Page 26 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

I think it's working but nothing is helping to wash away the hollow feeling inside me.

I turn the water colder and that doesn't help either. But it's shocking enough to stop the tears trying to fall.

So, that's good.

Finally, I turn off the water and step out of the shower.

My body shaking with shivers, I'm drying off when the handle on the door rattles. "Kara? Let me in."

"I'll be out in a second." I finish drying off and put on my robe, hiding my nudity.

I still feel raw and exposed.

But unless I want to sleep in here tonight, I have to face Mick and pretend like I don't.

I open the door.

He's looming right on the other side. Still naked. Still aroused.

Swallowing, I turn my head, so I'm not staring at his chest. Or anything else. "It's free now if you want it."

"I don't want the bathroom," he says, frowning. "Look, Kara. You didn't need to safe word. All you had to do was tell me you needed the toilet. You need to keep red for when you need it all to stop."

"I did want it all to stop." I try to move past him.

Only, he shifts his body to block my way. "You should know that if you ever tell me you need the toilet, or you've got a cramp, I'll release you from the restraints. You don't need to safe word."

"I never doubted it." And I hadn't.

Mick doesn't want to hurt me. He wants to control me. Sexually.

And I'm pathetic enough that I want that too.

Only not anymore. Maybe. I'm not sure, but what I liked best was knowing I was the center of Mick's focus.

That phone call proved that I wasn't. That I never had been, no matter how he played my body.

"Your hair's wet." He frowns. "Did you take a shower?"

"Didn't you hear it?" It's not really a fair question.

The door was shut and all the walls and doors in the apartment are sound dampening so that after the son I'm not pregnant with yet is born, his cries won't wake Mick in the night.

Mobsters need to get sleep when they can so they're always ready to do their job.

At least that's what my dad says.

Mick says we'll be able to make all the noise we want at night without waking the baby.

"Why did you take a shower?" he asks.

I shrug.

His hand cups my shoulder, big and heavy. "What's going on, Kara?"

"I want to go to sleep."

"We were in the middle of something," he says, like maybe I don't know that.

"And you answered the phone."

"You know I'm on call 24-7."

I duck from under his hand and manage to squeeze by him. "So, go do whatever it is you have to do."

I shouldn't expect anything else. Not after our wedding night when he made it clear that mob business took precedence, even on such a special occasion.

"I'm not going anywhere." He pauses and sighs. "Not yet."

Those two words wound me, and I know they shouldn't. I know I'm supposed to be okay with this. It's the way of life in the mob.

But I'm not okay.

I know Mick doesn't love me, but I'm afraid I'm falling for him. The feelings are so big, they terrify me. Especially knowing they're not returned.

"Don’t let me stop you." I dig an oversized sleep shirt out of my dresser.

Because that doesn't feel like enough, instead of the sleep shorts I usually wear, I pull out a pair of soft leggings I sleep in during the winter.

His big hand wraps around my wrist. "Stop. Tell me what's wrong."

I look up at him, my eyes burning again with the need to cry, but I'm not going to. I have lots of experience suppressing my tears.

Even more since going on the hormone treatment necessary before harvesting my eggs for IVF. My emotions are all over the place.

Is that what this is? Am I overreacting because of hormones?

I sigh. "I'm fine."

He curses in Gaeilge. "You knew we weren't done. Why take a shower?"

"Because I wanted to wash you off my body." I jerk my wrist out of his grasp.

"What the fuck? Why?"

Is he really this dense? "Why not?"

"We both like when you go to sleep smelling like me."

"I don't like you answering the phone while we're having sex. But then it's not really sex, is it?" Is that why he didn't ignore his phone?

What we do together in bed isn't as important as real sex? Or will it be the same once he can penetrate me?

"Did you come?" he asks, his voice silky with menace.

He's never used that tone with me before. Is he angry? I let myself look at him, but he doesn't look mad. There's no emotion in his face at all.

"Answer me, wife."

"You know I did." He makes sure of it.

I always come at least once while I'm cuffed, but usually multiple times before he jacks off onto some part of my body.

My chest. The middle of my back. My bottom. Even my face once. Just nowhere near my vaginal opening.

"Did I come all over your beautiful baps?" he demands.

"Yes."

"I may not be fucking your pussy, but it's sex. I claimed your virginity," he says arrogantly.

And he claims me all over again with his fingers every time. I want him inside me though.

"I didn't know waiting until after I got pregnant would be so hard." That's easier to admit than how hurt I am about him answering the phone while I was naked and bound to our bed.

There's no point anyway. My feelings don't matter. Not to Mick. Not to my dad. Definitely not to my grandfather.

"It's only until you get pregnant. The implantation procedure is next week."

"What if I don't get pregnant the first try?" Seanathair insists on a single embryonic attempt.

He doesn't want to risk me having twins because he's seen that dynamic destroy syndicates when the heir to leadership is only minutes older than the brother who will get shunted aside.

"Then we try again."

"By we you mean me , right? You're not the one who has to go through the procedures." All he has to do is ejaculate in a cup.

I have to get my eggs harvested and then implanted with an embryo and hope it takes, so I don't have to do it again. All the research I've done says the discomfort is minimal, but that's what they always say about women's pain.

It's minimal .

I had a friend at boarding school who got an IUD and was in so much pain for a week after she could barely walk. Another friend told me her older sister warned her to take pain relievers before getting her first pap smear.

I'm scared of how much the procedures are going to hurt, but what's the point of telling anyone that?

Even mamo would just tell me to buck up. She says us Irish women are tough and we have to stay that way.

I don't feel tough. Maybe because I'm American-Irish? Maybe I'm just weak.

I still have nightmares about the night Aunt Charity died and I hate going anywhere in public with my grandfather because we could be targeted again.

When I told my dad, he said not to be a crybaby. That I had to set an example for my younger sister and cousin. When I told mamo , she told me I'm too strong to let fear rule me.

Mick's phone chimes and I pull away. "You better get that."

He's answering as I step back into the bathroom to put my pajamas on.

He frowns when I come out. "I have to go."

I nod and head for my side of the bed. The cuffs are gone from the headboard and I'm glad. I don't want to see them.