips locked, our bodies close, our hands touching each other gently, softly.



He caressed my back lightly, careful not to hurt any of my bruises or tender spots.



Our lips slowly parted, but I wasn’t ready to be done kissing him. I could still feel his mouth against mine as we moved back from each other.



“Cole,” I called to him. My voice sounded like it was coming through a dream.



“Yes, baby.” His hand rested along the small of my back.



“I need to tell you something.” I opened my eyes and met his already staring at me.



“What’s up?” he asked.



“I love you,” I told him.



His body tensed for a moment. He stared at me without saying anything, and I knew I’d just screwed up. I’d just gone and told him too soon how I felt. Now he was going to run, and I was going to be alone again. It didn’t even feel like he was breathing.



“Say it again,” he finally said.



“I love you, Cole,” I repeated.



He kissed me deeply and held me close to him.



“I love you, too, Sasha,” he said as he pulled back from our kiss.



“I’ve bene wanting to say it, but I didn’t think you would have believed me,” I confessed clumsily, like a schoolgirl.



“Me, too,” he said sweetly. “I was convinced you wouldn’t believe me if I had told you.”

“You had every reason to be suspicious of me,” I told him.



“Me, too, baby. Me, too,” he added. “I had my eyes so set on getting Fang that I almost missed you altogether,” he confessed to me. He ran a hand along my cheek.



“You didn’t miss me. I promise. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere ever again.”





Chapter 30




Cole



Back at my apartment, Sasha threw on one of my dress shirts and sat outside on the balcony with a glass of whiskey while I climbed into the shower. She insisted I needed to take this one alone. She told me how helpful it had been for her to wash away everything that had just happened alone and said I wouldn’t regret it.



She was right. The heat eased my sore muscles and unlocked all the tension in my shoulders and back from fighting with Fang and his goons the night before. It eased some of the tension from having to tell so many people that their friends and loved ones hadn’t made it back.



People didn’t seem to mind that their loved ones were involved in criminal organizations when the money was coming in, but as soon as something happened, we became the worst people on the face of the planet. Yes, what we did was dangerous. It was dangerous every day. And it was illegal, so there wasn’t a whole lot we could about it when things went south. We could take revenge, but there was only so much revenge to be had. For twenty of my men, ten of Fang’s men died, including Fang himself.



It didn’t seem just, but that was the best ending we could have hoped for. Fang had to die, and I had shot him dead right in front of his most loyal employee, the one person in his organization who had his back all the way up until the very end, when she realized that he didn’t have hers at all.



Shit like that made people step down from their posts. The thought kept occurring to me, which bothered me a lot. I wasn’t about to step down from being the president of Hell’s Overlords. The president before me hadn’t been worth mentioning. He had been happy to sell a little dope here and there, trade and sell some guns that had been scrubbed clean, and start as many bar fights as he possibly could. I had turned Hell’s Overlords into a legitimate organization, and with Fang’s death, we were about to expand. It was going to be a major expansion in our business to take on what he left behind.