“Deep breath, baby,” I say, her torment a living breathing thing that is now becoming mine. Already I’m mentally backing off my push to get her to leave tonight. In other words, this is me getting my ass kicked by a woman who is not even trying to kick my ass.
“I get it,” I add. “All of what you just said. I do. I don’t like it, but if it were my parents, I’d feel the same. We still have to talk about the right and wrong parts of this equation.”
“Alone, please,” she says again. “I don’t want to get into a big debate with everyone involved until I talk to you and not because I don’t like and trust every single last person on the Walker team. I’m just—my family and Waters—and I’m not in a good place right now.”
Family. Waters. Two words together I understand. My mind flashes back to the past, to an image of my brother shoving a woman against a wall while she fought him. He was a devil then. He was with Waters and Waters is a devil maker.
With gritted teeth, I shove that little piece of hell away. “I think that’s pretty normal under the circumstances.”
“There’s that word,” she says. “Normal. I’ve decided I don’t even know what it means, but it’s kind of becoming a fantasy of mine.”
“Normal is overrated,” I assure her because she’s not a person who would enjoy normal any more than I would. Otherwise, neither one of us would have done half the shit we’ve done.
“How about happy?” she asks.
“That’s more like it.” Right then, I know that is my new goal. To make her happy. But she has to stay alive to be happy and there’s only one way to ensure that happens. I have to right a wrong of my past. Waters has to die.
“Mason’s going to hand you off to Adam in a few minutes. Follow his lead and he’ll keep you safe.”
“Yes. Okay.”
“I’ll see you soon, baby.”
“See you soon,” she whispers.
We disconnect and she can’t get to me fast enough.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
ADRIAN
I’m standing in the driveway when Pri arrives in an identical SUV to the one she’d ridden in with Mason, but now she has Adam behind the wheel. The instant the vehicle halts, the rear door pops open and Pri exits. She searches for me, finds me, and launches herself at me.
I meet her in the center of the steps and she throws her arms around me, pushing to her toes, reaching for my mouth, oblivious to the watchful eyes. And I for one, couldn’t give two fucks about who’s watching. I stroke her hair from her face and kiss her, a long stroke of the tongue before I capture her hand and kiss it.
“Let’s go talk,” I say and together we hurry inside and down the stairs. The instant I’ve shut us in her room—our room now—we come back together, mouths colliding.
I kiss her—how can I not kiss her, I’m addicted to her—feeding off her desperation, maneuvering her around and against the door. But still, I force my lips from hers and it’s not easy, not easy at all when I’m hot and hard and just as desperate as she is. “Pri, baby, what is in your head right now?”
“You,” she whispers. “I just want to feel something real and you’re the only thing that feels real right now.”
God, I am not good enough for this woman, but I’m going to be. I grab her wrist and flip off her bracelet even as I kiss her again and this time, I don’t hold back. I drink her in, lick into her mouth, and take and take some more. And she does the same. I tug up her skirt. She tugs at my T-shirt. I pull it over my head and her hands are all over me, my mouth back to hers. One hand moves lower, to her panties, a finger sliding beneath.
She moans as my fingers caress her clit and sink lower, to the wet heat between her thighs. So damn wet and hot. My cock throbs and holy hell, I want inside her. I tear my mouth from hers, nip her lips and when she pants, I drop to my knees and drag her panties down her hips. She kicks them away and I turn her away from me, facing the door, unzipping her skirt and slipping it down her body. Again, she kicks it away—and fuck, her ass is perfect. I squeeze it, scrape my teeth over it, and another time, many other times, I’d linger to appreciate it, but not now. I turn her back around, my hands gripping her hips and my mouth pressing to her belly. She trembles beneath the touch and sucks in a breath with the lick of my tongue.
One of my hands caresses downward, and once again, my fingers press into the wet heat between her thighs. She moans softly, and I lick her clit. She pants and I suckle her, licking her, stroking her. Her fingers tug on my hair and I lift her leg, arching her into my mouth. There are women that give themselves to a man because sex is just sex, and I’ve certainly known my share. But Pri—Pri doesn’t. When Pri, damaged, reserved Pri, gives herself to me, it feels like a gift to savor. And I do savor her, but not for long. She shatters in my arms and on my tongue, trembling all over, her sex spasming around my fingers.
And then she’s whispering, “Adrian, I need—”
I lower her leg and stand, cupping her face. “Me, too,” I answer, kissing her, letting her taste herself on my tongue, and that’s all it takes to set us off again.
We’re all over each other once more.
She presses her hand to my rock-hard erection and unzips my pants. I don’t even know how it happens, but I end up on the floor, against the door, with her on top of me, riding me. I tug at her blouse, and in my eagerness to have her naked, manage to rip a button or two, but all she does is kiss me, and moan with my fingers on her nipple. I never get her blouse or bra off completely. She’s just too good at making me feel good, swaying against me, meeting my thrusts, driving me wild.
When it’s over, she collapses on top of me and for long seconds, a minute or two even, we just hold each other. “I don’t know what to do, Adrian,” she whispers.
I cup her head. “I know, baby, but we’ll figure it out.” I shift, help her up, and then stand up myself.
We end up in the bathroom, with her draped in a robe and sitting on the bathroom sink in front of me, my hands on either side of her. “Talk to me,” I urge because I don’t think right now is the time to tell her what I feel or what I want.
“I think Waters is winning, Adrian.”
And she’s right, I think. He is winning, but not for long.
“I think everything that happened tonight is for my benefit,” she adds. “I mean, obviously it was since the endgame is for me to drop out. But I don’t think Waters is threatening to take my parents down by way of exposing money laundering. I think he’s letting me know how easily he can get close to them. How easily he can hurt them. How easily he can kill them.”
And she’s not wrong, I think again.
Waters has made his point. He’s about to start filling body bags. Not that he hasn’t already, but this time, they’ll be people close to Pri.
Chapter Forty
ADRIAN
Pri and I remain in the bathroom, riding the high of sex, while the reality of choices that might mean life and death won’t let us go. “We’ll figure it out,” I promise.
“I listened to the recording my mother gave me,” she says. “It’s in my purse, wherever it is. I think I dropped it by the bedroom door. It said just what she said. It was a quid pro quo. Get me off the case or else. I’d hoped I’d recognize the voice of the man threatening my father but I didn’t. Maybe you will.” She hops off the counter before I can help her and dashes around me and out of the bathroom. I follow her to find her at the desk, her purse on top as she digs through it.
“Bingo,” she murmurs, holding up the recorder to show me before she sets it on the desk and presses play. I listen to the exchange between her father and this other man. The conversation goes as Pri and her mother led me to believe it would.
Pri watches me, hope in her face that I’ll recognize the voice, I offer a negative shake of my head.
“Damn,” she murmurs. “Damn it.”
I close the space between us and grab the recorder. “Let me take this to Blake.
Did you bring home food?”
“Oh yes. The food. I brought us food. I left it in the vehicle. Are you hungry?”
“Starving. I’ll grab the food while I’m upstairs.”
“And wine. There’s wine. I thought we might need it and it’s my favorite, actually. I wanted you to try it.”
Because she is always thinking of me, and the truth is, she’s risking a lot for me. It’s not something I take for granted or take lightly. I stroke a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wine is good,” I say softly, my heart so damn lost to her. She owns me and I don’t even care. “I’ll stop by the downstairs kitchen to heat up the food on my way back here.”
“Sounds good,” she says.
I kiss her forehead—I’m not sure I’ve ever kissed a woman’s forehead, but then nothing is the same with Pri—and then head upstairs. I locate Blake at the kitchen island talking with Mason, who is a tall, muscular dude with lots of tats, dark hair, and a never-shaven jaw. He’s about as new to Walker as I am but we’ve only crossed paths a few times. But I don’t have to ask why he’s here. I can guess. He’s ex-FBI, and out of an East Texas office apparently, which makes him an asset. “Anything?” I ask.
“Nothing yet,” Mason says, pointing at the bag of food and bottle of wine. “Except that, which smells damn good. You better take it and run or I will eat it.”
“I’m still weeding through the security feed,” Blake interjects, glancing up from the feed. “How is Pri?”
“Confused,” I say. “And I don’t really blame her. Right and wrong get real damn confusing right about now.”
He arches a brow. “Are we leaving in the morning?”
“I’m not sure we know yet,” I say. “Anything from the field?”
“Mason followed Pri’s mother home after handing Pri off to Adam. She went straight there, no stops. He’s headed back and we still have a man watching the house. Savage is following Cindy. He has some weird vibe about her.”
“And Lucifer called,” Mason adds, smirking. “Grace asked him to dinner.”
Now my brows dip. “I’m confused. Isn’t she dating Josh?”
“Apparently she needs to confide in Lucifer,” Mason says sarcastically. “Lucifer’s a lady magnet. I wouldn’t count on that amounting to anything.”
“And yet Grace isn’t a flirt,” I say. “She isn’t one to go to Lucifer, the lady magnet, plus why not tell whatever this is to Pri?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Blake says, moving on “I pulled a photo from the Millers’ security feed.” He turns his MacBook in my direction. “Know him?”
I study the tall, bald dude wearing a suit on the security feed. “No, and he’s memorable. I wouldn’t forget him if I’d seen him before.”
“I’ll text you a photo to show Pri,” Blake offers. “And I’ll get some facial recognition going on.”
I set the recorder down. “That’s what Pri’s mother gave her. It’s not overly helpful. And no, neither me nor Pri recognize his voice.”
Blake inclines his chin and reaches for the recorder.
“Anything from Royce or Lauren?” I ask. Chicago now on my mind.
“A lot of bullshit,” Blake says. “Lauren apparently started to curse when she never curses.
“Great,” I say. “Just great.”
“She’s meeting the DA in the morning. More then.”
I nod and head back downstairs. Pri, now in sweats and a tank top, meets me in the kitchen. “Anything else?” she asks. Her cheeks are pink and her lips swollen from my kisses.
The anything else I want is her naked and in bed again, but that will have to wait for later. “Nothing monumental,” I say, unpacking the food and popping it in the microwave before setting the timer.
“Nothing from your legal team on Chicago? I just tried to call Ed again. I think I’m going to have to have Blake intimidate him again.”
“Lauren’s meeting with the DA tomorrow. Nothing good happened today. Nothing much but her frustration from what I can tell.” I shift the topic. “Grace asked Lucifer to dinner, says she needs to confide in him.”
Pri blanches. “What? I’m confused. Grace doesn’t invite men to dinner and she tells me everything.”
I dig around in the cabinet and find us glasses for the wine. “They aren’t wine glasses,” I say. “But they’ll have to do. And maybe something happened after we left that set Grace off?”
Her lips press together. “It doesn’t fit what I know of her. At all.”
“Do you know this guy?” I show her the photo Blake sent me.
She studies it and shakes her head. “That’s the guy speaking on the recording?”
“It is,” I say. “I don’t know him either. Blake will track him down.”
“I could just ask my father tomorrow.”
“You want to stay,” I say, and it’s not a question. I knew the minute she accepted the dinner reservation, her mind was made up.
“I promise to let you try and talk me out of it while we eat.”
“And I will, Pri. You know I will.”
Her lips curve. “I have no doubt.”
She’s smiling at this one but I’m not.
There’s a ticking clock to that trial and the longer we’re here in this city, the same city as Waters, the more we tempt fate.
Chapter Forty-One
ADRIAN
A few minutes later, Pri and I are side by side on the bed, lasagna, and wine in easy reach.
“This is my favorite Italian place ever,” Pri says. “Well, in the States. I went to Italy a few years back. That’s the best Italian food. Try it.”
She went to Italy. Damn, I hate the clawing feeling that tells me it was with Logan. But I dig into the pasta and offer my easy approval. “Excellent. I approve.”
She glances over at me. “I went with my mother. She was having some identity crisis.”
“I didn’t ask, but I would have. I’m glad it wasn’t him.”
“I wouldn’t be talking about it if it was. He’s another reason to stay. He’ll confront me. He’ll be angry and maybe he’ll tell me something worthwhile.”
Logan is the last person I want to talk about right now, I think, but I say, “I’ll have to make you some of my mom’s tamales for Thanksgiving.”
“That was a dramatic shift of topic and I get the point. No Logan talk right now. As for the tamales. Thanksgiving?” she asks, sipping her wine.
“Yeah, baby. You think I’m going to let you spend it without me?”
“Good,” she says, setting her glass down, her lips hinting at a smile, her eyes bright. “I want to try those tamales. Your mom must have been a good cook.”
“The best. She was Mexican and my father was white, but you know that. My mom was a little thing with a big personality.”
“You miss them,” she observes.
“I do, especially at the holidays.” I decide this is a moment to at least offer a little truth. “My brother, Alex, and I thought Waters had my father killed.”
“That’s why you both went undercover with the Devils.”
“Yes,” I say recapping at least some of what I told Blake. “We didn’t tell the officials. We knew they’d say we were too close to the case.”
“And did he kill your parents?”
“Someone working for him did. Ironically, Waters had the guy killed six months into my undercover work.” I glance over at her. “I won’t lie and say it didn’t please me. But for Alex, it created some weird misplaced loyalty to Waters, and Waters didn’t even know who the guy was to us.”
“That’s when Alex turned bad?”
“Alex was always a little bad, Pri. He wasn’t ever right in the head. Dad and I knew. We always knew. We sheltered Mom from that side of him. And Raf was so much younger than Alex, he was spared at least some of Alex’s shit.”
“What does Raf think happened to Alex?”
“He believes he was killed while unde
rcover, which isn’t wrong. He was. And one day I really will tell him the story. He deserves to know. And so do you.”
She strokes my cheek. “And when the time is right, you will.” Her hand falls away. “Which brings us to now,” she adds. “And why you can’t tell me. Whether we leave tomorrow morning or tomorrow night isn’t the real issue, now is it? If I drop the case, we could run away and hide for the rest of our lives, but I leave my parents at Waters’ mercy. If I continue with the case through trial, they’re at his mercy. I feel like a horrible person for saying this, but sometimes,” she cuts her gaze, “sometimes—”
“Sometimes what, Pri?” I prod softly.
Her chin lifts and her eyes meet mine. “I wish you would have killed him.”
I turn to her, hands on her shoulders. “I can’t turn back time, but we can still end this.”
“How?”
“Once I tape my testimony, killing me doesn’t save him.”
“Even if that’s true, he’ll be out in no time. You know that.”
“And he has friends, I know enough to turn them into enemies. I’ll make his freedom his nightmare.”
“I—I don’t even know if I can get that to fly. The defense will fight hard to stop that from happening.”
“I’ll make him take a deal.”
“Sometimes it’s safer in prison than out.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” She scoots off the bed and starts to pace before she turns to me. “I need to talk to my parents, Adrian. I need to be sure we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Agreed.”
“And we can’t leave until I make the deal.”
“All right then,” I say. “It looks like we’re staying.”
Chapter Forty-Two
PRI
I wake to the pinch of light between the curtain, and the heat of Adrian’s body where I’m nestled under his shoulder, on his chest. I’d revel in the feel of him close to me if not for the sudden voice at the end of the bed.
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