Title: Unshackled Author: Cara Dee Genre: Contemporary Mafia Romance
Standalone MM Mafia Romance Best Friend’s Father Age Play Hurt/Comfort Unshackled spares no one, and along the way, you’ll get everything from high-speed car chases, secret meetings in the dark, and the rawest hours of grief, to strong family ties, humor, and unconditional love.
In the wake of the bloodiest war the Sons of Munster had seen in a long time, we were supposed to celebrate our victory and move on with our lives. I wanted to see my brothers-in-arms dance and drink way too much. I wanted to hear laughter and Irish music. Instead, we were a syndicate crushed by grief.
Shannon O’Shea had lost more than most, and every fiber of my being screamed at me to pull him from the depths of his despair. As the father of my best friend, he’d been there for me when my parents kicked me out for being gay. Now it was my turn. I had to find the answers. I had to rescue him.
The day he asked for a favor and demanded discretion, the plan unfolded before my eyes, and I couldn’t resist the temptation. No names, no faces. He wouldn’t know it was me in the darkness. At the same time, the shackles around my wrists tightened as old enemies slithered back out of the gutters of my city, and my brothers and I were once again on the warpath.
Seventeen minutes later, I returned to my own place a changed man. A deaf man.
I rubbed my ear and tossed my keys on the hallway table.
Shan was sitting on the couch, sipping a drink. Vodka, judging by the bottle on the coffee table.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
He glanced over at me, and the languidness of his movements told me everything I needed to know. He’d been at it for a while.
I removed the bottle and returned it to the cabinet.
“I need a favor,” he muttered. “I…I can’t ask sober.”
I frowned and sat down next to him. How bad could it be? Our guys in the syndicate turned to me for favors all the time. With my position, I was more connected than the boss himself, ’cause Finn had to stay clean. He couldn’t get his hands dirty for nothing.
“Whatever you need, sir. You know that.”
He nodded with a dip of his chin, then finished his drink and set the glass on the table. “You’ve set men up with mistresses and girlfriends before.”
Shite.
I’d been waiting for this, yet I hadn’t expected it so soon.
“Aye.” I eyed him carefully. His pain was as evident as usual.
But maybe it wasn’t so soon after all. It’d been over a year since Grace had died.
“Do you want me to arrange something for you?” I asked. “I can get it done in a couple of hours.”
He swallowed hard. “I miss human touch, but I don’t wanna see anyone.”
I felt my forehead crease. I could relate to the yearning, but I wasn’t sure if he was talking literally about the last part. “You mean you don’t want a relationship, or you want it anonymous?”
“Both,” he rasped. Then he cleared his throat. “I’m not looking for intimacy. Just physical. No faces, no names, no talking, no off-the-books apartment, nothing social.”
I nodded slowly, the alternatives appearing in my head—or disappearing, one by one. I wanted to say intimacy was exactly what he needed, but it was his choice. There were still options.
“That leaves you with massage parlors and fetish clubs,” I answered.
“It has to be dark,” he insisted. “Pitch black.”
Okay. He really didn’t wanna risk seeing a face. Fine, I could work with that. A certain underground club came to mind, and it was run by a friend of Colm’s. Aside from the main club being an essential location for our drug trade, it had an upstairs area with a VIP section, a hallway full of private booths, and a couple rooms with viewing windows for live porn.
“Any other preferences?” I asked. “I reckon you don’t care if she’s a blonde or a redhead in the dark, but body type? Age? You want her screened and on birth control so you can go without rubbers? You care about safewords? You want a subservient little thing or a bossy—”
“Jesus,” he muttered and rubbed his temples. “It suddenly feels too complicated. And at the risk of making it worse, I’d prefer a man.” Fuck my life. Fuck my life hard.
I’m often awkwardly silent or, if the topic interests me, a chronic rambler. In other words, I can discuss writing forever and ever. Fiction, in particular. The love story—while a huge draw and constantly present—is secondary for me, because there’s so much more to writing romance fiction than just making two (or more) people fall in love and have hot sex.
There’s a world to build, characters to develop, interests to create, and a topic or two to research thoroughly.
Every book is a challenge for me, an opportunity to learn something new, and a puzzle to piece together. I want my characters to come to life, and the only way I know to do that is to give them substance—passions, history, goals, quirks, and strong opinions—and to let them evolve.
I want my men and women to be relatable. That means allowing room for everyday problems and, for lack of a better word, flaws. My characters will never be perfect.
Wait…this was supposed to be about me, not my writing.
I’m a writey person who loves to write. Always wanderlusting, twitterpating, kinking, cooking, baking, and geeking. There’s time for hockey and family, too. But mostly, I just love to write.
Her hand slipped around me and cupped the back of my neck. “What, baby?”
“To always put our children first.”
She shuddered. “Oh, sweetheart.” I heard the tears in her voice, didn’t need to move to see them in her eyes. “I promise,” she said thickly.
I nodded.
That had to be enough.
For tonight, that had to be enough.
“Who knows about Conor?” she questioned.
“Brennan, Declan, and Eoghan don’t know. Conor doesn’t know that his parents are in the loop now.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“I know you won’t.” I hesitated a second before grating out, “Junior and I, we burned down St. Patrick’s Church.”
“That means we don’t have to go to any services now? Yay!” she cheered.
“Well, that’s a novel way of looking at arson.”
Her laughter bubbled free. “I’m not the Catholic here.”
“Didn’t you wonder why we didn’t go to church last night?”
“Since when do I look gift horses in the mouth? I was just glad I didn’t have to go out into the cold.”
Aoife made me look devout so I wasn’t totally surprised by her reaction, even if it was further proof of the life changing her.
My lips curved. “Big baby.”
She shoved me in the side before she released a soft whistle. “Father Doyle is probably rolling around in his grave even though he isn’t dead.”
“He called Senior today. Demanding the villains suffer.”
“I’ll bet he did. Look at him turning the other cheek,” she sneered. “Does Aidan Sr. know you and Junior were behind it?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” I pulled back to look into her eyes. “I watched it burn, and it was like the ties that bound Junior and me to that place burned with them.”
“Do you feel lighter?”
“I do.”
“Who knew arson was good for the soul? Not sure Father Doyle would like that news to spread.”
At her jovial response, all I could think to say was, “I changed you.”
“I grew up. I know the world is mean and nasty, and I know that we can’t do anything to change that.
“I know pedophiles walk the streets every day, and they get away with it. Hurting more kids, destroying more lives.
“I know that being bad doesn’t mean you’ll be punished.” Her fingers raked through my hair. “I told you, you didn’t change me. Being a mom did that. It made me see the predators out there who could hurt my children. And not just how you were hurt either.” She pressed a kiss to my lips. “We’ll keep our family safe, Finn. We’ll do that together.” She hugged me. “Now, let’s get some sleep. You need it, Smokey Bear.”
She smushed my face into her tits, and her hands continued smoothing through my hair as if she could soothe me as easily as she soothed Jake.
If only that were possible.
As I lay there, I recognized there was a certain irony to the situation.
She hadn’t thrown me out. Cast me from heaven for confessing my sins to her… a confession that felt more cleansing than anything I’d ever admitted to Father Doyle in the confessional where my baby brother had been fucking raped by a clergyman.
And as liberating as that was, it was also cataclysmic. Because if it felt this good to get the truth off my back, how many of my filthy secrets could she handle without turning me away…?
I’m a romance bookaholic and I won’t touch a book unless I know there’s a happy ending. This addiction is what made me craft stories that suit my voracious need for raunchy romance. I love twists and unexpected turns, and my novels all contain sexy guys, dark humor, and hot AF love scenes.
I write MF, Menage, and Reverse Harem (also known as Why Choose romance,) in both contemporary and paranormal. Some of my stories are darker than others, but I can promise you one thing, you will always get the happy ending your heart needs!
I’ve been drowning since the death of my wife, but that all changed the moment she walked back into my life. She was my best friend growing up, until one day she left me. I haven’t seen her in years, but now that she’s back, I can’t possibly let her go again. It would kill me.
Christy I decided to leave the day he told me he was getting married. How could I possibly watch him walk down the aisle and marry another woman? But after being gone for years, events in my life have forced me home. I don’t know how I’m going to face him again, or how I’ll be strong enough to resist him. He’s been the love of my life for years. He just never knew it.
I’m a stay at home mom that loves to read. Some of my favorite titles are Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Horatio Hornblower. I started writing when I was trying to come up with suggestions on ways I could help bring in some extra money. I came up with the idea that I could donate plasma because you could earn an extra $500/month. My husband responded with, “No. Find something else. Write a blog. Write a book.” I didn’t think I had anything to share on blog that a thousand other mothers hadn’t already thought of. I decided to take his challenge seriously and sat down to write my first book, Jack. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed writing. From there, the stories continued to flow and I haven’t been able to stop. I hope my readers enjoy my books as much as I enjoy writing them. Between reading, writing, and taking care of three small kids, my days are quite full.
