Chapter 15
Fifteen
C iaran rolled over in bed and ran his hand over the soft curve of Loralei’s hip. As he reached the tiny elastic band and began to slip his fingers beneath it, she gripped his wrist and pushed him away.
He sighed heavily. “I’d ask if you’re still mad, but I think you’ve made it abundantly clear.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Our first event with your family…the family you traveled halfway around the world to find! And you had to beat your half brother nearly to death in the front yard?”
Ciaran offered her an innocent expression. “I didn’t beat him that badly, love. Just worked him over a little bit…don’t be mad, love. Or be mad…and we can fight and make up.”
“You’ve only got one person to make up with, and it’s not me,” she replied firmly.
“I’m making amends!” he protested. “I’m helping him with his girl, aren’t I?”
“Only because it benefits you!”
“Us!”
“He’s your brother! ”
Ciaran sighed and rolled onto his back. “I’m not doing it strictly because of the Russians. I’d have helped him regardless of Barnes’s connection to them. And in spite of handing him his ass, I like the bastard!”
Loralei rolled over and gaped at him. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“There’s a pecking order in every family, love.
In every clan, gang, or squad…there’s always a pecking order.
I had to show that I don’t need them, and that I’m not going to be forever standing in the doorway with my hat in my hands like Oliver fucking Twist…
that’s all it was. He’ll recover, and we’ll have a healthy respect for one another in the end. ”
She scooted closer to him then. “That’s all it is? Just he-man, macho, alpha male bullshit?”
“We’re crude creatures, love. We like to blow things up, beat on each other, and then drink…it’s the manly way.”
He could tell she was softening toward him a little. Her body had relaxed, and he could feel the weight of her breasts pressing against him. If he could just get her to laugh, then they’d be back on track.
Before he could even figure out how to do that, his cell phone buzzed from the nightstand. Cursing under his breath, he looked at the screen. It was Matt, Loralei’s brother, and that was not a good sign.
“What is it?” he asked and then listened silently before ending the call and climbing out of bed. As he reached for his pants, he looked back at Loralei. “I’m going to have to weasel my way back into your good graces later. Joey Barnes’s body was just found by a bunch of drunk high school kids.”
Loralei sat up. “His body?”
“Someone shot him in the gut,” Ciaran replied. “And Silas Barnes is on his way to question Harlow Tate…one of the deputies, who isn’t completely crooked, tipped Matt off. He means to have her arrested for this whether she did it or not.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Don’t,” he replied. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, and you may need to work on getting bail money together for her. I don’t doubt for a second that Silas will be able to manufacture enough cause for an arrest, even if he has to plant it himself!”
“But she was with Quentin all along, right?”
Ciaran shook his head. “Any decent lawyer will be able to discredit her lover as an alibi…we can only hope that Joey was still alive at the time they showed up at Mia’s.
If not, if Quentin is her only alibi, and Silas Barnes is determined to pin th is on her…
she’ll get off eventually, but it won’t be easy. He’ll fight it every step of the way.”
“I’ll talk to Kaitlyn about bail money. I don’t have it myself, but she does, and I know she’ll help out if I ask her to.”
“I shouldn’t put that on you,” he said. “This is my fucked-up family after all…the thing is, I know how much money they’ve poured into the distillery, Lor. And Quentin could probably get her out of jail, but it would take every dime he’s got.”
“I don’t mind,” Loralei replied. “I like Lowey. I’ve always liked Lowey, and I know just what a shit Silas Barnes can be. Any Barnes for that matter. It’s just a whole freaking barrel full of bad apples.”
Ciaran kissed her soundly on the lips, but it was more an expression of affection and gratitude than the wicked things that had been on his mind earlier.
“I do love you, Loralei Elizabeth Crawford. And even if this all comes to naught, I do appreciate what you’ve done to try and give me the family I wanted…
and if it doesn’t work, you’re all I ever needed anyway. ”
She blinked at him as tears filled her eyes. “Damn you, Ciaran! I wanted to be mad at you for a little longer.”
He was smiling and whistling as he walked out the door.
Lowey was standing at the counter in the kitchen of the small carriage house.
A glance at the clock told her it was nearly three in the morning.
Quentin was in bed, but she’d been unable to sleep.
Rather than stare up at the ceiling, she’d gotten up.
She was worried about so many things—the bar was her home and her livelihood.
Her savings account wouldn’t carry her forever.
Hell, she’d be lucky if it carried her through Christmas.
But that wasn’t what kept her awake. It was him.
She was worried he would break her heart all over again, and she also worried because, in that moment, her heart was breaking for him.
Quentin had been quiet since they’d left Mia’s, and she knew that the conversation about his mother was weighing on him.
He was afraid to hope, and she understood that perhaps better than anyone.
Being afraid to believe that any positive sign wasn’t just too good to be true was an all too familiar sensation for her.
In fact, she’d been having that same feeling since he’d walked into her bar not even two days ago. Had it really been less than forty-eight hours since her life and her heart had been turned upside down all over again ?
“Nothing will ever fuck you up as bad as that man, Lowey. Nothing,” she muttered to herself as she opened the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of water from inside.
She didn’t know who’d come in and stocked it for them, but the gift basket of fruit and other goodies on the counter had been very welcome.
The bedroom door opened, and she looked up to see Quentin standing there. Shirtless, his jeans half undone, hair mussed, God above, he was hot.
“I’m sorry I dragged you out the way I did,” he offered. “I let it get to me, and you paid for it. As usual.”
She rolled her eyes. “Leaving early wasn’t quite the hardship you make it out to be. I like your family. They’re nice people. Welcoming and warm…but I don’t belong there.”
It was his turn to roll his eyes, and he did. “Do not start that shit again. You’re as good as anyone else!”
“Yes, I am. But as good as and same as are very different things,” she explained.
“I will never be the kind of woman you can take to dinners or fundraisers. I will never be a soccer mom like Annalee, even assuming you and I would manage to avoid killing each other long enough to get married and have kids…hell, we’ve never even talked about whether or not either of us wants kids! ”
“Since you’re predicting gloom and doom in our relationship, why not branch out a little?
What day will I die? What horrible illness or accident will have me meeting my maker?
” he demanded. “Jesus, Lowey! Can we not just be ? I want you in my life…I don’t know about forever, and I don’t know about kids.
And if I wanted a soccer mom, there are about fifteen single ones in this town who’ve been knocking on my door since you and I split up. ”
That brought her up short. “And I just bet you let them in, didn’t you?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “No, dammit. I didn’t. I haven’t been with another woman since you…I haven’t wanted to, and that’s the hell of it.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” she snapped.
He walked toward her, that slow easy stride that had all his muscles rippling and her heart pounding.
Just inches separated them when he stopped, close enough that she could feel the heat of him.
“Doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not, Lowey.
I said it because it’s the truth, not because I’m trying to convince you of anything. ”
“Quentin, we’re fooling ourselves if either of us expects this thing to work. You do know that, right? ”
“No,” he said. “I don’t. I’ve always said I wasn’t good at commitment, but the simple truth is, I’ve never tried. I’ve never met anyone who made me want to.”
“Quentin—”
“ Harlow ,” he interrupted. “Just stop…stop putting up roadblocks. Stop looking for ways out when we aren’t even in yet.”
She was doing exactly that, and she was ballsy enough to admit it to herself, if not to him.
But that didn’t mean she was wrong to do it.
Neither of them had great track records.
He was right when he’d said he’d never tried commitment.
Quentin Darcy was the ultimate playboy. Rich, good looking, always up for a good time but never one to stick around too long.
He’d had a reputation for being the love ’em and leave ’em king.
As for her, it was like she’d made a habit of finding every man in a tri-county radius that she shouldn’t be with and was slowly making her way down the list.
“Just don’t break my heart,” she said. “Seriously, Quentin. Don’t do it. I’ll make you regret it.”
He grinned at that, and it was so devastatingly sexy, she wanted to climb him right there on the spot. “Why don’t you take me to bed and help me stop overthinking everything for a while? ”
“I don’t need to take you to bed for that,” he said and stepped closer, backing her against the counter.
His hand slipped easily into her hair, tugging it just a shade less than gently.
It was all the incentive she needed. Hooking her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans, she tugged him closer still.
“Just how naughty should we be in someone else’s kitchen?” she asked.
“As naughty as we want to be,” he replied smoothly as he lifted her onto the counter.
It was the most natural thing in the world to part her knees and cradle him between her thighs.
Even then, she wanted more. She wanted him so close that not even air would exist between them.
With that in mind, she reached for the zipper of his jeans, sliding it down with slow and deliberate movements.
“You’re rushing,” he said as he kissed the side of her neck, then followed it with a stinging nip.
“Do you want me to slow down?” she asked, sliding her hand inside his pants, cupping her hand around his hardening cock. “I can stop altogether if you want.”
“No,” he replied breathlessly. “Don’t ever stop.”
Stroking him, alternating the pressure by gently touching him or closing her fingers firmly around him, she reveled in his response to her.
It didn’t hurt that the entire time she was teasing him to a fever pitch, he was doing the same to her.
His hands were never still. They roamed over her body, and his mouth followed suit.
When he closed his lips around one taut nipple, still covered by the layers of her clothes, she let her head fall back and savored the sensation.
“God, you drive me crazy,” she said on a harsh breath.
He gripped the hem of her sweater, tugging it up and over her head before cupping her breasts in his hands, kneading them gently as his thumbs played her nipples expertly. God, he knew just how to touch her.
Lowey shoved his jeans and the boxers beneath them down over his hips before taking him completely in her hand.
Closing her fingers around him, she stroked him firmly at the base of his shaft, gentling her touch as she reached the head.
Running her thumb over the glistening crown, she smiled when he bit out a curse word.
“Dammit, Lowey,” he whispered harshly. “If you want this to last more than sixty seconds, you’re gonna have to ease up. A man can only take so much.”
“Stop talking and just fuck me,” she urged. “I don’t want to think or worry. I just want to feel good for as long as I can.”