58. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Aknock on my apartment door makes me jump.
There’d been no call from the concierge. I check my phone for messages. Nothing.
Looking out the peephole, I gasp. God, I’m so wired.
Eoghan.
In a double-breasted light gray suit and dark blue shirt. The man could be a freaking model.
Not seeing him for a few days lowered my immunity to his handsome face. I open the door to a waft of his spicy cologne that surrounds me and makes my center quiver.
“What are you doing here?” I look down my hallway. “How did you get up here?”
He only tilts his head.
Shrugging, I step aside to let him in.
“How’s your mother?” he asks.
Spinning around, I gape at him. “How did you know?”
“I went to your office to confront Vance.”
I fold my arms. “And?”
“He told me your ma is in the hospital. What happened to her?”
“I mean about the case.”
“I don’t care about this case.” He steps closer. “I’m going with you to visit your mother.”
I tense up. “What?”
The intercom in the apartment buzzes from the guard’s desk. A call I should have gotten five minutes ago. “Hello?” I say into the apartment’s intercom.
“There’s a delivery from Director Vance’s office,” the lobby attendant says.
“Okay, send him up.”
“That’s Vance’s courier with the evidence files.” He folds his arms. “You didn’t answer me. What happened to your ma?”
“Broke her hip,” I say with a crack in my voice. “I need to be there before she goes into surgery. It’s a seven-hour drive.”
“You’re not driving seven hours,” Eoghan says. “I have a plane waiting for us. Are you packed?”
“A plane? I can’t afford…” The rest of that dies in my throat when one of his bushy eyebrows raises. “Your brother sent his plane?”
“I hired a private jet. Just for us.”
“I can’t.”
“You will.”
“What did I say the other night about controlling me,” I push out, but I’m falling over the edge, worried about my mother.
“Did I tie you up and put you on my plane this weekend?” He crosses his arms.
In any other situation that would be a ridiculous argument. For Eoghan O’Rourke, a mob boss, it’s valid.
“No, but…”
“Did I blow up your phone all weekend and stalk you?”
Come to think of it… Perhaps my tantrum Friday night got through to him.
When I don’t answer, he obliterates the space between us. “It’s your ma. I know something about this.”
My eyes slip closed, and my soul gives in. “You’re right.”
Without gloating, he glances over my shoulder. “Now, where’s your suitcase?”
I bite my lip. “In my bedroom.”
He turns and heads that way.
“Wait!”
Ignoring me, Eoghan paws through what I’ve packed, then turns and opens my bureaus.
“You’re not packing for me.”
“I know what you need.” He scans me up and down. “I know what I like on you. And what I like to take off you.”
“I’m staying in my mom’s house. Not a hotel.”
He straightens. “Does anyone else live there?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Eoghan, what are you doing?”
“I don’t want you going there alone.”
“I appreciate that.” I take out some of the lacey undies he stuck in my bag.
“I like those,” he growls.
“Me, too. But—” I replace them with granny panties.
“Those won’t stop me from wanting to be inside you.”
“But I like to sleep comfortably.”
“You’ll be sleeping naked.” He chuckles.
“God, you’re exhausting.”
“You have no idea…” He sounds excited. “Oh, your book.”
“What book?”
“For your next book club meeting.”
“How do you know…” I stop, not bothering to ask since I know the answer. “It’s…in my bathroom.”
He scrunches his face. “You read porn on the toilet?”
“It’s not porn.” I clear my throat. “And no. I read in the…bathtub.”
His eyes light up. “We may be in Reno for a while. Does your ma have a tub?”
“She sure does.” I smile for the first time in hours since getting the upsetting call from a Reno police officer.
“You’ll read in the tub, and I’ll make you come.” He disappears into my bathroom, comes back with my book, and also… “What is this?”
“That’s my birth control.” I hear the Irish Catholic in him seething at the idea of a woman not wanting ten kids.
He flips it open. “You started them?”
“This morning.”
He smirks and tosses the pink plastic holder and the smut book into my makeup bag. “I got myself tested, sparkles. I’m clean. If you’re on the pill, I’m taking you bare.”
Like sex with me is a foregone conclusion. But damn, my whole body warms at the idea of him taking me bare.
“You got tested?”
“For you. And I’m clean.” He holds me close. “I want you comfortable with me being inside you raw-dawg, coming inside you. Filling you with my cum.”
Christ, that does sound hot. But another knock on my door makes me jump.
Like it’s perfectly normal, Eoghan leaves the bedroom to answer the door. My door.
What is happening?
He comes back with one of the canvas transport bags we use for case documents.
“How did you get them delivered to my condo?”
“I told Vance I want the evidence packets for his case sent to you immediately.”
“What?” I grab them from him. “You can’t look at these.”
“Yes, I can. I also told him I was going to your ma’s with you. And they showed up.” He takes the files from my hands. “Tick tock, sparkles. The statute is running out.”
“What’s going on?”
“I have a hunch about something. An idea came to me when I was in New York.” He examines the zipper on the canvas bag. “Fuck, it’s locked.”
“I have the codes.” I’m grateful the time watching Mom sleep won’t go to waste. “Talk to me.”
It’s unsettling that Daniel knows Eoghan will be with me in Reno. But this is his fault. He dragged Eoghan into this case and forced me to be the courier.
A weight lifts. There’s no longer a reason to hide being with Eoghan. There’s no open case against him or his family. As he reminded me, one has to be convicted of a crime to be officially labeled a criminal.
He doesn’t work for the D.A. He’s a consultant. And if I want to fuck him, damn it, I will. On my terms and without remorse.
“We’ll open the case files once your ma is settled.” Eoghan tosses the canvas bag into my suitcase. “Plane’s waiting, sparkles. Your ma will be sleeping on heavy pain meds. I’ll also call my brother, Darragh, when I’m there and let him look at her medical records to make sure she’s getting everything she needs.”
“Eoghan, tell me your idea right now,” I whine.
“Get your arse on my plane, sparkles. Then I’ll tell you my hunch if you’re a good girl.” He grabs my ass and crashes his mouth down on mine.