by Quinn, Cari
And I was about to bring it all the way home.
When his thumb lowered to the back of my neck to stroke, to soothe, I kicked back against his braced thigh, shifting until I knocked the leg out from underneath him. He pulled out of me with a drag of flesh that made my eyes cross, and not entirely in a good way. Then he was on his back and I was on top of him again, an arm against his throat and my bare pussy hovering over his straining cock.
“Tsk, tsk,” I breathed in his ear. “Didn’t your trainer ever tell you not to lower your guard? Especially with someone who knows all your weaknesses?” I rubbed against him, spreading heat and wetness along his length until a growl emanated from his throat. “Like this. Like you wanting inside me so much that you’re willing to let me have my way, just so you can fuck my agreement out of me. You know I love your cock. It makes me stupid.”
“Speaking of stupid…” he muttered, lifting his head and raising a brow at the situation between his legs. I lifted my arm enough so he could speak more clearly. “Goddamn pretty pussy always screws me over.”
“It’s not screwing you over right now, and you hate that.” I bit his earlobe and he growled again, pushing faintly against my arm as if in warning. He’d happily pin me one more time, and I’d let him because the thrill of sneaking past his guard again and again made me so wet and hot that I could feel my arousal slipping down my inner thighs. Coating us both.
“Sadistic witch.”
“Cocky asshole.”
His lips twitched. “And your point?”
“My point is shut up and fuck me.” I slid over him and he groaned, tipping back his head in complete submission. I could’ve pressed harder, kept him in place, or I could lean down and nip his Adam’s apple, just to feel the long cords of his body jerk under mine. Door number two won. “Or if you’d rather I do the honors…”
“Ladies first.”
With one circle of my hips, he was seated inside me, buried deep, his tongue slashing into my mouth with every advance and retreat. I didn’t waste time on foreplay. Neither of us needed any. This was plain and simple screwing, with us using each other to get off as fast as possible.
I got there first, with a cry that ripped from my chest. He didn’t so much as pause. His hips continued to ram against mine, driving his length deep and then deeper still, his hand a bruising pressure on my ass. He pushed me down on him while slamming upward, hitting that magic spot inside me that turned the sparklers behind my closed eyelids into a freaking laser light show. I gasped through the pleasure, then the pain as it spun on and on and became something almost unbearable.
Still, he fucked me, taking me to the limit then sending me hurtling right past it.
Rearing back, he drove into me a final time, scraping nerve endings wore raw and sending them into yet another screaming spiral of bliss while his quick spurts pumped into me. As he climaxed, he dug his fingers into my hip hard enough that I swore a matching imprint bloomed on the opposite side. Again and again, he stroked into me, still coming, his release dripping between us until we were a sticky, depleted mess.
Or maybe I was the only one who was depleted, because his cock was still semi-hard.
Holy shit.
“You are one sick fuck,” I said against his chest, unable to do more than open one eye. Balefully.
“Why?”
“Ask me that when you’re not still jammed inside me.”
“Such a poet.” He rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. “So I guess you’re not that out of shape.”
I wheezed out a laugh. “Gee, thanks.”
“I’ll probably need a spleen removal op.” He grimaced and rubbed his stomach. “Pretty sure you bruised mine.”
“Good. You deserved it.” But I slipped down his body, ruefully dislodging his cock, and pressed a kiss to the approximate spot I’d punched. “I’ll probably feel guilty tomorrow.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I said probably.”
He chuckled and scooped his hand through my hair. “You know I’m going to train you, right?”
I rested my chin on his torso. “Duh.”
His smile lasted for another moment before fading away. “They want you to fight Evie.”
I’m not sure what reaction he expected to that pronouncement, but from the wrinkle that formed between his eyes, my howl of laughter probably wasn’t it.
Gripping my belly, I rolled onto my back. “Crumpet? No. Fucking. Way.”
“You have to take her seriously. From what I read online, she had one hell of a record overseas.”
“Yeah, and Captain Crunch could really steer a boat back in the day. Color me terrified.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to tell her I can’t train her, for obvious reasons. Which means she’ll probably get Timmins until a new trainer can be assigned. He’s good.”
“So? You’re better.” I gave him a moment to puff out his chest before I added, “I’m better.”
“There’s my modest mouse.” Shaking his head, he flicked my nose. “You’re not upset, are you?”
I said nothing. If I spoke too soon, he’d probably hear the excitement vibrating in my voice. I hadn’t fully realized how much I wanted to get back into the ring until the option was presented to me.
Now that it had been, there was no way I was backing down. I didn’t care why they wanted me to fight. All I knew was that this was my way back in.
“It’s only one fight,” he said quietly, reading me as easily as he always was able to. From the beginning, he’d had an uncanny bead on me and my reactions. Our eight months together had only intensified that ability.
“One fight that will supposedly make them forget they want me dead.”
“They think it’ll bring in a lot of eyes and a lot of money.” He jerked a shoulder. “It sounded BS to me too. Gio thinks it’s legit, and he knows them.”
“And we’re sure Gio’s on our side and not theirs.”
His gaze took a while to meet mine. “The thought has crossed my mind that he could be fucking with us, yes.”
Blowing out a sigh, I rolled onto the mattress beside him and thumped him lightly on his damp stomach. His abs rippled and I nearly sighed again for a purely feminine reason. “We have to trust he’s on the up and up. It’s not like we have a ton of options. If they really want me dead—which hello, dramatic much?—and this is enough to appease them, then we roll with it. And if there’s more going on than we know, pretending to go along with what they want is our surest way in.”
“Yeah. About what I came up with too.” He paused. “I talked to Slater today. He invited us over for dinner tomorrow night, wants us to meet his new girl.”
“Another one? He changes them like underwear.”
“He doesn’t wear underwear.”
“Unnecessary info, thanks.”
He smiled faintly. “He seems really gone over this one, but yeah. I didn’t call him for a social call, he just turned it into one. I called him because I want him in your corner too. If something goes south and I’m not able to—”
I cut him off. “If something goes south and you’re not able to anything, even brush your fucking hair, someone’s going to end up in a body bag.”
“You know talk like that only gets me hard.”
He wasn’t lying.
“Again? You’re going for records here, champ.”
His only reply was to cover my hand on his torso with his own.
“You can wait on the meds until after?”
I swallowed. “You’re sure that’s the only reason you want me to wait?”
“I’m sure. If you think they’ll help, and your therapist agrees, then I’m onboard. Completely.”
“I don’t know if they’ll help. I just don’t want to lose control of myself again like I did last night.”
“Maybe you needed to,” he said softly. “Maybe instead of a step backward, it was actually a step forward. You’ve never felt safe enough to do something like that before. Yo
u won’t even take sleeping pills most of the time.”
“The timing was inconvenient, don’t you think?”
“I had you.” He laced his fingers with mine. “I always will.”
I let out a shuddery breath. It was getting easier for me to believe in that, to trust it. “Yeah.”
“See what Dr. Phelps says, then we’ll make the decision together. Okay?”
He made everything sound so reasonable. I wasn’t a few crackers short of a snack tray. I was just trying something new to deal with everyday life.
With him by my side. Always.
“Okay.”
Rising onto an elbow, he inclined his chin in the direction of our abandoned dinner. “Feel like trying that again?”
“Yeah. In a minute.”
“Uh oh.” He dropped back to the mattress. “You have that constipated look on your face again.”
“Jerk.” But it made me laugh, when it was hard to find anything the least bit funny.
“I’m listening.”
Biting my lip, I studied the ornate light fixture on the ceiling to avoid meeting his gaze. I wasn’t ready to see how he’d take this news. “I think I may be a millionaire.”
Silence.
After a minute, I sneaked a glance his way. He was already staring at me. Fixedly. “I read something online this morning.”
His wince made me gulp back the rest of what I had to say. “Not that again. That’s what got me in trouble with you when we first met,” he added.
“Yeah. Well, I remembered something this morning during my conversation with Carly. I’d never forgotten it exactly, but after Lorenzo last night, I guess I started sifting through my memories more carefully. I remembered Darren mentioned the name Olivia. I always assumed it was his wife, but…well, I just wanted to see.”
For so many reasons. Between the weird phone calls and the events of the previous evening, I couldn’t examine what I’d lived through too carefully. As difficult as it was, chances were good I’d overlooked some important pieces.
I wouldn’t overlook them any longer.
Tray rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “What did you find?” he asked, the question too hushed. I knew whatever I discovered he would face with me.
Lessening my burden, and increasing his.
“Nothing about Olivia, but a mention of an Eloisa Latimer. She was Darren’s wife. According to the article, anyway. I’m guessing Latimer was her maiden name.”
His grip tightened on my hand. Subconsciously, I was sure. “He was married while he…”
I nodded. “Yeah. He still wore his wedding ring. At least until—” I stopped, not wanting to make this more difficult for him.
The line between honesty and needless pain was impossible to navigate sometimes. Most times.
“It’s okay.” His chest shook with his rapid inhalations. “Finish it out.”
“I found an article about my Aunt Patty.” I told him the rest and watched his eyes widen.
“How could that be possible? They’d need your okay for a suit, wouldn’t they?”
“I was a minor. I don’t know.” I jerked a shoulder. “Carly said Patty never spent crazily, but I know what I read. She got money in my name, out of that hell. I have to try to figure out what’s going on.”
“We will. We’ll get to the bottom of it, after this week.”
“I can’t wait that long. Tray, I need to know. She and I never got along well, but this is insane. How could she profit from…” I took a deep breath. “They settled out of court. That’s probably the only way she kept me from knowing about it. Maybe she had a good lawyer, convinced Darren’s wife that I was a minor and a small cash payment would make it all go away.”
“Since when is three million a small cash payment?”
“Darren was wealthy. The house we stayed in was—”
“Stayed in?” He jerked up to a sitting position. “You mean the house he held you hostage in and raped you in?”
Averting my gaze, I nodded. I understood his frustration—did I ever—but I couldn’t alleviate it.
He exhaled. “Jesus, baby, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know it’s a lot.” Understatement of my lifetime.
“I want to kill him and I can’t.” He grabbed a pillow and punched it—and then stared, baffled, as it exploded and feathers rained down over both of us. “Well, that’s shoddy workmanship.”
I let out a laugh that bordered on a dry sob. “More like you don’t know your own strength, tough guy.”
He tossed aside the remnants of the pillow and leaned forward to cup my cheeks. “I’m not strong with you. But I’m the strongest I’ve ever been when it comes to keeping you safe.” He let his hands drop. “And God, I hate that I can’t go back into your past and protect you from that bastard.”
“It’s not your fight. It isn’t,” I murmured, laying a fingertip over his lips. “You’re with me, always, but you can’t fight it for me.”
He fell silent.
“You can do something for me though, and it’s going to be difficult. I’m sorry I even have to ask, but I don’t know who else to turn to.”
His lips curled in a ghost of a smile. “You mean more difficult than watching you walk into an octagon again?”
“Yes.” I forged ahead. “I want to speak to your father, in an official capacity. I need an attorney, and I don’t want to have this on the books anywhere. Not yet.”
It took him less than a moment to nod. “Yes. Of course. We’ll go on Monday.” He gripped my chin. “Then you’ll put it away until you kick Evie’s ass. Got it?”
Finally, a request I could agree to without hesitation.
“You bet your sweet ass.”
Fourteen
Multiple potential shitstorms were raging just outside the window, and what was I doing? Wrapping a casserole to take to dinner at my best buddy’s apartment.
“Be careful with that. It needs to breathe.” Sighing heavily, Carly grabbed her long-handled fork and poked holes in the foil covering her egg, cheese and bacon concoction.
There were potatoes in it too, and chives, and a whole bunch of other things I couldn’t identify. I was pretty sure she’d layered in spinach, and she knew I hated the stuff. Not that she cared. She said it was good for me, and I needed more iron in my diet.
I’d rather chew on chain link fences for fun than eat that wilted shit.
But on the whole, she cooked like a goddess. And the plate of oatmeal, cranberry, and chocolate chip cookies she was sending over to Slater’s helped soothe my wounded soul over the fricking spinach.
“Only two before dinner.” She narrowed her eyes as I poked my finger under the clear cellophane covering the cookies. “You’ll spoil your appetite.”
“Jeez. You sound just like a mother.”
Her mouth tightened just long enough for me to curse my stupidly huge mouth. “That’s the biggest compliment you could pay me,” she said quietly. “I’d love to be even a little bit like my mother.”
Clearing my throat, I stepped back and fell into my usual role with her. Disapproving older brother stand-in. “You certainly don’t look like a parental unit in that outfit. Where are you going dressed like that?”
She rolled her eyes and slid a stack of “crudités”—whatever they were, they looked like celery and peanut butter to me—into a plastic container. “It’s just a dress.”
It was black and had the usual parts of one—sleeves, neckline, hem. But otherwise, just a dress didn’t cover it. “I can almost see your ass.”
“Gross. You shouldn’t be looking at my ass.”
“I didn’t. It practically assailed me when I reached for a cookie.”
She snorted out a laugh. “Last minute party before culinary school starts. You know how it is.”
There was silver glittery shit in her hair. I couldn’t tell if it was tinsel leftover from Christmas or something she’d actually draped in it on purpose. “Another one? Mia said you went out last
night for the same reason.”
“So my friends are cool and want me to celebrate before I hit the books. And the culinary boards.” She giggled, but something about it sounded false to my admittedly oversensitive ear. “Ease off, dad.”
I wanted to say more. Almost did. Like I’d noticed her wearing too much makeup too often lately, and at times when she claimed she was just heading to her salad shop job. Then there was the money I’d seen in her wallet the other day when she’d offered to spring for pizza. A starving college student shouldn’t be walking around with wads of money like that, should she? Not in my experience. I came from money, and I hadn’t had that much on me at her age very often.
But I wasn’t her father. I wasn’t even legally her brother-in-law. Plus I was admittedly on edge more than usual lately, and I could very well be seeing things that weren’t problematic at all. With everything going on with Mia and my family, I was probably jumping at shadows that didn’t exist.
Carly was a smart girl, and I had to trust she was exercising that intelligence. Even in an ass-baring dress.
“You’re sure you don’t want to skip partying with a bunch of chicks and come hang out with your sister and me and Slater? When we invited you, it wasn’t to serve as chef, you know.”
“I know, but I couldn’t let Slater cook for you guys. You’d get ptomaine.” Her grin reminded me so much of Mia—and was such a surprising resemblance in a face that looked nothing like her older sister’s—that I caught myself smiling back. “I’m most bummed I won’t get to meet the new girl.” She frowned and sealed the lid on her travel food container. “I hope she’s better than the last five have been.”
“You’d think he would learn.” Taking advantage of her dismay over Slater’s heretofore dismal love life, I inched my pinky under the cellophane in hopes of dislodging the corner of a cookie. “It’s a damn shame.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t be smug just because you’ve been coupled up since the beginning of time. And drop that cookie, you thief.” She whirled on me and karate chopped the air, her hand stopping just above mine where it was shoved under the cellophane. “You are going to eat my casserole, and you’re going to like it.”
