Our Shattered Pieces (The Pieces Series Book 3)

by M. E. Clayton

  And now, a million years later, I was doing charity work for several different women’s groups. And though exhausting at times, I really loved it. Well, except when Lorcan referred to my projects as new jobs. He always made it sound as if I couldn’t hold down a job.

  The jerk.

  After graduating from UC Berkeley, I had come back to Chicago. Having always been close to my family, it was hard to imagine living anywhere else. And with Lorcan Sr. and Emilia Cavanaugh being part of the Chicago wealthy, doors had opened for me and Lorcan easily.

  Now, don’t get me wrong here. Even with the last name that was attached to our first, we’ve both worked our assess off for what we’ve accomplished, Lorcan more so. The man worked around the clock. Or, rather, he used to until he married Rowan six months ago. Now the man actually acted human instead of a million-dollar-making machine.

  The CEO of Cavanaugh Industries, Lorcan had more money than God, and his status in this city was also cemented as that of a god. Powerful, compelling, wealthy, and vicious, if need be, Lorcan Cavanaugh was everything he had been meant to be. And now, married to Rowan, he had it all, and I couldn’t be happier for him.

  And with him and Rowan being godparents to their best friends’ twins, I’d bet my ass that I’ll be an aunt soon, and I couldn’t wait. It was all about spoiling a kid that wasn’t yours and not having to deal with the negative effects of said spoiling.

  Lorcan was my best friend, and the person I was closest to on the planet. I loved my brother, and his happiness mattered to me more than my own. A temperamental little shit when he was younger, he’s come a long way since we were young, and it had been a special like of joy to finally see him get everything he’s ever wanted. Especially, considering that he had chased Rowan for over a year before she had caved.

  A baby was definitely coming sooner rather than later.

  As for me, after my disastrous freshman year in college, I’d manage to make the most of the remaining three, and I had come out of it better for it.

  Things had been tense between Lorcan and I for a while after I had confessed my sins to him, but that had been because of me, not him. I had grappled with the shame and embarrassment for a long time, but with the help of counseling, I’d manage to be able to have a serious heart-to-heart with him, where he had stood by me once again. No judging. No trying to change me. No being embarrassed. No anything from my brother, and that had been everything.

  There was also the fact that he had beaten Sawyer and Calvin so badly, they had bore the damage for over a week after Lorcan had gotten a hold of them.

  And Ethan?

  Ethan had been so brutalized that he’d had to walk around with a cane for almost a year after Lorcan had found him. He’d been in the hospital for over a month and had missed the last two months of the semester. It hadn’t been until the start of my sophomore year that I’d finally seen Ethan again, and he’d been using a cane.

  He also never spoke to me again.

  As for my proclivities, they still existed. Not necessarily the need for multiple partners, but I still wished for the verbal filth and degradation of having a man use me. I still wished to be called names and I still wished for the freedom to be able to ask for all those things.

  But I didn’t.

  I never did.

  Though things had worked out in my favor-thanks to my brother-I wanted to be the type of person who was capable of learning her lesson.

  To hell with trust.

  Every man after Ethan had paid for his sins, and I have never given any of them more than I felt safe giving. I made missionary work. I made clean sex work. I made chaste kisses work. I made it all work. I had no choice.

  Especially, now.

  As the face of a charitable organization that championed women, how would it look if it got out that I got off on a man cumming on my face while he called me a good slut for it? For all that women have accomplished, and for as far as we’ve come, sexual liberation was still a pipe dream. Men couldn’t handle knowing that other men have been where they were, though complete hypocrisy. And women were too insecure and catty to not care that another woman was sexually open. Because, after all, a sexually open woman could be perceived as a threat to her missionary-style marriage.

  So, I dated if I was so inclined, and if it went as far as sleeping with each other, I let the man lead, and because I was Molly Cavanaugh of the Chicago Cavanaughs and Lorcan Cavanaugh’s sister, no one has ever dared to go deeper into sexual play, lest they accidentally offend me, and I sic Lorcan on them.

  But was I happy?

  I was.

  I had a loving family, the best brother in the world, a great job, new friends in Rowan and Mystic Evans, and an entire future of calling my own shots.

  Hell yeah, I was happy.

  And as for a husband and kids? If they never came to be, that’d be okay. I had no problem being the best aunt ever to my brother’s kids.

  Chapter 16

  Grayson~

  I only had one month to regroup and recharge.

  Everyone thought being a teacher was cake with summer being the icing on that cake, but it wasn’t. Especially, when I was a football coach on top of being a teacher. During winter break, I still had to work with the football team since December was always playoffs and championship season for high school.

  And spring break was another myth where people assumed teachers were kicking their feet up on a beach somewhere with a strawberry daiquiri in their hands. Now while I couldn’t speak for other teachers, my spring break was spent wrapping things up for the year. I taught seniors, so a lot of the time, I worked with the ones who were close to failing graduation.

  And as for summer, I had one month because, again, I was a football coach, too. Come July, I started reliving the year before, looking for improvements, and going over my team and trying to figure out how to mix new players in with the ones I already had. It was a delicate dance, and I was the dance instructor.

  So, I had only one month to be a lazy fuck, and I cherished the shit out of that one month.

  Five blessed weeks.

  After graduation, I had moved back home to California, and had taught there for a while. But when word of my kinship with my students and, especially, my football team started getting around, I had been recruited by Halston High School in Chicago, and it had been a no-brainer. After all, Rowan had been living in Chicago.

  Besides, there was also the fact that being back in my hometown, every day had been a risk to my livelihood. Every day, there was a chance I’d run into Paul Connors, and it was never a guarantee that I wouldn’t put my hands on him.

  So, moving to Chicago had helped on two fronts. Firstly, I could be near Rowan. Never again would I be clear across the country if she needed my help again. Secondly, I could live my life without the threat of going to jail every day.

  There was also that Halston High had one of the best football programs in the country, and after touring the campus, it had felt like the perfect fit.

  It had felt like I could finally breathe again.

  Of course, leaving my students had been hard as fuck, but it was a decision I’ve never regretted. Especially, now, seeing my sister so fucking happy, and being close enough to witness it as a real thing and not the façade she’s put up for years.

  As for me, I’d done the whole counseling thing at the behest of my parents, but it hadn’t been as awful as I had anticipated. Did it help? Somewhat. It helped me work through my guilt issues where Rowan was concerned, but every now and again, memories would play havoc on my progress, and I had to remind myself that my sister was okay. Going through some issues, maybe, but things could have been a lot worse.

  As for the anger management side of it, I hadn’t and still didn’t think that I had needed it. I’ve never had a quick temper. My temper has always been slow and steady with a fighting chance of common-sense prevailing. However, once I reached my limit, I wasn’t afraid to form a fist and go with it. But I was pretty
sure it was like that with all people, men and women. Not being afraid of a verbal altercation turning into a physical one didn’t necessarily mean I needed anger management.

  Besides, Paul Connors had what I’d done to him coming.

  And a lot worse.

  Now, my sexual appetites were something completely different. Counseling hadn’t help me work through the need to call a woman a slut while I was balls-deep inside her. It also hadn’t help me deal with the guilt of enjoying something that I had associated with disrespect. Even if the woman enjoyed it, too, I had still wrestled with it.

  However, as I got older, my views grew with me. Counseling, now, for me was more of a regular mental checkup I did for myself twice a year. As I went from being twenty-two to thirty-two, I’ve come across women who have been mature enough to not take everything so personal. While I still checked my demons at the door, hair-pulling, ass spanking, and a few other little things have happened in the bedroom, and that’s been enough to get me by.

  My issue was the fact that I taught children. Even though some of them might reach the age of eighteen before graduation, they were still children in my eyes. I taught and coached them, and I didn’t need it getting around that I was into dark, degrading, kinky, filthy sexual pleasures.

  I’d lose everything.

  Never mind that, over the course of my career, I’ve earned a reputation of one of the finest teachers in the state, even winning a few awards for some of the things I’ve done. Never mind that I’ve turned out several NFL phenoms over the years. Never mind that I came from a good family, and that my sister just married into the Cavanaugh family six months ago. Sexual proclivities, if dark and going against the grain of what was mainstream-acceptable, could ruin a person to the point of no return. And I’ve worked too hard for everything I had to lose it all because of my dick.

  And it wasn’t even about the sex, really. There were millions of hookup sites out there that I could join just to get my dick wet in a particular manner. There were millions of fetishes out there, and the internet has created a home for them all, so, it wasn’t about that.

  It was about trust.

  I could easily find a woman adventurous enough to let me rub my cum on her tits or tap her face with the head of my dick. I could easily find a woman who’d let me slide inside her ass on the first night. I could easily find a woman who’d let me call her filthy names. Again, the internet.

  What I wanted to find was a woman who I could trust to let me do all that stuff, and more, and not take everything she finds out about me to the local media if I do something to piss her off. I needed to know she’s not the type to ruin my life if the relationship ends badly.

  Trust was what was missing from those websites.

  And even if I did go all stupid and get NDAs involved, what good would suing her do if she did tell? Would it resurrect my career from the ashes? Would it make people see me as not a pervert? Would it erase what people would know about me?

  No.

  Besides, who in the fuck wanted legal paperwork between them in order to fuck? When I think about how there hadn’t been any paperwork, save for the marriage license, between my sister and her husband, and his wealth was unimaginable, how stupid was it to bring in NDAs just to get laid?

  Sticking to my tried and true and being happy with what I had going for me, I wasn’t going to bemoan about what I was missing.

  Besides, I was a guy.

  All pussy was good pussy.

  Chapter 17

  Molly~

  “Wow.” I let out a low whistle. “The Greek Cyclades. Faaaannncy.”

  “She’s never been,” Lorcan simply stated.

  Stretched out on the couch in his study, Lorcan sat at his desk, working as usual, finishing up some last-minute details before whisking Rowan away on their long overdue honeymoon.

  When Lorcan and Rowan had finally gone official, she’d been on vacation from work as a corporate auditor. And Lorcan-not Rowan-had gone all anniversary-stupid and had wanted to celebrate their official one-year anniversary. For their honeymoon six months ago, he had taken her to the Maldives in South Asia, and now that she had next week off, Lorcan was taking her to the Greek Cyclades.

  “I have news for you, Lor, millions of people have never been,” I quipped. “That’s rich people shit.”

  “Says a rich person,” he quipped back.

  “Not as rich as you,” I sing-songed.

  Lorcan just chuckled. “But still richer than eighty percent of the country,” he pointed out.

  I wrinkled my nose. “That’s mostly my inheritance,” I replied.

  “It’s still yours, Molly Doll,” he said dryly. “And that makes you rich.”

  I ignored that. Sure, I had money, but I was careful with it. The extravagant galas and charity events I put on were to make the donors comfortable in their own element. It wasn’t for me. In my line of work, I’ve seen too many people struggling to be better and have better that I didn’t flaunt my money around. I lived in a nice condo that was located in a nice neighborhood, and drove a nice car, and wore nice clothes. But my fingers weren’t adorned with diamond rocks and I didn’t walk around Chicago in a tiara. I did my best to balance both the worlds I lived in.

  And speaking of nice things. “So, you lured me with lunch and quality time, all just to ask me to water your plants while you’re gone?” Lunch had come and gone, but I was still lounging around like I lived here.

  “If you can be lured with a simple turkey wrap and iced tea, you’re a real threat to national security, Molly,” Lorcan joked.

  I think.

  With Lorcan it was hard to tell sometimes.

  “Do you blame me?” I asked. “Your wife makes some mean iced tea.” I finally sat up straight on the office couch as I cocked my head at him. “And where is your wife anyway? I wanted to see her and say bye before I left.”

  “She at Grayson’s, assuring him that we’re not going to get kidnapped by locals, so they can sell off our body parts.” Lorcan let out a soft chuckle. “If there’s another person on this planet that worries about Rowan more than I do, it’s that man.”

  The pit of my stomach erupted in sexual butterflies.

  Grayson Lewis.

  Grayson Lewis was Rowan’s older brother, and only sibling, much like me and Lorcan. But where Rowan was your classic blonde bombshell with a figure that could stop traffic, Grayson had inherited his father’s coloring, all except for his eyes. Rowan and Grayson both shared their mother’s bright blue eyes, while Grayson had inherited his father’s dark brown hair. And where Rowan was around five-foot-three or four, Grayson topped at past six-foot. Not as tall as Lorcan, but pretty close.

  Grayson Lewis was thirty-two and gorgeous as hell. He was a high school teacher and a football coach, and I imagined it was the football coach part that kept that six-pack he had so taut. And how would I know that he had a six-pack, you ask?

  Because I had felt it-among another things-the night of my brother’s wedding to his sister.

  Lorcan and Rowan’s wedding had been small, yet tasteful. With only family and a few friends in attendance, it had been rather perfect for the both of them. Lorcan had no patience for people, and Rowan was too real to invite people she didn’t know or care for to the most important event of her life.

  So, with the wedding being so quaint, Rowan’s Maid-of-Honor had been her best friend, Mystic, and I had been the only bridesmaid. Lorcan’s Best Man had been his best friend, and Mystic’s husband, Gage Evans, and his only groomsman had been Rowan’s brother, Grayson.

  See where I’m going with this?

  With everyone paired up so nicely, and the reception being an open bar, Grayson and I had found our way to renting a room in the venue’s hotel, and we had done the deed.

  Now, granted, I’d had my fair share of alcohol, but Grayson Lewis undressing was a sight that would be burned into my memory for-freakin’-ever.

  His giant dick size aside, the man was just pure pe
rfection. Tanned muscles everywhere, a face like a Spartan warrior, luscious chocolate hair, piercing blue eyes, and with enough stamina to make me cum three times; once with his tongue, the other two with that magnificent club between his legs.

  It had been good, hot, and satisfying.

  But…not satisfying, you know?

  The entire time he’d been doing his best to rock my world, I’d been biting my tongue with all the things I nearly begged from the man. But whenever I thought about our time together-and I thought about it a lot-I thank God that I hadn’t. Grayson was Lorcan’s brother-in-law, and the last thing I’d ever want to do was ruin that relationship with my messed-up head.

  “Well, he is her brother,” I reminded him. “And he’s been loving her a lot longer than you have been.”

  Lorcan scowled. “Rowan’s mine,” he practically snapped. “End of story.”

  I grinned. “You have possessiveness issues.”

  “Any man worth his salt does,” he countered.

  I just shook my head. “Well, the turkey wrap and iced tea did the trick. I’ll water your babies and make sure no squatters take up residence.” Lorcan snorted. His place was so safe, it was locked up tighter than a bank.

  Stretching my lazy muscles, I stood up to go leave. “Tell the missus I’m sorry I missed her.”

  “Text her,” he said. “Maybe you can stop by Grayson’s and say bye really quick.”

  I almost laughed.

  The last thing I needed was to know exactly where Grayson Lewis lived. I knew enough to know what part of town he lived in, but more than that, I just might end up showing up at his house-completely unannounced-and try to pick up from where we’d left off.

  With everyone’s busy schedules, I haven’t seen the man since the wedding, and I wasn’t overly saddened by that fact. While my kinks might have been missing from that night with him, Grayson was still the best sex I’ve ever had.

  Apart from that one night.