Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,64

likely to try it, but who knows?” Mikey teased. He took Bernie into his arms and kissed her hungrily. “Dessert,” he whispered. “Sweeter than cake.”

“Sweeter than honey,” she agreed on a moan.

He picked her up and sat down with her in his lap, kissing her all the while.

She didn’t protest his hands under her blouse. He was so familiar to her now, so dear, that she welcomed anything he did.

He knew that, and it kept him honest. He didn’t want to take advantage of an attraction she couldn’t help. She was very innocent. It made his head spin, that lack of sophistication. He loved it.

He eased her blouse and bra down to her waist and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling her hungrily inside it.

“Oh, glory,” she choked when she felt thick, soft hair and warm muscles against her bare breasts. Her face sank into his throat while he caressed her.

“We’re good together,” he whispered. “Better than I dreamed. God, I want you!”

Her arms tightened around his neck. “I want you, too,” she whispered back.

His hands smoothed over her hard-tipped breasts. “We’ve talked around it,” he said after a minute. “But not any particulars.” His hands moved her away and he looked at her breasts with possession and appreciation. “You’re beautiful like this, Bernie. It makes me hungry just to hold you. But this goes to my head like whiskey.”

She arched backward, her body demanding, hungry, ignoring her mind’s attempt to be sensible.

“This what you want, sweetheart?” he whispered, and his mouth swallowed up one small, taut breast almost whole.

She moaned and shivered.

“I thought so.” His voice was rough, but his mouth was tender as he worked at the hard nipple slowly, tenderly, with a growing suction that very soon made her go stiff and then suddenly burst with pleasure that made her whole body convulse in his arms.

“God, I love this,” he groaned against her breast. “I love that I can make you go off like a rocket when I suckle you!”

Her nails dug into him. It was a little embarrassing, but she was too exhausted with pleasure, with satisfaction, to protest. She shivered and clung to him in the aftermath. “I never felt anything like it in my whole life,” she said brokenly. “It embarrasses me...”

His arms contracted. “Don’t you dare be ashamed of something so beautiful,” he whispered at her ear. “No two people ever belonged to each other more than we do right this minute, Bernie.”

She swallowed, hard. “Do you feel that, too?”

He chuckled and turned her just a little, so that her hips were pressed to that part of him that was male and very hard. “Do you feel this?”

“Mikey!” she protested.

“A man can’t fake that, honey,” he said at her ear. “It’s as honest as the way you react when I put my mouth on you.” He drew back and looked down at her with pure possession. “There’s nobody in the world like you.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “Or like you,” she said solemnly.

He bent his dark head and smoothed his mouth over her breast tenderly. He drew in a breath. “We need to talk.”

“We are.”

“We need to talk when we’re both dressed,” he said with a droll smile.

“Oh.”

He put her clothes back on and buttoned his shirt. When they were calmer, he drew her onto the love seat and sat holding her hand.

“Bernie, I’m not proud of what I’m about to tell you. But there’s more about me that you need to know.” He drew in a breath. “My family has belonged to what’s known to outsiders as La Cosa Nostra for three generations. My father died working for them. I’ve been with Tony Garza since I was sixteen. I don’t know any other way of life.”

“You mean, you work outside the law,” she said very calmly.

“That’s exactly what I mean.” He studied her face. She was a little pale, but she wasn’t trying to get away from him. “We’re like normal people. We pay our taxes, go to church, work for charitable causes, all that stuff. We just earn our living in ways that aren’t conventional.”

“I told you that I watched The Godfather movies,” she said.

He brushed her disheveled hair back from her face. “That was a sanitized version of what really goes on,” he said after a minute. “I won’t, I can’t, tell you how brutal it can be. You don’t ever quit. And you don’t rat out your associates. There are deadly penalties for that. Remember what I told you