TWENTY-EIGHT
FINISHING WITH THE blow-dryer alerted her to the phone ringing.
The phone. A phone.
On the closet vanity. She boosted up from the stool to get it and dropped onto her ass as she answered.
“Good morning!”
“It’s almost noon.”
She smiled at the Irish accent. “So still morning. Miss me, Lieutenant? Your boss would have a problem with you calling me up like this.”
“Your team are waiting for you.”
“Meaning you’d like me to leave? I’m not dressed yet.”
“Boss’d have a problem with you going out like that.”
Yes, he would. “Are you calling to tell him something or to steal him from me?”
“You’ve had him half the day.”
“Not yet, but I would if he’d let me.” Wearing only a towel, Conn appeared from the bathroom, wet from the shower. Mmm. “We’ll have to come up with some kind of shared custody arrangement.” Standing up as he put on a watch, she dropped her robe. “Otherwise you’ll never get him back.”
Conn wasn’t paying her attention, though he must have noticed her hand snaking around to loosen and discard his towel.
“You got him tied down?”
“No,” she said, kissing his arm. “Just tangled up.” She raised the phone. “It’s for you.”
Glad to free her hands while he took the device to his ear, she kept on kissing. God, he felt good, everywhere, all the time. And that foreign tongue. He could be ordering breakfast and she’d still be coming all over the place.
Pressing her lips to his chest, her fingertips played on his flesh. They’d barely put each other down in the hours since they got back from Stag. He’d pleased her in the shower, and curling her fingers around his cock betrayed he was ready for his. As she lowered to her knees, his voice kept going. Their eyes met and his permission seeped into her with a heat only he could provoke.
With all the experience they had together, he should be over the sensations of her mouth devouring his cock. Her palms skimmed up his thighs, massaging him, her thumbs lifting and resting until her hands could squeeze, her lips could taste, her mouth could suck.
His sharp inhale revealed the phone was forgotten and both his fists locked in her hair. Either he’d hung up on his friend, or Niall had a ringside seat to this radio show.
The cursing was expected as he thrust into her throat, those foreign words, the gritted teeth that she glimpsed as tears watered her eyes.
Even though he had control, all the power was hers. She was doing this to him, for him, and he took it, like it could be the last time.
The impact of his climax showered her throat with the truth of his possession. Forever more, his purpose, and his pleasure were hers.
And the phone rang again. At least that gave her a clue Niall hadn’t been listening in.
Conn grabbed it from above his watch drawer. “Yeah?” His eyes came to hers again. “Looking right at her.” Not in the most respectable of positions. He tipped his mouth from the phone. “Strat’s downstairs.”
Well, that was no kind of subtle. “You’re excusing me? You’ve never done that before.”
Not in their private space, where she had free access to every other part of him.
He caught her hand to jerk her onto her feet. “Your brother’s never called while you’re giving head before.” And that shock statement provoked a groan from the other end of the line as she got a slap of horror. “Strat’s downstairs.”
Yeah, he’d said that already and she appreciated the reminder. Conn kissed her hair and smacked her ass when she bent over to swipe up her robe. Seriously? He’d just said that with Lach right there?
Still in something of a stupor, she tied her robe while crossing the bedroom and heard the cherry on top.
“Not a problem,” Conn said, she guessed to Lach. “I finished. Talk.”
Her mind was still underwater, gasping for air, when she got to the kitchen. Strat seemed in a good mood, though still bruised and, she had to believe, tender. Wounds didn’t heal overnight, she knew that from personal experience.
“What’s that look for?” Strat asked and immediately corrected himself. “Never mind. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.”
Coffee would help, right?
Yes, coffee.
“You don’t want to know?” she asked, going to the coffee machine.
“When you answer my dumbass questions, I end up making plans to hock my car so I can pony up bail.”
“Conn would pay my bail.”
“Missing the point there, Scamp.”
Maybe she was, yeah. After pressing a few buttons, the scent of the coffee pouring released some of her tension.
“You spent some time with Lach,” she said, turning to lean on the counter. “When you were looking for me?”
“Yeah,” her friend said, wary. “Some.”
Had to be more than that. “Did you notice anything weird about him?”
“Weird how?”
While holding her own, she took a mug of java to him. “Like he’s changed. Not as… Lachlan, as he was before.”
Strat scooped up the mug. “I didn’t know the guy that good to start with. Sure, him and Immie were hot and heavy, but we were chalk and cheese… Least I thought we were.”
Interest piqued, she lowered into a seat by him, leaning in close. “You thought…? You thought he was good and wholesome and—”
“Teacher’s pet? A blue-eyed boy? Detective Do-Things-by-the-Book? Yeah.”
“And that opinion’s changed?”
“We were on the road together for the better part of a week. Guys get to know each other when they’re pissing together in the bushes.”
“What do you think of him now? What did you think of him on the road?”
“Guy’s got a lot going on in his life. Grandfather’s dead. Father’s a wrong ‘un. His life’s in the hopper.”
Didn’t help that his relationship with Imogen ended not long ago, and his ex just got with another guy. Not just any guy, her brother’s best friend, which kinda made them keepers from the get-go.
Oh, yeah, and his baby sister was screwing the city’s most dangerous crime boss. She couldn’t forget that one.
Her up wasn’t up. With Conn back, it was getting close. Or it had been until her brother… Lachlan didn’t have any anchor, anything to keep him on course. Where was his up?
“I’m worried about him.”
“Yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do with family.”
“No, I’m… It’s not just any worry… He’s different, changed, something’s… something is going on with him.”
And she’d been so caught up in her own shit that she hadn’t noticed it happening.
“Guy’s got a lot to process. He hurt you?”
“No!” Offense hit hard and fast, even more than it did when people suggested Conn was violent with her. “Lachlan would never hurt anyone. Not unless it was absolutely necessary.” Like in the line of duty when some fucker had a weapon trained on him. Even then he’d hesitate. “Lachlan is a good man.”
“Good doesn’t have to mean good. You’re friends with me, and your boyfriend’s not exactly…”
“Not exactly what?” Conn asked, startling them both.
Damn the McDades and their stealth. She spun on the chair to see her guy entering.
“We’re talking about Lachlan,” she said as Conn went to the fridge. “I’m worried about him.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to do with family.”
Some of Strat’s concern gave way to a smile. He’d used exactly the same words. “Guy knows what he’s talking about.”
“You two don’t know him, not the way I know him.”
“Could be argued…” Strat started.
Conn closed the fridge, glass of juice in hand. “Finish.”
With her, Strat might refuse. When it was her guy giving the order, Strat had no choice.
“Little sisters don’t always know everything about their older brothers.”
“Imogen and Ford didn’t live together growing up, not full time. You can’t use them as your example.”
“I’m just saying, you don’t know everything about your brother.”
“He’s been my touchstone for as long as I can remember. I never knew mom and my dad…” She exhaled because no one had time for ancient history, both men knew the details already. “He’s never been like this.”
“Like what?” Strat asked.
Conn’s dark, brooding stare enchanted her. “You trust me?”
“You know I do.” She clutched the back of her chair. “I love that you and Lachlan communicate, it means a lot to me. I love you both. The closer you are, the more security I have because you two can watch each other’s asses. I want both of you coming home at the end of every day.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t want him to lose who he is.”
Strat put his coffee down. “You’ve always been a stubborn mare.”
“Thanks, Strat, that really contributes to the current discussion.”
Her friend snickered and touched her hair. “We used to sneak around together, you remember?” She nodded. “You kept us quiet, on the dl.” Which meant? “You protect your brother, as much as he protects you. Me, the boss,” he semi-nodded Conn’s way, “your father being dirty, you expended a lot of energy keeping secrets, projecting the illusion of life you thought the cop wanted to see. You wanted him to be proud of you, so you hid anything that could hurt him. Shit, after your attack, you sent him out of the room, you sent every McLeod out the room.”
And asked for Strat. “I remember.”
“You don’t see the irony in that versus this? You hid who you were to protect him. Ever think maybe he did the same thing? Hid anything maybe… unsavory about himself?”
She didn’t want to believe there were things she didn’t know about her brother, but Strat was right. And it wasn’t just her. Everyone, in some way, could be accused of hiding things about themselves, keeping secrets.
“He doesn’t have to hide anything,” she murmured. “I love him.”
“Yeah, he’d probably say the same about you, but there was plenty he didn’t know.” Strat’s hand slid over hers on the table. “You love me, and I’m about as shady dealings as you can get, you never had a problem with that. And your boyfriend… think it’s safe to say he lives in the gray.”
She got it. Her friend squeezed her hand and Conn was still there, glass near his lips.
“Lach’s hurting and being a guy about it, he has nothing to hold onto right now.” Guilt, worry, she couldn’t just switch them off. “His whole life is… He worshiped our father, everything about him constrained Lachlan. There was a mold, one shape, one way to be. Now he’s learned my father never fit the mold he was forcing on his son. Everything Lach held dear was a crock of shit…”
“How did you feel when the truth about us came out?” Conn said, slow, shrewd. “Tell Strat.”
It was a sentiment she’d shared with Lach. “Liberated,” she whispered the word Conn used to give clarity to her feelings that night. “It freed me.”
Strat bobbed his head. “Could be that mold forced your brother into being something he’s not.”
“But he always was—”
“Doesn’t matter, maybe he is exactly like that, maybe he isn’t. This, all the truths out, gives him a chance to learn what’s important to him. Without those lines tying him down, he’s free to figure out who the hell he wants to be.”
She picked up Strat’s hand to hold it on her cheek for a second. “I can still look out for him, right?”
“He’s family, Macushla.” Those words from her love’s lips meant so much. As she relaxed into a smile, he put his glass in the sink and strode from the kitchen. “Strat can stay.”
And there was her best friend, now terrified.
She laughed. “He’s kidding.”
“He does that?”
“Sometimes.” She stood up. “I’m going to get changed, I want to set up a meet today.”
“Set it up yourself? Is it my birthday or something?”
She bowed a little to murmur, “You may think so when you see who we’re meeting.”