The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,145
to live with myself if I stood back and let it happen?” Carmine slid his hand up Danny’s back, drawing their bodies together. “No. I’ll bribe half the police force to stop il Sacchi from taking you. I’ll take on an army if they try to hurt you. But I won’t stand back and let—” His voice caught, and he shook his head. “I can’t promise you that. And I won’t.”
“Carmine, I don’t—”
“No,” Carmine whispered. “Anyone wants to lay a hand on you, they’ll have to go through me. I’m not getting out of their way.”
Danny wanted to argue. Lord, but he wanted to argue. Except didn’t he know how futile it was to argue with a Battaglia? Carmine was no less stubborn than his sister. With a defeated sigh, Danny cupped the side of Carmine’s neck. “Just…don’t get killed on account of me. Wouldn’t do to survive something like that and not have you there after.”
Carmine smiled. “No one’s getting to me without a fight.” He sobered as he leaned in, and just before their lips met, he murmured, “And no one’s getting to you again.” Then he kissed him, and the intensity of his passion left no doubt in Danny’s mind that the words were true. Especially as the two of them shifted around so they could sink into each other’s arms. Danny loved the way Carmine’s broad, powerful body felt against his. He loved Carmine’s strong hands that could caress here or grip hard enough to leave bruises there. Carmine was the kind of lover Danny hadn’t even let himself dream about, and this wasn’t a dream. It was real.
It hurt to think this man would risk himself to save Danny, that Danny could survive an ordeal only to find himself grieving Carmine, but the stubborn protectiveness moved him too. In the beginning, Carmine had been everything Danny was meant to hate and distrust, and now Danny couldn’t make him promise not to walk through fire for him.
You stupid, stubborn jackass. Danny kissed him harder and held him tighter. You’ve got everything in the damn world, and you’d take a bullet for me.
And God help me, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t do the same.
He was overwhelmed, and he poured that feeling into the way he touched and kissed, and he’d be damned if Carmine wasn’t doing the same. This wasn’t like the insatiable hunger when they’d first come together tonight. That hunger was still there, burning hotter with every brush of lips or skin, but it went deeper this time. It was something stronger than the lust that had driven Danny into this room, and it was heady like nothing he’d ever known.
I don’t know if this is what everyone calls love. But Lord, please, don’t ever let it stop.
Carmine rubbed against Danny’s hip and growled, “I want you again.”
Danny arched and moaned, but even after Carmine had taken him once tonight, he was hesitant.
Carmine must have seen the reluctance in his eyes. “I don’t care how you have me,” Carmine breathed. “And I’m not saying a word to anyone about any of this.” He brushed their lips together. “I just want you, Danny.”
Danny kissed him again, some tension melting out of his neck and back. He’d been afraid in the past that other men would tell his brothers or the lads the things he liked. That office clerk whose bed he’d shared for a while last year had warned him every time never to tell a soul that he’d wanted Danny to take him most nights.
A couple of years before that, Robert had caught Danny with another young man. It hadn’t been the first time his elder brother had known Danny was with a man, but it had been the first time he’d realized what Danny let the other men do, and it had been months before he’d been able to look Danny in the eye.
Thank the Lord Robert had never said a word to Hugh or Rowan, apart from a few pointed comments here and there about their youngest brother needing to “be a man.” To them, he insisted it was Danny’s lack of honest work and inability to one day provide for a family that made him less of a man, but the sidelong looks let Danny know what he really meant. When they were alone, Robert accused him from time to time of being someone’s punk, especially if he’d seen Danny talking to another man (especially an older man), but