“Explore? Create? Cultivate?”
“Perhaps nothing so…artistic, Mr. Famous Photographer.”
“Not famous, just kind of known. I think you’ll benefit from an evening out with Nolan and me.” Lore recognized his attempt to deflect the conversation away from himself, but she let him get away with it.
“Why is that?”
His large hand rested over hers atop the car door. The nail beds were caked with red and green paint, making her imagine what a wonder it would be to stumble on Kieran in an artistic mood. She didn’t think he would be the type of artist who withdrew and shut himself in a studio for hours without any contact with the outside world. No, he would share his talents and express his marvel of the world through wild colors and passionate bouts of artistry.
“We’ll show you how being artistic is not as out there as it’s made out to be.”
If only he knew how much she admired his artistic sensibilities.
“Is Nolan an artistic type?” Lore asked as Kieran took a step forward. She tried to remain relaxed, not wanting to give away how his proximity made her heart spin like a propeller. “I never figured him as such.”
He leaned down to whisper in her ear, his stubbly cheek brushing against hers. “Let’s just say there was an incident not too long ago with paint and naked bodies that proved he could be powerfully artistic when he chooses to.” With that tantalizing image, she felt lips brush her cheek and a wisp of breath grace her jaw. “I’ll call you later for the whens and wheres of our date, okay, sugar?” He backed away, removing his hand from the car to tuck into his jeans pockets, making him look like a fiendish rogue, the kind of man you wanted to hop on a motorcycle with and do bad things to.
“Not a date,” she corrected matter-of-factly, getting into the car and starting it up. “A get-together.”
“As you please, Lore.”
NOLAN WATCHED FROM across the parking lot as his lover leaned over to give Lore a perfectly innocent kiss on the cheek. To his immense delight, he could have sworn he saw her shiver. No doubt she craved Kieran as most women did; the man’s inherently jovial and loving nature paired with a body that could make the straightest man fall to his knees in supplication was a powerful love potion to have at his disposal. But Lore actively tried to keep her emotions inside. Unwilling to let even a small kiss on the cheek give her any sort of outward pleasure, no matter how innocent. He had never met a person with such a tight leash on their emotions. She probably even knew how to control a blush.
It was with an unbound glee that Nolan watched her perfectly woven composure loosen just an inch of the constricting corset of control she kept herself leashed with, and all with a simple kiss on the cheek.
Nolan took a big bite out of the breakfast sandwich he’d snagged from the diner across the street while waiting for Kieran’s class to end. Bacon, egg, and cheese greasy goodness dripped down his chin to create a mess that made the sandwich all the more delicious. Rumbling laughter nearby made him look up from his attempt to contain the messy breakfast mishap. Kieran was leaning against a lamppost, his curly wet hair slightly frizzy from his quick after-yoga shower.
“You’re disgusting,” Kier said with a smile, holding out a napkin.
“Hey, a man’s gotta eat his breakfast.” Nolan took the napkin with a nod of thanks and wiped the excess grease off his mouth.
“You missed a spot.” Kieran’s hands rested against his chest as Kier leaned in to lick the remaining grease off his chin. Kier’s tongue reminding him of the crazy sexcapades they’d been having since introducing little Ms. Lore Beyer into their lovemaking fantasies. Nolan tilted his head to steal a quick and greasy kiss before pulling back.
“Thanks,” he said to Kieran, never happier than when his lover had that lazy, indulgent smile on his face. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“She will not be coming over for dinner tonight, but she will go out to dinner with us sometime during the week.”
“During the week?” Nolan groaned through a mouthful of food. “Who goes on a date during the week? We can’t seduce her then. I’ll have work the next day.”
“I sort of think that’s why she said during the week.”
Nolan frowned, taking a moment to finish off the rest of his delicious breakfast. “You can’t tell me that she suspects we want to bring her into our bed. Who makes that kind of leap? There is no way that woman has ever had a ménage before. I will bet my next breakfast sandwich on that.”
“Big talk from the big man.”
Nolan leaned in to bite Kieran’s bottom lip. The guy was too tempting for his own good. “Be careful, or you’ll feel just how big watching the two of you together made me.”
“I’m counting on it,” Kieran said with a wink, kissing Nolan lightly before looking back in the direction Lore’s car drove off in. “She’s not a prude, but I think she may be intensely introverted. I get the feeling she doesn’t like going out in general, so going out on a workday means we can’t take her out to a bar or club or something afterward.”
“Do you think this is a good idea?” Nolan asked after a moment, worrying about Lore’s reaction once they made their intentions clear.
“What?”
“Attempting to seduce her? She’s not like the others, Kier. Those women knew what they were getting into comin’ to bed with us. They knew it was a fling and that they were the guest, the third. We go for experienced women for a reason. No chance of hurt feelings.”
“It will be fine.” Kieran looked over at Nolan with a confidence he too clearly couldn’t commit to.
“Kieran, be honest.” Nolan took Kieran’s hand, needing Kieran to see how worried he was all of a sudden. “Why are we pursuing her like this when we know she’ll likely balk at what we want? She isn’t our usual type. I don’t know why I suggested this in the first place.”
“Why are you worrying so much? Relax.”
“Kieran…” Why wasn’t Kieran being straightforward? They were always bluntly honest with one another. It was why their relationship worked so well.
“Fine.” Kieran grunted, his lips turning down as he rested his arms on the top of the car, rubbing his temples in concentration. “I like her,” he said without looking up at Nolan, a sure sign he was concerned what Nolan would think of his opinion. Nolan gave him his full attention. “There is something beneath that hardened shell that is screaming for release. She really is a wonderfully kind person. Determined. Stubborn. She’s special.”
“Special?” Nolan asked, feeling a small pinch in the region of his heart. It was the one danger of bringing women into their bed on a regular basis. What happened if one of them became emotionally attached, but the other didn’t? The crux of it was, he and Kieran were bisexual. They both needed women to feel sexually satisfied. Nolan loved having sex with just Kieran; the man was beyond creative in bed and knew exactly what drove him wild with pleasure. But he would be lying if he said he’d never need to sleep with a woman again. It was the same for Kieran. They were attracted to both men and women and needed both to thrive. So they brought women in, believing they could separate their sexual desires from their emotions where the fairer sex was concerned. The fact that Kieran was already calling Lore special, and that they were going above and beyond their usual measures to catch her attention, made a warning bell go off in Nolan’s head. What if Kieran’s desire for Lore eventually eclipsed what he felt for Nolan? Could that happen? Nolan didn’t think he would survive another heartbreak.
The ever-perceptive Kieran must have caught something in his tone that made him look up from the car, his expression laced with concern.
“Hey,” Kieran said, moving in to wrap Nolan in those strong arms he loved so much. “We don’t do this unless we both want to.” Nolan burrowed his head against Kieran’s neck, breathing in the fresh Irish soap smell that soothed his nerves. “We’ll stop if you want. Tell me what you want, please. You’ll always come first, Nolan.” A gentle kiss on Nolan’s head. “Always.”
Nolan sighed, the warmth and reassurance Kieran provided going a long way to dispose of any insecurities he had about his standing in their relationship. Nolan had had a rough go of it in the way of love and relationships before Kieran came along to heal his heart. It said a lot about how confident he was in their love that he could even consider bringing women into their bed, let alone do it on a regular basis.
“All right,” Nolan said with a hesitant smile, pulling back enough to look into Kieran’s big brown eyes. “Honestly. I’m as attracted to her as you are. There were any number of fantasies inappropriately running through my head during the meetings Wayne and I would have with her. But I don’t know her on a personal level like you do. I want to be able to see what you see in her before we take it further. If I can’t, then…”
“Then we’ll stop. Immediately cut it off. Agreed.” Kieran leaned down that one inch separating their heights to touch his mouth to Nolan’s. “Equal or not at all,” he whispered against Nolan’s lips before taking them in a soul-stealing kiss, making him wish they weren’t in such a public place.
“I love you, Nolan,” Kieran whispered, hugging him tightly. “You’re mine, and I love you.” And Nolan knew it in his very soul to be the truth.
Chapter Six
Lore sat with her knees to her chin in her father’s old chair, the leather so worn and tarnished it would have fit right in on a trash heap. So many items in her childhood home—picture frames, furniture, linens—all were dated and showing more than a subtle sign of age. But they were clean. As if her family had been given one set of everything they’d need and then told it had to last a lifetime.
That was the way she’d lived as a child. Taking care of every little thing with meticulous precision. Her mother’s voice had constantly been in her head, screaming how their things were precious and irreplaceable, constantly being reminded to take care. Lore would watch other children letting loose and playing in the snow or the dirt; they’d be reckless, not caring whether their clothes became stained or worrying about their mother’s reaction to a torn knee in their jeans. Their parents would come to collect them after school and would smile indulgently, possibly give a small scolding, telling the child to be more careful. Darlene had been convinced the apocalypse had come every time she had to buy Lore new shoes.
And who knew it had all been for nothing, that they could have been living comfortably from the money both her parents had, for their own twisted reasons, decided to hide. Lore didn’t want to remember her mother as the high-strung, worrisome woman she’d been when her husband wasn’t around, and most definitely not as the near catatonic creature she’d become after the arrest. Instead, Lore closed her eyes and remembered the smiles on the days they’d gone to the beach or when her father had taken her mother out for a husband-and-wife dinner, once Lore was old enough to stay home without a babysitter. In those moments, her mother had been beautiful.
Shaking her head and sighing deeply, Lore removed herself from the chair, grimacing when the old wood squeaked as she relieved it of her body weight. It was time to pack up the house. She’d been avoiding it for the last year, letting it fall into disrepair and procrastinating whenever she had a day off without any pressing matters to attend to. But she was unemployed now and had run out of excuses.
Lore began in the living room, lining up the boxes and labeling them in sharp-point black magic marker. The first half of the day was spent in the kitchen and living room, tossing old yet salvageable pots and pans, then knickknacks and worn picture frames into the donate bins. All the garbage would go into heavy contractor bags and be thrown on the lawn, awaiting pickup by a garbage-disposal service she’d arranged for the end of every week until she was finished.
It was on the third day of cleaning that she started on her father’s study. His haven. He’d spent the most time in that room scheming and planning the best way to make his money, convincing his family he was a salesman. And the worst of it was, it was all money he hoarded and never told his family about. Not even the government knew of its whereabouts. It wasn’t until after his death and the review of his will that it came to light that her crime-lord father had left every penny to Lore, his only daughter. His precious little mischief maker, as he’d liked to call her, back before that one New Year’s Eve.
As these things went, once the government became aware of it, they took every penny. Not that she cared about the money; she wouldn’t have accepted it knowing where it originated. The real shock of that news had come from knowing he’d left everything to her and to her alone. There had been nothing for her mother. He’d wanted Lore’s future to be secure, as he’d said in his will. Staring at a picture of her small family on the wall of his office, another staged object giving his life verisimilitude, the dichotomy of his nature seemed all too real, too harsh. On one hand, he was this terrible person who supplied men with weapons to do terrible deeds; on the other, he was her father and he wanted good things for her, wanted her to go to college and become a normal person.
Taking a moment to close her eyes and shore up any cracks in her emotional defenses, she began to clean out the room that smelled of peppermint and old paperback novels. She erased her father, dividing him up into boxes or tossing him onto the lawn for the garbage men to do with as they pleased.
It was as she was taking a framed silent movie poster down from the wall that she saw the safe. Her father, her mysterious and misguided father, had a safe hidden behind a framed poster. Of course he had a wall safe behind an old-timey movie poster. He was the stereotypical seemingly harmless villain—a character he’d always favored when they watched movies. He hadn’t turned out to be as harmless as he would have liked, but he still held to the archetype. Charm and panache so thick you could never see through them to the truth beneath.
She hesitated a moment, staring at the digital number pad. She wasn’t a locksmith, wasn’t a criminal lock-breaking mastermind, although her father probably would have loved if she had been. A quick search on the Internet, a brief conversation, and about a half hour later found her standing next to a young, muscular man with bright red hair and large, thick sideburns named Rocky.
“My parents were big fans of the movie,” he said when she ineffectively tried to hide her amusement. “But I prefer to be called Rocko.” She was all too happy to oblige.
Cracking the safe required her to provide her father’s death certificate and prove she was his daughter by way of birth certificate, thereby verifying she wasn’t some random crook trying to get into an old man’s safe. Oh, the irony. The worst criminal in the house was lying in an urn on the coffee table in the living room, and here she was, a lifetime dedicated to acting normal and following the letter of the law, attempting to crack her father’s old safe.
“This is a really common safe,” the denim-coveralls-clad Rocko said after a quick perusal of the safe. “Used in a lot of old hotels and mass-produced back in the nineties for civvy households.”
“So you think it will be easy to open?” Lore felt relieved she wouldn’t have to jump through hoops or decode a secret message to open the damn thing. The less time spent on this mess, the better.
“Well…it would be if it weren’t for this little ditty right here.” His pointed forefinger brought her attention to a small design on the corner of the safe. It was a mass of swirls and curlicues painted in shades of red and blue.
“What is that?” she asked, leaning forward from her position on the desk to get a better look.
“That, ma’am, is a calling card,” Rocko said proudly, looking far more eager than she felt.
“For what?” His smarmy, know-it-all grin was beginning to irk her. “Just tell me why you can’t open the safe.”
“Those scribbles might look like they’re random, but they’re not.” His large arms crossed, muscles bulging as he imparted his worldly-wise locksmith knowledge to her. “I’ve seen it a bunch of times before in this general vicinity. Mostly when I worked some local cop cases.�
�� He was very impressed with himself. Lore contained herself from fainting from being near his manly prowess. “A somewhat infamous lock pick from around these parts would leave that on a safe he’d either built or tampered with. My bet? This safe looks innocuous enough but, if attempted to open without the proper password, will seal up, and you won’t ever get that baby open. The stuff inside might even self-destruct, depending on the value the client placed on their possessions.”
“Why would anyone want their possessions to destruct? If it’s stolen, at least you can get it back.”
“Nah, because safes like these, they didn’t hold the family jewels. They held information, and once that is gone, you never get it back.”
Her heart stopped, and a chill ran down her spine. Information, like a list of clients to sell weapons to? No, if this safe had anything in it, the cops would have removed it from the damn wall trying to get inside it. “Some criminal mastermind made my dad a foolproof safe?” It was official: this day couldn’t get worse.
“Looks like it.”
“Of course he did.” She sighed, rubbing her forehead and contemplating how the hell she was gonna get the damn thing open. “Nothing can ever be easy.”
“Screw easy,” he said with an excited grin. “This shit is like something out of a spy movie.”
“Thanks, Rocko. Any more advice on what I should do?”
“Get the password. Will be eight digits. Probably a date. But one wrong try and you’re out of luck.”
She gestured for him to exit the room. “Again, thanks for your help.” As little help as it had been.
“You still gotta pay me for my time, lady.”
“Of course I do.”
Chapter Seven
“Kieran, stop, please,” Nolan begged, carrying four bags of crap they most certainly didn’t need and trailing Kieran from stall to stall in the little home goods fair that had opened up the previous day. Set in a large, unused parking lot, stalls crowded the space from fence to fence, teaming with little old ladies looking for new tchotchkes to put on their bookshelves. Nolan couldn’t believe there were so many different antique, collectible plates with kittens on them. Who needed that many kitten plates?
A New Resolution Page 7
