But I didn’t move.
He kept going slow, so slow, I felt every nuance of his cock, from the flared head, to the wide base and the curls that brushed against my burning skin. When he slid one hand around to the front of me and his finger brushed against my clit, my legs began to shake.
I was quivering with the need to come long before he started to move faster and when he pressed his thumb against my asshole, I shattered. And then he shattered with me, and we were broken together. Broken, but finding our missing pieces in each other.
I let out a soft sob as my heart came back together. He'd come for me. He wanted me. He wanted our baby.
He kissed the back of my shoulder after a long, quiet moment and I opened my eyes. As I pushed myself upright, I glanced down at the unfamiliar weight on my hand and stared.
The ring sparkled and glowed, the stone a pale, pale pink. It glittered like nothing I’d ever seen. “Is that a…”
“It’s a pink diamond. It’s been in…well, Jacqueline’s father gave it to her mother as an engagement ring.” He reached out and touched it, stroked a finger down it even as he straightened my clothing with his free hand. “Pink diamonds are very rare. My…” He stumbled over the word.
“She’s still your mother,” I said softly.
I turned towards him and he tugged me towards him, looping one arm around my waist even as he threaded his fingers between mine. I rested my free hand on his cheek and shrugged. “Me and her, we won’t ever get along, but she loves you, even if she isn't always great at showing it.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes still on the ring. “Mom never much cared for it, so it went into the family collection until I was ready for it. I'm pretty sure everyone assumed I never would be.” He smiled at me. “She…well, she wasn’t surprised when I asked for it. I think…no, you’ll never get along, but I think she’s happy that I’m happy.”
“Are you?”
His eyes met mine and the answer burned there, so hot it knocked the breath out of me.
I leaned against him and closed my eyes.
He was the only man I'd ever loved. The man I trusted with my body, my everything. He was the father of my child.
He was mine.
Forever.
Chapter 26
Dominic
“You sure you got it?” The FBI agent’s eyes were cool and assessing as he studied me.
Russ Andretti couldn’t have been anymore stereotypical if he tried. Hard-faced, grim and brooding, his suit was nice, but straight off the rack and he gave me the impression that not only were the rules there to be followed, but that any deviation might cause an apocalyptic event.
Normally, his kind would piss me off, but I knew he was the kind of man I needed to work with if I wanted to keep this all from going to hell. That was the last thing I wanted. So I planned to toe the line with Special Agent Russ Andretti.
I was going to trust my friend’s gut on this.
“I understand what needs to be done,” I said, looking from Andretti to his partner. They’d been trying to nail my birth father for a long time, a fact that had only been made known to me yesterday, minutes after I disembarked from my private plane, my hand gripping Aleena’s, my mind focused on one thing.
Not sex, either.
I’d been focused on…her. Her and the baby.
My family.
I’d spent almost half of the flight from Iowa to New York making sure she knew without a doubt how much I loved her, worshipped her. How much I needed her in my life, in my heart. I'd made her come more times than I could count, using my fingers, my cock, my mouth. I'd never been so desperate for the feel of another person. A part of me had thought she wouldn’t come back to me. A part of me had thought…
I shoved those thoughts out of my head. It didn't matter now. She was back home. She was wearing my ring and carrying my child. I wasn't ever going to lose her again.
“So.”
The bright, almost happy voice of Andretti’s partner pulled me out of my head and I looked over at Special Agent Carter. I wouldn’t have pegged her for any sort of law enforcement. She looked like the sort of woman who'd be making cookies for the bake sale at the local elementary school or maybe telling stories at some program at a kid’s library.
Her eyes locked on mine. Her smile would disabuse anybody of the notion that she wasn’t every bit as capable as her partner though. She’d been the one to tell me they wanted my help.
And what had happened to the last person they'd approached to help them take down JC Woodrow.
It hadn't been pretty and since then, I’d been told, nobody else would talk.
“You’ll have to go with your gut, Mr. Snow,” she told me. “We can’t coach you or anything. We’re doing this on the fly and I’m afraid if we wire you up and try to feed you lines, you’ll give yourself away.”
We’d already done more than one dummy run. Our best bet was letting me play it by ear. It was my strength, I knew, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous about what lay ahead.
Nerves, I knew, weren’t always a bad thing. They kept a man on edge and a smart man learned how to use them. I’d use all this extra energy inside me to keep my focus and work the two sons of bitches I was meeting until I had them right where I wanted them.
Solomon Snow and JC Woodrow would pay for all the misery they’d caused. They’d pay for the pain they’d brought Cecily when they stole me from her and they’d pay for the pain they’d given Jacqueline too.
My adopted mother had been quietly composed over the past few months, but that hadn't meant this had been easy on her. This had hurt her and she'd been left to suffer in silence.
While I was thinking, Special Agent Carter reached up and touched her ear piece. As she took whatever call had come through, I looked down and checked the simple gold lapel pin that had been affixed to my suit jacket.
“Don’t mess with it,” Andretti advised. “Don’t even look at it.”
I shot him a frown.
His eyebrows came down as he frowned. He was about as Italian as they came, the thick brows heavy slashes against his olive skin. Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “If you mess with it now, you might think you should mess with it later. Check it. Fiddle with it. You strike me as a man who needs to be in motion, but you don’t strike me as a man who fusses with his clothes, which means you'll call attention to it and that would be bad.”
“We need to get you out there,” Carter said, interrupting us. She rested a hand on my arm and flashed me that bright, happy smile. It had a sharp edge and I could see the determination that had driven her to pursue my birth father for so long. “Are you ready?”
***
My fathers kept me waiting for twenty minutes. Solomon was the first to arrive and he strode in briskly, his movements quick and economical. He was also looking at things—every damn thing. He was subtle about it, so subtle that if I hadn’t been watching myself, I wouldn’t have seen it, but I’d have bet my left nut that he had already sized up everything in there, from how many people were in the quiet uptown restaurant to how far away my table was from the door.
“Hello, pops.” I gave him a tight smile as he settled into the seat across from mine. I’d specifically requested the table be set for three and the other seat was still conspicuously empty.
Solomon inclined his head politely. “Dominic. How have you been?”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.”
His jaw clenched.
I’d always pissed him off the most when I acted in a less than acceptable manner. Hence one of the main reasons for my bout of rebellion in my teens.
Lifting my glass, I tipped it in his direction. “Care for a drink, Dad? It’s been a long time.”
“Please.” He waved a hand at a passing server, and a moment later, he had a glass of red wine in front of him, while I had another double put in front of me.
Not that I planned on drinking much of it. It was crucial that I kept my brain focused. One drink might help with the nerves, but I didn't need any more than that.
“Why don’t you tell me what this is about?” Solomon asked.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about reconciliation.” I took my time with those words, as if it was difficult to say them. It wasn’t, but only because I knew they were pure bullshit. The idea of reconciling with the bastard who’d walked away from me after I’d been kidnapped, raped and tortured was enough to make me want to chew glass.
Solomon watched me, his eyes unreadable. Movement off to the right caught my attention and I looked over, head cocked as JC Woodrow appeared in the door, his baby-kissing smile fixed firmly in place. The schmuck’s gaze slid our way and I wanted to lunge up, grab his neck and throttle him. More than anybody, even more than Solomon, I wanted to hurt JC Woodrow. He’d used my mother. Used a lost nineteen year-old and then when he was done, he hadn’t just tossed her aside. He’d destroyed her.
One of the hardest thing I’d ever done was to sit there and smile at him.
The FBI agents were a few feet away, listening in a concealed area of the restaurant. All I had to do was make them say enough incriminating shit and these two bastards would pay for what they’d done.
The question was…how.
***
Arrogance and impatience.
That was how.
After a lifetime of living with the man—or the first half of my lifetime—I knew every button Solomon had and I went out of my way to push them all.
By the time I was done with him and shifted my focus to Woodrow, Solomon was on a hair trigger and my birth father was giving him annoyed, dismissive looks. The kind of looks only the very arrogant could pull off.
When Solomon started to shoot impatient looks at the door, I leaned back in my chair and waved a dismissive hand at both of them.
“You better go,” I told Woodrow. “I think he’s about ready to yank your leash and drag you out of here.”
Woodrow’s face didn’t change. Not at all. But there was a flash in his eyes and I knew I’d gotten him right in the gut.
Score.
He reached for his whiskey. He’d requested Glenfiddich so I couldn’t fault his taste in scotch. I preferred McCallan myself, but Glenfiddich was good stuff. As he took a slow, appreciative sip, Solomon threw his napkin down on the table. We’d ordered and we’d all done the same thing with our meal—pretended to eat. Now, as I shot Solomon a smirk of a smile, I reached for the pickle lying untouched on my plate. “It’s okay…Pops. I’m used to you disappearing all the time.”
“Solomon’s not in any hurry.” JC Woodrow clinked his glass down on the table and inclined his head at me. “We’re both very curious just why you insisted on meeting with you. Both of us. You haven’t exactly said.”
“Haven’t I?” I gave him my best puzzled expression and then grimaced. “Right, right, right…well, it’s simple.”
I reached into my coat.
To my left, Solomon went tense and his hand jerked towards his coat.
I hadn't imagined that.
My blood went cold. I had a bad feeling he had a weapon under there.
But I didn’t let myself react. Tugging out the folded-up letter, one that was a careful forgery with enough facts to fool either of them, I put it on the table. “We’ve got a bit of a problem, boys.”
Solomon’s face went red. “Now see here, Dominic. I raised you from the time you were a baby—”
“A baby you stole.” I grabbed the letter neither of them had touched, or even looked at, and snapped it open with a flick of my wrist. “I’ve got a signed confession from somebody who was in your inner circle, Solomon. Woodrow.”
Slamming the letter down, I put my palm on it to keep them from touching it. Solomon jerked his hand back. To his credit, JC only looked mildly curious. Though that wasn't entirely surprising. He was, after all, a politician.
“She’s willing to swear in a court of law that she helped facilitate the kidnapping of hundreds of children, and then in turn, provided falsified documentation that would smooth things over so they could be adopted.” I paused and looked over at Solomon. “Sound familiar…Dad?”
His face was blood red and I wondered what his blood pressure was. “That is ridiculous. We were told you'd been given up.”
His eyes flicked down to the letter and then back to my face.
“Calm down, Solomon,” Woodrow said, his voice soft, but firm. “Mr. Snow here is just looking for a target. He’s angry, and rightly so. It must be terrible, living all of your life and realizing it’s been a lie.”
“Well, really…the worst part was finding out you were my father. And, considering the hell I went through when I was fifteen, that's saying something.”
A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “I’ve already tried to explain, Dominic. I’m not your father. I never touched—”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a picture.
It had been doctored with Cecily's permission. It would never have gotten past a pro, but it had been good enough to fool me.
And judging by the look on JC Woodrow’s face, it was fooling him.
“Care to explain that, then?”
His hand shook slightly as his fingers closed around the photo, crumpling the image.
“Keep it,” I offered. “I’ve got other ones—some of them are pretty…damning. But that's not the real smoking gun, is it? No one really cares about your little affair. But that letter...”