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  “Sorry,” she said. “How about if I’m just touching it?”

  Maisie softly ran her finger over my skin and as she did some of the concealer I had used, to cover the marks Bobby had left, came off.

  Her eyes narrowed as she started to rub off more. “What the hell, Brenna?”

  I needed to think fast. “I—”

  “Don’t even try and lie. Someone’s hand made these marks.”

  I couldn’t meet her eyes. She went to the kitchen and wet a towel, came back and removed the rest of the concealer with no protest from me. It looked even worse than it did a few hours before. I still didn’t speak.

  She was dead serious, when she placed her hand gently on my knee and looked me in the eye. “It doesn’t make sense, but I want you to know you can tell me. I will support you. Did Rafe do this?”

  Horrified I pushed away her hand. “Raphael? No! God, no! He’s never been anything but considerate and loving toward me.”

  How could she even think such a thing? Raphael would never do something like this. He couldn’t!

  “Then what the hell happened, Brenna?”

  I knew I needed to tell Maisie something. I just couldn’t tell her all of it. She knew I had been working the poker game. It had always bothered her. She also knew that we did what we had to do to pay the bills sometimes. I hoped giving her half the truth was enough.

  “It was Bobby. We had a…disagreement.”

  “This isn’t a disagreement.” She looked at my wrist, assessing the damage. “You’re lucky it’s not broken, just bruised. The boys will kill him if Raphael doesn’t get to him first. Does he even know?” She squinted her eyes. “Of course, he doesn’t know, otherwise he’d be here right now.”

  I started to panic, her words another reason why Raphael couldn’t know. I didn’t want him in any trouble because of me. That was the exact reason I was in this mess.

  “You can’t tell him. You can’t tell any of them. Promise me!” I sounded hysterical, but I couldn’t stop. “Raphael can’t know. I need to protect him. I won’t hurt him.”

  “What are you talking about?” She took a breath and told me to do the same. “Now, talk to me. Tell me all of it.”

  I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I was scared, in pain, or just weak; but I told her everything. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

  Maisie’s face went from concerned to horrified to furious in a matter of minutes. When I finally stopped talking, I leaned back to look at her.

  “What have I done?”

  Maisie completely dismissed my fear with the wave of a hand. “Rafe doesn’t need you to protect him, Brenna. This is insane. You need to tell him. Whatever you think will happen, won’t. He will be able to fix anything. Trust me, together those boys can handle anything.”

  “I don’t want him to have to ‘handle’ anything because of me. That’s why I broke it off. My heart isn’t worth his fortune or his freedom.”

  Maisie laughed. “I’m willing to bet Rafe would disagree with you on that.”

  She walked over to her phone that was on the kitchen counter. Before I could stop her, she had sent a quick text. “There.”

  My stomach clenched. This was exactly what I had been trying to avoid. Or was it? What made me tell Maisie everything?

  “What have you done?” I wasn’t sure if I was addressing Maisie or myself.

  She answered. “What you should have done in the first place. Now sit down, while I grab some ice and pour you a glass of wine.” She shook her head. “You’re going to need it.”

  6

  RAPHAEL

  Why the hell wasn’t she returning my calls?

  I had left so many messages her inbox was full. All the texts I had sent were showing unread. If she thought she could ghost me like this, she would need to think again. I had never been ditched by any woman, and Brenna, the one woman I actually wanted, wasn’t going to be the first.

  Something had to be wrong. I knew the connection between us was real. More importantly I knew that Brenna felt it too. She was mine, and I was hers. There was no going back now that we had found each other. Nothing was going to stand in the way of making her mine. We belonged together.

  I sent another text to Gabriel. I was hoping he might have heard something through Maisie. He was still tied up in meetings. I was getting no satisfaction on any end.

  I couldn’t fathom that Brenna would choose anything but me. Why would she want back the life she had before we met? When I had first set eyes on her at that game, she hadn’t looked happy. It wasn’t a life she wanted. I could give her everything. What was pulling her away from me?

  Brenna was mine. I would look after her every need. She had to know that. There is nothing that she or those she loved, would ever have to worry about again.

  I knew how much her Gran meant. How much Brenna loved her. Her grandmother had loved and protected my Brenna in those early years and now I would do the same for both of them.

  Did Brenna doubt that? Why would she walk away from the exceptional care I offered her grandmother? What force would keep her from me? Destroying the connection our souls had made.

  Again, I played the message she had left. Ignoring the dagger piercing my heart with her words, I listened to it over and over. Something wasn’t right. It was too clinical, too impersonal. Brenna was a woman of passion, of emotion. Not the cold voice whose words carried no feeling.

  I made a call. I put my people on tracing her phone. I knew it would be an invasion of her privacy, but I didn’t care. This was too important. I needed to know where she was. I had to know she was safe. They would find her, and I would go to her.

  I was furious with myself for not having checked my phone earlier. The men I had been meeting with were a touchy bunch. They required the utmost of privacy. We met in a sealed room and no electronics. For anyone.

  I hadn’t even thought about it. If anything, the few hours away from Brenna would only lead to my anticipation of our night ahead. I was wrong. Instead it had cost me hours of precious time.

  If Brenna thought my lack of response meant her decision was acceptable, she would soon find out otherwise. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I wasn’t allowing her to brush me off. That was never going to happen. I don’t think she believed her words any more than I did.

  Caleb was waiting as I walked out of the building.

  “Get me to Brenna’s.” I wasn’t wasting another moment. I had to take action. I didn’t have the patience to wait for the results of tracing her phone. My brothers had warned me there would come a day when I would lose my patient facade. It looked like that day had finally arrived.

  I didn’t know if she was home or not, but if she was–

  My phone suddenly vibrated. Brenna!

  No, strangely, it was Maisie. ‘Come to Brenna’s now!’

  Her text took my breath, and my heart skipped a beat.

  I caught Caleb’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “Don’t take your foot off the gas.”

  If something had happened to Brenna, I didn’t think that my heart could bear it. If someone was responsible for the whatever the hell was going on, it would be the last thing they ever did.

  Brenna was my woman. Under my care. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her.

  BRENNA

  Maisie was still trying to convince me that telling Raphael was the right decision when the pounding began at my door. For a moment I panicked thinking Bobby had come back. I didn’t want Maisie and her baby in any danger.

  When Raphael’s voice came booming through the door, I started to panic for a different reason.

  “Brenna! Maisie! One of you better open this door or I’m kicking it in.”

  His ferocity caught me off guard, but Maisie was unperturbed. She squeezed my hand and gave me a little smile. “They have a lot of bark, but their bite will never be directed at you.”

  She opened the door and Raphael cam barging through, his eyes scanning. “Where is she, is she—”


  Those beautiful blue eyes came to rest on me. The eyes I never thought I would see again. I tried to stop my tears, but seeing his face, his concern, they began to flow freely.

  “Raphael!”

  “Brenna!”

  With only a few strides, I was back in his arms. The comfort he gave was immediate. I hoped he would never let me go.

  “Mon Dieu. What’s happened? What have I done?”

  My head was against his hard chest and I could hear the pounding of his heart against my ear.

  Maisie spoke before I could. “It’s not you.” Then she addressed me. “I’m leaving. But tell him everything. I promise you, Brenna, he can fix it.” Then she was gone.

  “Fix what? Talk to me, love.”

  He looked so worried, and Maisie seemed so sure, I was powerless to keep silent. Perhaps there was hope yet.

  I pulled away from him and faced the window. “I’m so sorry, Raphael. I’ve put you in a terrible situation.”

  He didn’t say a word, he just listened. It was only when I mentioned that Bobby’s threats had been in person, that he’d been in my apartment, that I saw shock cross Raphael’s face.

  “He was here? He dared to speak to you…here?”

  “Yes—”

  “Did he touch you?”

  Raphael’s eyes had narrowed, and I was suddenly glad that it wasn’t me that incurred his wrath. My good hand involuntarily went to the wrist that Maisie had wrapped. It was beneath my long sleeve, but not beyond his scrutiny.

  “He hurt you.” It was a statement, not a question. I watched as concern was replaced by dark rage. Then there was just icy calm. This is what it must feel like to be in the eye of the storm.

  “It’s okay—”

  “It will never be okay.” He took a step toward me, then stopped. “Please excuse me.”

  He didn’t wait for my response. He walked into my bedroom and closed the door. My apartment wasn’t big, and I could hear the murmur of Raphael’s voice. I recognized Gregor’s name and Bobby, but that was all I could decipher.

  I opened the door as he was completing the call. “Raphael?”

  He came over and carefully held my hands in his. Gently, he kissed each one. I saw the muscles of his jaw clench as he looked at my wrist.

  “It’s over. You are free of that filth.”

  I didn’t know what that meant. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant. I did know that I didn’t want Raphael to be crossing lines because of me.

  “I don’t want you in trouble. I don’t want to hurt you. I couldn’t live with that.”

  He tilted my chin so he could look directly in my eyes. “It is you who has been hurt, and it was on my watch. But I promise you this, my love. This is the last time anyone will ever hurt you. Ever. Tell me you understand.”

  I must have waited too long to respond. He repeated his words, demanding my answer.

  “Tell me you understand me, Brenna.”

  “I understand.”

  RAPHAEL

  She was so beautiful, so vulnerable, standing before me with those deep brown eyes and tear-kissed lashes. I wanted to pull her closer and never let her go.

  To think that Bobby had been here and put his hands on my Brenna. I tried to temper my rage. That scum was no longer an issue. Her worry was for naught. One call to Gregor, letting him know that Bobby had been collecting dirt on the players and filming the game was enough to deal with the situation. I didn’t need to know the results. I knew it would be handled.

  Brenna in all her sweet naivete, didn’t realize that Bobby had nothing on me, because there was nothing. I had never played at his games before the night I had met her. It still would not have mattered. I had never crossed any lines in my life that could lead to my downfall. I may come close, but I never stepped over. The fact that she had been willing to protect me, thinking I had, assured what I already knew. She was loving and loyal. She was The One.

  “You were going to leave me.”

  “I thought I was protecting you,” she defended.

  “You thought I was dirty?”

  Brenna couldn’t hear the teasing in my voice, and she started to apologize. “I don’t know what I thought. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, love. But I need you to understand. I will be sharing my highest hopes and my darkest secrets with you. But none of them are so dark that they would ruin me if they came to light. What would destroy me is not having your heart next to mine. To be forced to walk through this world without you. For the exposure of any of the skeletons I have buried, would be nothing compared to the suffering I would bear in a world without you by my side.”

  For a moment she didn’t speak, and then she started to smile.

  “I can see Maisie was right. You certainly have a way with words.”

  Her gaze had turned playful, so I responded in kind.

  “My mother taught me that it was as important to pleasure a woman’s ear as much as the rest of her body.”

  “You had a wise mother.”

  “Are you telling me I have learned my lessons well?”

  Brenna gave a sweet giggle. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

  She stepped in close as she asked, her soft, generous bosom was pressing against my chest. My cock leapt at her teasing words.

  “Since the moment I first saw you.”

  I wanted to toss her on the nearby bed and rip off the clothing that separated our bodies. I wanted to make her mine. My need was intense, but I didn’t want to hurt her.

  “Your wrist?”

  “It’s just bruised, and if you have truly learned your lessons well, I doubt I will even feel it.”

  She laid the challenge before me and I swiftly accepted. We both needed release from the past several hours, and we turned to each other for that comfort.

  I pulled her tightly against me. Every sweet curve of her delicious body was melding into mine.

  “This time, there will be no interruptions.” I stared down into her eyes, she needed to hear me. “Nothing is going to stop me from making you mine.”

  “Please.”

  That was all she said, then she closed her eyes and gave herself completely to me.

  BRENNA

  His mouth took mine with the ferocity of one who had been without, too long. I gave myself over to his taste, to his touch. With only his lips on mine, I couldn’t think straight, my legs were becoming weak.

  Raphael pulled away, my ragged breath in the air between us.

  “I want to see all of you. I want to touch all of you.”

  He wasn’t asking. Despite his demand he gently removed my shirt, ever so careful with my wrist. His fingers ran below my bra, releasing its clasp. He gently removed the straps from my shoulder and tossed it to the side.

  His sharp intake of breath and want in his eyes, dispelled any nerves I might have had. There was nothing but desire and approval on his face. He slow walked behind me. My nipples hardened with anticipation in the cool air.

  Raphael nibbled on the back of my neck as his fingers slid beneath the band of my pants. As he worked them down over my hips, his mouth kissed a trail down my spine. I didn’t have his patience and wiggled out of them before he could take them completely off.

  I wanted him to take me, I didn’t need this teasing.

  His lips against my lobe, he whispered. “On the bed, now.”

  I gave a delicious shudder and did as I was told.

  On my back, I watched as he removed every piece of his clothing. He was even more magnificent undressed. His skin had a dark sheen that emphasized each ridge and muscle of his torso. I wanted to feel him, to touch him, to touch…it.

  It was tailored to the man in perfection. His long hard cock jut from his body as if screaming for me to take it in my mouth. The tip glistened with pre cum and I longed to taste him. I moved to sit up, to wrap my lips around him.

  “No.”

  He pushed me back down, stepped between my legs that were hanging off the
bed, and parted my thighs. He dropped to his knees. His hands running across the soft skin he exposed on my legs. His teeth nipping at my ankles and then his lips kissing a trail to the gusset of my panties now wet with need. He licked at the material, as his hot breath sent a ripple of pleasure through me.

  Raphael pushed my thighs further apart, then hooked his finger under the cotton barrier between us and pulled it to the side. Instinctively my hips bucked. He growled with a primal pleasure and suddenly his mouth was a hot force, as he licked my sex, over and over again. His tongue between my lips, he licked and sucked in a rhythm that nearly made me weep.

  His other arm reached up, keeping my pressed to the bed as his caressed my breast and he rolled my nipple between his fingers, I was losing all control. My mind was a chaotic mess of craving and need.

  I thought I could wait, but Raphael’s fingers were suddenly inside me, curling against my tender walls, and brushing my G Spot. The pressure was mounting, and I pushed my mound against his mouth. I moaned as I bit my lip and looked down at him.

  He glanced up, “Don’t hold back, love, cum for me.”

  I was helpless to do anything else.

  His fingers plucked the last tune from my core, and I exploded into a thousand pieces. My walls pulsing around his fingers as I let go. Vibrations traveled through my body and I convulsed again and again.

  Raphael was suddenly above me, his arm that had kept me pinned, now beneath me, pulling me up fully on the bed. His hard cock was pressed against the soft flesh of my stomach. I wiggled beneath him, wordlessly begging with my desperate body. Between my legs, he held his engorged cock, then rubbed it up and down, between my soaking lips.

  The aftershocks of my orgasm, tried to pull him in. I had just cum, but instantly I was a hot mess of wanting.

  He pressed the smooth, hard tip of his cock against my clit, then swirled it in the slick evidence of his efforts. I couldn’t take any more.

  “Please…please.”