Shotgun Wedding: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance by Natasha Tanner, Ali Piedmont Read Free Book Online Page A

around the hallway and make sure I keep my face stiff and stoic. This place is awful, but it was probably a thousand times better than living with her father.
    "Just let me straighten up a minute," she says suddenly, turning the knob and rushing inside like her ass is on fire.
    She even tries to slam the door in my face, which is cute. Ineffectual, but cute.
    I stop the door with my hand, faster than she expected, and she glances up at me, those green eyes sparkling like jewels. It suddenly hits me that we'll be fucking living together. Instead of watching her from afar, keeping tabs on her, she'll be in my house.
    I didn't want this. I didn't want to taint her. I didn't want to ruin her life by exposing her to mine.
    But she's here now. In my life. Potentially in my bed. I'd made myself keep my hands fucking off of her for years. But with those lips, those eyes, that ass—her spirit—how the fuck was I going to not fuck her?
    Not claim what I felt had been mine all along?
    Her innocent, law-abiding life had been ruined, dragged into this business in a way I never wanted.
    So what was keeping me back now?
    And, why the hell was she trying to run into her apartment without me?
    I step into the apartment, watching Kat's shapely ass disappear into what I assume is her bedroom, and realize what she'd been doing. Blyad , my beautiful little Kat's apartment...is a fucking disaster.
    And that's putting it mildly.
    I'd never broken in, even though I'd considered it. I tried to keep my interest in her as removed as possible. But the guys I'd hired to watch out for her—they hadn't informed me she was living in basically a cardboard box that any sick fuck could break into with half a will and half a brain.
    I'd deal with them later.
    The apartment's so small, so tiny I could take three steps and be across the living room. That is, if I could take a step without breaking my neck. There's girly shit all over the floor, jeans and shoes and magazines. The "kitchen" is a typical New York, cheap-ass apartment "kitchen": three panels of linoleum, a miniature fridge, sink, and oven you couldn't even stuff a pizza box into.
    The counter space is the width of my hand.
    I take a deep breath and run my hands over my face. Jesus, she'd been killing herself at the restaurant, then coming home to this .
    I take a step—two—and I'm across the living room and peering into her bedroom. She's got a small bed that takes up most of the room. It also looks like it would break if I sat on it. It would definitely collapse if we were on it, together.
    The idea of lying next to her and her soft curves gets me hard, and I shift away from her and adjust myself. No use scaring her more than she's already been frightened. There's a little purple dresser that, unlike everything else in the place, is wiped clean. Every other surface is covered with more clothes, shoes, and books.
    "No closet, babe?" I say.
    A pretty blush spreads across her cheeks and down her neck.
    "I wasn't expecting company," she snaps. I find myself grinning.
    Kat glances at me.
    "What?" she says, looking more and more glum as she tries to organize her piles of shit into newer, smaller piles of shit.
    "We used to tease each other all the time," I say. "I forgot how easy it is to annoy you."
    Kat blushes and scowls even more. I must be more hard-up than I thought, because I find it cute as hell, whereas any other girl who'd give me attitude, well—fuck that. I don't need that shit in my life.
    And here I was, inviting attitude incarnate into my house. My life.
    My fucking marriage bed.
    I shouldn't be thinking about that, shouldn't be thinking about Kat in my bed and anything that might go on when those two things meet. She chooses that exact moment to turn away from me, bend over, and start stuffing her stuff into a plastic grocery bag on the floor.
    Her perfect, ample ass sways a little as she works. It's too much to resist.
    I should try not to touch her.
    It.
    Anything.
    But I spent