Page 134 of The Mafia Assassin's Redemption-

I go inside and kiss Lucie’s cheek, then Mam’s.

Mam grabs me and pulls me close. “Now this one, she’s a keeper, Torin. Sopretty.”

“The redhead?” I deadpan.

Mam gives me her best withering look. “Don’t try me.” But then she softens. “Are you fine about Siobhan?”

I am. That’s the thing. Not one minute of sleep has been lost. Because I know in my soul if I’d talked her down and she’d have walked away, I’d have taken her out, put a bullet in her myself.

I won’t let threats to Harry live or breathe. Not ever.

She forfeited her life the moment she dared try to hurt her.

“Shiv tried to hurt Harry. End of story, Mam.”

And my mam, who’s so pretty, loving, and sweet, smiles. It shines through the tough mafia exterior she’d grown up with, exposing the beautiful soul she was somehow born with. What Da fell for.

“Good.”

“I love Harriet. She’s… my fire.”

“She’s perfect for you.”

I kiss Mam again and head around the other side of the counter and then follow Harry into the cold back of the store. I lean against one of the big walk-in fridges that keep the flowers perfect at around fucking almost freezing, like… I look at the thermostat on the one opposite… thirty-three degrees.

When this little strip opened up for sale, the Murphy clan snapped it up. We can use it for legit businesses, and not so legit ones, if we choose. There was an argument that I won over the cost of the place and who was paying.

Harry thinks she’s paying me back down the line, but my money’s hers and her fortune can sit and grow and she can give it away or set it up for, God forbid right now, a baby.

“Are you stalking me?”

I open my coat and she sidles up to me and presses against me. I close my arms and coat around her. Fuck, she’s delicious. I breathe in her scent. “Always.”

“I’m busy.”

“I know. With me.”

And I kiss her. I take my time, making it deep and soul-grazing. It’s everything I can’t find words for. All the tiny things I adore about her, the forgiveness I seek for being snappy before coffee that morning, for being late because we had a raid to conduct the week before. And it sings low and draws her into me and whispers the things I love about her, like how I have to fix the things she does when we’re working onMildredbecause she does them wrong, how she can’t carry a tune, and the way she sleeps, curled tight into me.

And her smile.

The little things that are so fucking big, there are no words for them.

I’m not a man given to love or words of them, so I try, but when I fail, I show her in everything I do.

“I love you, too,” she whispers.

Out in the store, my brothers try to wrangle Clawzilla into his carrier, but he clearly prefers Mam today, so there’s a yowl, a hiss, and some swearing that follows. Pandemonium breaks out, spattered with laughter, and Arnold barks.

And I kiss my woman again in deeper, darker, more wicked earnest. A master to his slave, and she moans, swaying in close before she ducks away. I catch her at the big metal table and pin her to it.

“Stop, Torin. Someone could come in.”

“Fuck no.” I flip up her skirt and my dick goes full fucking mast. “Holy shit.” I run my fingers over the petal-pink latex underwear. “You really are a Dirty Harry.”

She slaps me away. “Your mom’s here. Have some respect.”

“Fuck, Harry, you got the wrong guy. I have zero respect.” But the thing is, Mam could come in and I’m too old to get caught fooling around. Besides, these panties arebest left to an entire evening of play. And now I won’t be able to keep them out of my mind.