Page 55 of Colin (The Doherty Mafia)
She stared at me, expecting me to say something.
“You want to quit?” I asked.
Marley knotted her fingers together nervously in her lap.
“Yes. I’m quitting. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“You don’t want to be a detective?”
“I don’t think I can. The lines between good and evil are all blurred to me now. I need some time off…everything, to be able to think clearly again.”
“Is it because of me?” I asked.
Finally, there was a trace of a smile on her face.
“You had something to do with it, yeah.”
“I’ve got all your lines of good and evil mixed up? You mean, I’m the evil one?”
“That’s what I had been told, yeah. But I don’t see you as evil. I know you’re not evil.”
“But you don’t know anything about me, Marley.”
“I know enough to know what you’re capable of.”
“So you’re switching sides?” I asked.
There was a spark of hope in me again. A hope that maybe this could work. That maybe she might want to be with me again. As ridiculous as that sounded.
An ex cop?
How would I ever get my family to get behind this when they found out?
No. It was never going to work.
“I don’t want to be on any side. Not right now. I just want to do something with my life completely unrelated to the mafia.”
She looked away, a little startled. This was the first time she used that word around me. All our cards were on the table now. There was nowhere to hide. She admitted she knew I belonged to the mafia, and I wasn’t going to correct her.
“Good for you,” I said.
She looked at me again, her chest heaving.
“I…I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she mumbled.
“But you want to do it far away from here. I gotcha.”
“I just…” She was lost for words and I turned the key in the ignition.
“Should we go back to the apartment? For the night? I can take you to the train station or airport in the morning if you want to leave. Whenever you want to leave. I’m just not letting you hitchhike. I’ll drive you to Vegas myself if that’s what it takes.”
Marley licked her lips and nodded.
“You don’t have to drive me. I’ll take a plane. Yes, let’s go back to your apartment now.”
We were back on the road and there was more silence between us again.
I wanted to know what was on her mind.
I wished I could tell her exactly what I felt. How freaked I was when I thought something happened to her.
I wished I had the words to tell her exactly what I felt for her, but that was too risky.
That could hurt us both.
Twenty-Nine
Marley
We made it through the door of his loft before he turned to me and pulled me into his arms.
I thought he was going to strip my clothes off right then but he didn’t. Instead, he proceeded to kiss me.
It was a slow deep kiss. His tongue slid into my mouth, deep down where he could taste every corner and inch of me. I gave into him, wrapping my arms around his neck and swaying with the rhythm of the kiss.
His fingers were in my hair, pulling my ponytail loose that I tied. My hair swished down around my shoulders, he dug his fingers into the back of my neck, then down until he grabbed my ass.
He pulled me into him. I could feel the hardness of his cock. Did he know my pussy was wet?
He smacked his mouth away from me and left a wet trail down my neck.
“I want to own every part of you, Marley. Every inch of you,” he groaned as he started unbuttoning my jeans.
I wanted to ask him what that meant. How could he own me if he was letting me go?
He said he couldn’t be in a relationship…let alone a marriage.
I panicked and told him I couldn’t be in one either.
All the reasons I gave him were the truth. It was why I could never be with anyone. Not before him.
Colin was the first man who made me doubt my staunch beliefs. He made me feel like I’d been stupid to paint every man with the same brush of my father’s.
He peeled off my jeans and I undid his shirt. I sank my face into the center of his bare chest, breathing in the husky masculine scent of him. I never wanted to forget what this felt like. To be in his arms.
He put his hand down my panties, stroking my clit wildly as he cupped and squeezed my ass with his other hand.
I wanted to hold his cock. I wanted to make him feel good too.
“I want…” I tried to get the words out, but he stopped me.
“I don’t care what you want to do to me,” he said. His voice was so hard it shut me up.
