THIRTY-TWO
SHIT, WAS THIS the…? Their sex tape? It wasn’t a big deal, she and Conn had talked about it. Well, she’d told him there was a chance of it being out there. Niall, and other McDades had seen it before. And with her father locked up and her brother on a… whatever he was on, a sex tape was the least of their worries.
All true.
But did it have to be revealed in this room filled with guys? She’d prefer to put on a live show than sit quietly while their grunts and moans littered the air. At least if Conn was actually inside her, she’d have him to focus on.
And, yep, without preamble, the panting started, a moan, a gasp. She couldn’t be self-conscious. If Conn was staring this one down, then so was she. They could take it. The screen wasn’t faced their way, and Niall did lower it some, so no one was really watching it.
She stole a glance at Strat, her friend looked more amused than disgusted, thank God. He’d tease her about this forever.
“Yes,” Sex Tape Her said. “Oh, yes, baby!”
“Like that?” came his response. “Feel good?”
“Oh, yeah, just like that. Fuck!”
“Full steam,” Swerve said. “No hesitation.”
Yeah, so either the footage had been cut to miss the foreplay, or they were hearing a select part. She’d never actually watched their sex tape in full. Conn had it, then Strat did. And she was there, it wasn’t like she could forget how incredible it was to be in bed with—
“Oh, fuck, Ire! More! Please, oh, fuck.”
“Call it out, baby. Fuck, yeah.”
Her smile came as Conn’s chin rose.
His hand dropped to her lap. “Release it,” he said to Swerve, then switched to Niall. “You got it there? Send it to every news outlet. Post it online. Sell it to the porn sites.”
Swerve wasn’t the only one confused by Conn’s smug confidence.
“That how the Irish treat their women?”
Her smile became a grinning snicker she had to muffle against Conn’s neck. He yanked the drive from the computer and threw it at Swerve.
“Take your smut and get the fuck out of here. Approach her again and you’ll get your own sex tape, got a lot of guys on payroll who’d love to ride your ass. Fuck off.”
Pissed, Swerve stomped out and slammed the door. Maybe wasn’t a good idea to irritate a man not known for his restraint, but her guy wasn’t on that list either.
“You’d really be okay with it being out there?” Snuff asked.
“Scamp?” Strat asked with concern.
Wasn’t so funny now, not for him. No one else understood.
Still tucked against Conn, she shifted the angle of her head to see her friend on the chesterfield.
“Nothing to worry about.”
“You get it?” Conn asked Niall.
“Aye.”
“Send it to our guys, back trace it. I’m more interested in the who than the why.”
Because that was kind of obvious. And he always said learning the who revealed the why.
“Can you send it to me too,” she asked, “please.”
Of course the lieutenant got the nod from his boss first. “Aye.”
Conn boosted her to her feet as Niall excused their guys and got closer to talk to his superior. While security and the unknown guys filtered out, she went to sit next to Strat.
“I left you at the mansion for a reason,” she said to her friend.
“I cadged a lift.”
“Apparently. You’re supposed to be resting.”
He opened his hands in the air by his thighs. “You see me sitting? This is resting. How come you’re giddy ‘bout the sex tape?”
“It’s funny.”
“Never thought there’d be much comedy between Ire McDade’s sheets.”
“You might be surprised.” Taking his hand, she rested her head on him. “But that’s not why it’s funny.”
“Then why’s it funny?”
“It’s not us,” she said, bouncing up to kiss his cheek. “You need to get back to the mansion, and the doctor. I’m thinking we should tie you down or sedate you for a couple of weeks.”
“You’d never survive that long without me.” Probably true. “Better staying here. My boy’s here.” His frown deepened. “How’d you know it wasn’t you on the tape?”
“I heard the words.”
“Things we say in bed don’t always stick later. Could be you.”
She laughed and got up, stealing his hands to hoist him up too. “No, it couldn’t.” She leaned in to whisper, “I don’t call him Ire in bed.”
“Never has.”
That Irish-American drawl widened her smile again, and it was close, so close that its owner’s fingertips drifted up her arm.
Not just in bed, she never called him Ire, except with other people.
Strat was a lot more serious than her hormones. “It’s a fake?”
“Without a doubt. And who do we know with experience in the porn industry… Hmm…” She feigned wonder. “Let me think… Someone who knows Swerve…”
“Shit, it’s…” Strat trailed off and glanced above her to Conn. Niall went somewhere, she didn’t know where, but he wasn’t around. “You asked who.”
“The actors,” she answered. “The people doing the screwing.”
“Weakest links in the chain.”
“Might be Silvio’s project, but what does he plan to do with it. No way he did it just to embarrass us. We’re together, the world knows we’re together now. Kinda follows that we have sex.” She bumped back against her guy. “I thought it was the original.”
“Every copy of that is in the vault,” Conn said, relaxed as always.
“Except my copy,” she said and snagged her friend’s hand. “Strat has that.”
“That’s what the flash drive is? Fuck, am I happy I never got curious.”
“You were always curious, just not that curious.”
“You weren’t exactly in with the McDades then. Could’ve been anything.”
“Give it to Conn, or Niall, they can put it with the others.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Conn said, sort of distracted.
“Does if it’s the only copy out there. If it gets out, Strat loses his head.”
Her friend blanched. “Good point, I’ll get it.”
“It’s blank,” Conn said when her friend moved sideways. “The drive you were given is blank.”
Slowly, jaw loose, she turned to him. “Months. How did it take you months to tell me that?” Though it was confusing. “What if I watched it?”
“You didn’t.”
“Yeah, because I was attacked on my way out. If I hadn’t sent Strat after it, I’d have been terrified that… Baby, why did you do that? How did you know I wouldn’t watch it?”
“You would’ve watched it, if the attack hadn’t happened, you would’ve watched.”
“Probably, and I’d have seen it was blank, that there was nothing there…”
That was when Conn’s dark emeralds sank to her gaze. And that was all the more shocking, because that meant…
“I’d have come back,” she murmured. “I’d have demanded to see you.”
God, that changed everything. Absolutely every little thing about—grabbing his face, she forced him down to accept her mouth. Back then, they hadn’t been over, he was never done with her. What she’d said to him, after the attack, how she’d pushed him away, all of it was misguided.
Easing from their kiss, she sailed on their permanence.
“I get what I want,” Conn said.
Her lips curled as she bowed back to meet his eye. “Yes, you do. I exist beneath you, under you.”
“Aye.”
When she tried to kiss him again, he resisted. “I have a meeting.”
“I don’t know if I care about that.”
He’d let her sit in on business plenty and after what he’d just revealed, it didn’t feel like a moment to leave him. Didn’t feel like a moment to have company either.
“I care,” Strat said, heading for the door. He stopped, holding it open. “Coming or not, Scamp?”
“I’ll find you in a minute.”
Strat went out, leaving her and Conn alone.
She pressed herself against him. “I made a decision and… have to do something that might break his heart.”
“ You don’t have todoanything. Say what you want, I’ll make it happen.”
“Well, when you say things like that, I want you to kiss me.”
And he was bold in catching her cheeks, pressing his thumbs under the angle of her jaw to position her just right for their lips to meet.
As he withdrew, she moistened her lips again, the rush of blood in her ears reared up.
“What about your favorite little nook?”
Stooping lower, he kept her head, thrusting it back to bare not only that nook for his mouth, but her throat, her cleavage.
“Conn…”
The desperation in that whisper closed her eyes and—
“Just what a guy wants to see this time of night.” Lach’s voice shattered her reverie. “You want to talk or get it on with my sister?”
So that was why Conn tried to excuse her? Lachlan?
“Private time, I guess,” she said on a sigh. “Where are we sleeping tonight? Should I go or wait?”
“Play’s at the mansion. We can stay here.”
Suited her, she tossed him a smile that faded a little when she saw her brother’s stern expression.
Why was he pissed with her? Not a little pissed, like a lot pissed? Her Lachlan looked out for her, loved her. This guy couldn’t stand her.
“What happened with Imogen?” he asked before she’d even taken a step.
“Nothing happened with her. I asked her to look out for you, that was it.”
“She know about Dad?”
“No. Not that I’ve told her, and I don’t see Strat exposing something like that to anyone let alone his little girl. How would that knowledge benefit her?”
Burden her? Sure.
“Ford know?”
“I haven’t spoken to Ford, haven’t seen him since…” forever ago, now her guy was glaring too. Though not at her. “Are you two going to tell me what’s going on with you?”
“No,” Lach said without giving Conn a chance to utter a word. “Because protecting the people we care about is important.”
“You think protecting me starts with lying to me? Doing the right thing never starts with doing the wrong thing, brother. Wonder who told me that.”
“Who’s lying?”
“Right, because an omission isn’t a lie. Never thought you’d adopt that McDade stance.”
Any McDade stance.
“You sleep with him,” Lachlan said. “Why do that, why trust him, if you don’t believe in him?”
“I believe in him and the McDades, all of them, everything.”
“So why question my loyalties?”
“To the McDades? Because your loyalty has always been—”
“With you, dad, and both of you walked away from that. The McLeod name is nothing now.”
“Dad’s still Superintendent, no one knows he’s a murderer. There’s no reason your life has to change.”
“Except it’s a lie. Dad isn’t Superintendent, he is.” Lach jerked his chin toward the silent, assessing Conn. “You think I want a career based on that? Based on a lie? No promotion will ever be honest, no bust scrupulous. The guys on the streets, these families…” He shook his head. “Your world has changed, your views, you’re a McDade.” Which she wouldn’t deny. “And Dad, whether he likes it or not, he’s dancing to their song too. He has no one to blame for that, no one except himself.”
“You don’t have to follow him. Make your own choices.”
“I am,” he said, raising his chin. “Maybe I don’t want to march to the blue beat. Maybe I never did. I conformed, did what was expected. No need to do that anymore.”
This was her issue. It wasn’t her brother’s. Why was she pushing at him? Poking? Arguing? She didn’t want to tarnish him; like she’d tarnished others. If this was the path Lach really wanted, she’d support him. But how could she know for sure?
“No, you don’t.” Setting her sights on Conn, she chose to be as decisive. “Take Strat off payroll, Ford too. They’ll always have access, be welcome and protected, but they won’t be on our books.”
Conn half-nodded, sort of, he did one of his twitches, in acknowledgment.
Her brother may be taking a McDade wage or not. She’d dragged the Stratfords into this, she could set them free. Lachlan wasn’t so easy to free when he seemed determined to rush in headfirst.
Her fingertips met Conn’s jaw. “I like everything I’m wearing…”
“Then you know what to do with it.”
The clothes were irrelevant. The message was clear.
When was the last time they’d slept at Stag? She remembered the last time she’d been in that bed and, boy, that was a memory that needed replacing.
“Sersh,” her brother said. She paused at the curtain. “People make their own choices. Everyone makes their own choices.”
She smiled at no one and bowed her head. “Not in this house, Lachlan. What our leader says is law.” She exhaled. “Don’t be long, Mo Grá.”