Page 20 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

MICK

The last bite of her dessert is barely off her fork before Kara wipes her mouth with a linen napkin, rises from the table, and walks out.

She doesn’t look back.

Not at Dierdre, who has been shooting her alternating looks of disapproval and wounded reproach throughout dinner. My ex is clearly still playing the victim role and it's working.

At least on Brogan, who spends most of dinner paying attention to Dierdre as Hope grows quieter and quieter.

Kara doesn't spare a glance for her father, who’s nursing a whiskey and acting like he didn’t just put a feckin’ match to a powder keg.

Not at me.

The only person she acknowledges is our son, who jumps up to follow her after kissing Maeve's cheek.

"See you tomorrow, Enoch!" Fitz waves, but sidesteps Brogan like his beloved athair mór is not there.

However, he smiles at Hope. "See you tomorrow, Auntie Hope."

Auntie? When did Hope Dobbs get promoted to family?

From the warm approval on my wife's beautiful face when she looks back over her shoulder to nod at our son, I think the promotion happened just now.

Fitz is no more forgiving than me.

And it won't be his grandfather's chastisement of himself he's taken issue with. It will be the way Brogan upset Kara.

Fitz is fiercely protective of his mam.

As he should be.

And tonight, it's his mother's example he's following.

Leaving the rest of us without a backward glance. I'm not aware of what I did to earn my little man's ire, but sure as certain, it's something to do with his mam.

Then he turns his head and the look he gives me asks, "Are you coming?"

"Excuse me," I say to the table at large and stand to go.

"We have business to discuss," Brogan blusters.

"It will keep." My father-in-law stepped over a line tonight and I'm letting him know it.

Fitz's suggestion that Brogan go to London instead of me grows on me as I follow my wife and son. Brogan may be the boss, but within my family? He doesn't override me, or Kara.

He needs a lesson in the cost of forgetting that fact.

I catch up with Fitz and Kara on the stairs. Fitz hops up one stair at a time while Kara patiently slows her pace to stay with him.

She is everything a mam should be.

Everything a man like me could ask for in a wife too.

In the beginning, Kara was nothing more than a clause in the contract that allowed me to advance to captain.

Now, she's my obsession.

And it all started on our wedding night, when I had to leave her or break the terms stipulated in the contract.

Seven Years Ago

My bride breathes shallowly beside me, boneless and sated, while my body buzzes with energy and need .

I don't feel need. I get aroused. I have sex, or I beat off. I don't need .

Living without sex since signing the contract has not been a hardship. No matter how many times Dierdre tried to renew sexual relations, I was never tempted.

I don't break my promises and one of the clauses in my contract with the Shaughnessy Mob is fidelity.

Dispersing my thoughts like mist in the sun, Kara's silky, tight heat flutters around my middle finger. My dick's so hard it's pressing against my stomach.

Need. Desire. Crave .

To be inside that soaked, grasping tunnel. Bleedin' feckin' hell .

I should leave now.

Because that is the one thing I cannot do. I agreed to no penetrative sex until after she is pregnant with my son.

I thought it would be easy. Lust has never driven me. Sex is a bodily function, not a daily, or even weekly necessity.

Kara is a sweet woman. Shy. Not someone to get like this over.

I need to pull my finger out of her and roll away. Get up, dress and walk out like the composed bastard I’ve always been.

But I don’t.

I feckin' can't .

Keeping my own breathing even with more effort than it should take, I stay exactly where I am.

Taking in my fill of the bride who was just supposed to be part of the bargain. A contract guarantor.

A pretty pink blush covers her usually milky-white skin from her mouth-watering tits right down to the pussy I want to taste again. Her lashes flutter as she tries to recover and her hips make an aborted movement.

But my hand holds her in place.

Those innocent hazel eyes fly open, widening as she seems to realize, all at once, that I'm still buried two-knuckles deep in her hot cunt. She tries to press her thighs together in knee-jerk reaction that's no more successful than when she tried to shift her hips.

But it jostles my finger inside her, and her channel tightens as she moans.

Fuck it.

In one swift move, I pull my hand away from the glistening apex of her thighs and move to straddle her. I have to force myself to settle my ass over the gentle curve of her lower abdomen when all I want is to bury myself between her sweet, juicy thighs.

But her big, soft baps will have to do. Those tits were made to be fucked.

And my cum can't go anywhere near her newly claimed pussy.

My hand is drenched with her, and I suck her juices off my finger while she watches, her lips parted, her eyes hot.

As much as she clearly likes seeing me taste her, the blush across her chest turns rosy red.

Fuck me, I want more.

I want inside her .

Now. Not in a month or two after she's gotten pregnant. Now .

My control – which until this very moment I would have said was absolute – is fraying by the second.

And it's her fault.

She's not supposed to be like this. Sensual, sweetly responsive and utterly wrecked by a single finger. She's supposed to be a means to an end. A condition. A clause.

Instead, she's temptation wrapped in skin softer than silk. She's heat and innocence, and I’m a man who knows how to take what he wants.

But not this.

Not yet.

With herculean effort, I stay where I am and grab her hand.

"Now, it's your turn," I say roughly, dragging her hand to my cock.

She blinks at me, that blush surging into her cheeks now. "I don't know what to do." She swallows, her fingers flexing. "I read books, but…" Her voice trails off.

The smile I give her has nothing to do with humor. "Don't worry, a stór, I'll show you."

I wrap her small hand around my girth. Her fingers don't touch, but I cover her hand with my own and press to get the pressure I like.

Precum drools from my cockhead, sliding down to wet her fingers. I guide her hand up and over my head, then back down, lubricating my dick with my own precum.

An idea forms and as fast as it does, I act on it, reaching behind me to soak my hand with her essence.

Kara cries out, her hips canting.

But I shake my head. "Not yet, greedy girl. You've already come."

Multiple times.

"Now it's your turn," she repeats my words back to me.

I spread her juices over my dick, sliding under her fingers and around them. "Bleedin' right it is."

Then I swipe my forefinger across my leaking tip and press it to her bottom lip.

She gasps, the sound small and startled.

Taking advantage of her parted lips, I slip my finger inside. "Taste me."

She doesn't hesitate, sliding her tongue around my finger and humming.

Feckin' hell. She likes it.

Then she blushes and tries to turn her head away. I'm not having it. I keep her in place with my finger once again buried in her wet heat. Only this time, it's her hungry mouth instead of her hungry pussy.

"Don't be shy." I wrap my other mitt around hers again. "You're my wife now, aren't you? This is yours."

Something flares in her eyes at that.

Possession.

"You like that, don't you?"

She nods, her teeth sliding against my finger. Fuck. I want to feel those teeth on my cock, but that's for another night.

Right now, I'm so hard, a dagger's blade is soft by comparison. And less deadly.

I show her how to jack me without making me come, because that's not happening until I'm cradled between her pillowy mounds.

The lesson goes off the rails fast when she grips me too tight, jerking hard and awkward but with unmistakable enthusiasm.

Her movements are unskilled, but honest. Unfiltered. No practiced technique like past sex partners and it's a fucking turn-on.

I'm no muppet, but I'm feeling like one as my control threatens to shatter.

Fuck . I can’t hold back. Giving up on giving my wife her first pearl necklace, I stop trying to control her movements.

Two strokes later, an orgasm rips through me before I can stop it. Like I’m some fucking teenager without any control. Cum erupts from my balls, tearing up my pole and shooting out like a feckin' geyser.

A growl tears from my throat. Then I shout. Her name.

"Kara!" My control disintegrates in the space of a breath.

White heat.

Blinding.

I slam my eyes shut, jaw clenched, riding the wave until it ebbs. My body is still twitching when I finally force her hand away.

"Enough," I snap, harsher than I mean to.

But fuck. I just came like a rocket and all it did was make me want to be inside her more.

She flinches slightly, pulling her hand back to her chest, smearing my cum over her bap, but not the way I wanted to christen those beauties.

Shit.

I climb off her before I do something stupid. Like break the clause in the contract.

I don't renege on my promises.

Not even for a sexy as fuck virgin who just took me apart with the least practiced hand job I've ever had.

Going into the bathroom, I clean up quickly, methodically, like I didn’t just lose my mind over a girl who was never meant to matter.

After wetting a thick washcloth with warm water, I carry it back into the bedroom.

Kara's exactly where I left her, lips swollen, eyes questioning, skin still flushed with pleasure. She’s looking at me all soft, like I’m someone I’m not. Like this thing between us is something it can never be.

I should be glad. I spend every waking minute pretending to be the charming Irishman with emotions like everyone else.

But I'm not.

I think better of my plan to clean her up with the cloth and toss it at her. "Clean yourself up. I got a text. I need to check it."

The soft glow in her eyes dims, but she doesn't argue. Just starts washing my sticky ejaculate from her hand.

Fuck. "Don't use that on your pussy now it's got my cum on it," I growl before turning away to check my phone.

No text came, but I need an excuse to get out of here.

Staring down at the blank phone screen, I hear her get off the bed and pad across the room to the en suite.

I'm dressed in black cargo pants and t-shirt when she comes out of the bathroom.

"Your grandfather needs me," I say, rising and adjusting my jacket like the mind-blowing almost-sex was just a stop along the way to more important business.

It’s a lie. There’s no call. No emergency.

The only thing pressing is the realization that I came harder with this untouched virgin than I ever have with any of my lovers.

And I didn’t even fuck her.

This is the real problem.

Because I want to. If I stay in her vicinity for five more minutes, I will. But I'm not willing to pay the price my lust would cost me.

Her grandfather's trust.

My position.

My sense of honor, as tarnished as it might be.

I don’t speak again. I just walk out, shutting the bedroom door behind me with the click of a lock.

I tell myself it’s a victory.

But all I feel is weak.

When her grandfather texts at three in the morning to tell me I'm needed on a product transfer in Boston, I leave for the helicopter without a backward glance.

But I don't take Brice and Conor. They're my mates, the only two men on my crew in Dublin I brought with me. I trust them to keep Kara safe.