Fit to Be Tied

by Mary Calmes

“Miro,” he rasped.

  I slipped my hands around the sides of his neck and slowly lifted toward him.

  “It’s not—I can’t—you’re not replaceable.”

  “I know,” I said, smiling as I brushed my lips over his.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No,” I agreed, coaxing, my voice husky as I kissed him again, longer the second time, my tongue running over his bottom lip.

  He shuddered, the full body kind, and I felt the roll of desire tumble through me. His need was obvious; he had to be shown that I was okay, and me holding him down was necessary. The problem was, at the moment, I couldn’t.

  “I was gonna give up,” I confessed, and when he leaned back, I saw how focused on me he was, listening. “But then I thought, that’s not me. I don’t do that, and Ian, you, would miss me. I’m not just your partner at home, in bed. I’m your partner on the job and I have your back.”

  He nodded slightly.

  “So there was no choice. I had to get back to you.”

  His eyes filled. “There was nothing I could do.”

  Oh, he was hurt down deep. “Are you sorry?”

  “What?”

  I had to dig it out of him or it would fester and become something we couldn’t get past. “Are you sorry you started up with me?”

  He squinted, obviously lost.

  “If you didn’t love me, it wouldn’t have felt like that.”

  He searched my face.

  “But… if you didn’t love me,” I repeated, slower, “it wouldn’t have felt like that.”

  It took him several breaths to answer as I petted the sides of his neck and kissed his left temple and his right cheek and nuzzled the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.”

  I lifted both eyebrows, questioning. “Yeah, what?”

  “Yeah, it’s worth it,” he growled. “Yeah, I felt like I couldn’t fuckin’ breathe, but—I wouldn’t change it or… even if I could go back, I wouldn’t.”

  “You could change it now,” I apprised him. “We could go back to being—”

  “That would be easy for you?”

  “That would fuckin’ kill me,” I swore, gripping him tighter. “But you have to know what you can do, what you can gamble on and what you can live with. I do it whenever you’re deployed. I hold my breath the whole time you’re gone.”

  I saw it hit him, the reality of what I was telling him, the truth of it. “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah,” I said, letting him go. “You think it’s your job and it sucks being away from me and your life, but for me—it’s like that.”

  “’Cause you don’t know.”

  I nodded. “I never have any idea when you’ll be back.”

  “Or if.”

  “I don’t do ‘if,’” I retorted, suddenly annoyed. “I never do ‘if.’”

  We were silent, staring at each other.

  “Okay,” he finally said.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Don’t be so quick to offer me an out next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  “Make sure,” he grumbled as he leaned in and kissed me, tipping my head back and opening my mouth.

  Dominant Ian full of hunger was a huge turn-on, and my dick noticed, hardening fast.

  “Miro?” he asked before he kissed me again, continuing his lazy, decadent assault, each drugging kiss becoming another and another, sucking on my tongue, feasting on my lips, pressing me down, his warm hand on my chest. When he tried to pull back, I fisted my hand in his Henley and held him where he was. “Oh, you want me,” he said arrogantly, breaking the kiss to grin at me, bumping my nose with his.

  “Could you—” I had to swallow hard to get my voice back. “Get in my lap?”

  His chuckle was deep and sexy, and I couldn’t stifle my groan. “I’m sorry, what did you need?”

  I squirmed on the bed, which made him smile, and to see it with how wrecked he looked made me deliriously happy. It was clear that Ian Doyle loved me very much. I could see it all over him.

  “Just lay there and be good and don’t tease me. You have at least three more days until you’re even out of here, let alone ready to engage in any sexual intercourse.”

  “What if I get a note from the doctor?”

  He shook his head. “That fuck took a rib out of you,” he finished, and I saw the pain flicker across his face.

  “No-no-no.” I stopped him, hooking my hand on the collar of the Henley and trying to yank him down to me. “Stay hot for me. Focus on that, focus on me.”

  “M—”

  “Ian,” I begged, hand around the back of his neck, slipping up into his hair. “Don’t get so caught up in what could have been that you lose track of what is.”

  “No, I know.”

  “I’m here, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re happy?”

  “That’s a stupid fuckin’—”

  “Tell me,” I demanded.

  He took a shaky breath. “Yeah, I’m happy.”

  “Well, then,” I said before I drew him down to me.

  I made enough noise after he ravished my mouth, with endless pleading and suggestions about how he could draw the curtains and lock the door, that he had to stuff a pillow over my face to get me to be quiet. It wasn’t my fault. I really wanted to go home.

  WE FLEW home on Sunday, and by the time we made it to the townhouse, people were there.

  “Shit,” I grumbled, and Ian snickered behind me.

  “I don’t know why you’re laughing,” I said as I followed behind him on my crutches. “You ain’t gettin’ laid either.”

  He laughed harder, and when he opened the front door, Chickie came bounding over to me and tried to take the crutch away. I waved at the crowd crammed into our living room as they all applauded.

  Aruna was holding her daughter, Sajani, and when I reached her, I stopped before hugging her because I got distracted with what was going on in front of me. Having been shooed away from me, Chickie was now sitting patiently in front of Aruna, his entire focus riveted on the baby in her arms. Sajani was squealing, kicking her feet, and cooing down at the dog.

  “What happens if you put her on the floor?” I asked.

  “Oh Miro, you’re home and—”

  “Lemme see,” I interrupted, smiling because Chickie’s tail was thumping so hard and fast that it sounded like a motor.

  Aruna rolled her eyes and put Sajani on the floor, much to Chickie’s obvious glee. He danced a few feet away, turned, crouched down, and whined at her.

  Sajani was laughing as she crawled over to him. The second her teeny hand gently brushed his nose, he repeated the motion, darting away, but not far, got down and waited again.

  “She crawls now?” I was amazed.

  “Quite well, yes,” she sighed, leaning into me, arm around my waist, head notched underneath mine. “And she loves that stupid dog.”

  “So what do you do when they’re doing that?”

  “I sit on the couch and eat Godiva,” she said snidely.

  Hurt or not, I was treading on thin ice. I knew she was a new mother who now also worked from home. “I’m just giving you shit.”

  “Yes, dear,” she said, kissing my cheek. “I know.”

  Minutes later, I flopped down on a corner of my sectional, and the members of our team were fast to take the other spots: Kohn on my left, Kowalski on his, then White on my right, and Sharpe on his. Becker and Ching sat on the rustic, industrial coffee table, which I was lucky was very sturdy, and Dorsey and Ryan hovered beside them.

  “So, you good?” Ching asked what no one else seemed able to.

  “Yeah.”

  He pointed at me. “He took a rib?”

  I nodded.

  He leaned forward. “When we catch him, I’ll take one of his.”

  It meant a lot coming from him, and when I patted his knee, he covered my hand for a second before nodding.

  “Did they tell you about Wojno?” Becker asked
me.

  “Miro, I made shepherd’s pie. I’m serving you some!” Aruna called from the kitchen.

  I twisted in my seat to look over at her. “Do you even know how to make that?”

  Her gaze could peel paint.

  “Oh, for crissakes, I’m sorry.”

  “Liam’s mother taught me, you asshat,” she snapped at me. “Just sit there and look pretty, will you?”

  I threw up my hands, much to the enjoyment of my fellow marshals, their peals of laughter making me smile in spite of myself.

  “Hey,” Becker said, snapping his fingers to get my attention. “Listen.”

  He then had all my attention, as well as Ian’s. He was lingering behind me, leaning on the console table behind the couch.

  “Wojno’s dead.”

  “What?” I barely got out.

  “Yeah. Hartley—and we know ’cause his DNA is all over the body—he took out his rib cage and left him on the side of the road.”

  I processed that, everything becoming clear. “That was supposed to be me, right? I mean, that was his plan. I just didn’t hang around long enough.”

  “No,” Kohn argued. “He was careful with you.”

  “Because he didn’t want me dead that fast. It was gonna be a long, slow painful process.”

  “Stop,” Aruna ordered as she approached the coffee table, pushing by the men, reaching for my hand. “Get up, come sit at the table and eat and visit and talk to me and your friends. Once I go, you can talk about all the horrors you want.”

  Kowalski and Becker lifted me to my feet, and Kohn helped me around the couch until I could reach Ian. Putting my hand on his shoulder, I hobbled over to the kitchen table and took a seat on one end of the bench. It was a picnic-style setup, so we never had to go hunting for chairs.

  The food was good. Everything Aruna ever made was. The loaded shepherd’s pie—apparently Liam’s mom gave hers a little kick—grape, avocado, and arugula salad; homemade yeast rolls with cinnamon butter; and chocolate peanut butter brownies for dessert because Aruna knew they were Ian’s favorite. Watching her hug him was particularly endearing.

  The meal took a couple of hours, and when everyone else was gone and it was only us marshals left, the ten of us, sitting around having beer, Kohn started again.

  “I think the rib cage is symbolic.”

  “It protects your chest, your heart,” Dorsey chimed in. “So by Hartley taking Wojno’s rib cage, he was taking what was supposed to guard his heart.”

  “And that’s why he took your rib,” Ryan agreed. “It was supposed to be the start.”

  We were all silent.

  “Wojno deserved what he got,” Kowalski told us. “Just because Miro got away from that fuckin’ psychopath doesn’t let him off the hook.”

  “Agreed,” Ching said quietly, meeting my gaze. “He would have let it be you instead of him. You can’t forgive that simply because Hartley took out losing you on him.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what happened to Wojno,” Sharpe announced, getting up to walk into my kitchen to grab himself another beer. “He was dirty, and when you’re dirty you get what you get. But the report says he was sliced up his back and the rib cage was cut out of him and that it was done—at least for a few seconds—when he was alive.”

  No one said a word.

  “For that—I’m putting a bullet in that guy’s head myself,” Sharpe growled.

  “I just want him caught, one way or another,” Ian said. “I don’t want Miro to keep looking over his shoulder.”

  “Yeah,” Ching agreed. “One way or another.”

  THEY STAYED late—it was Friday night—drinking beer, talking, watching ESPN, and telling us what had gone on while we were vacationing in Phoenix.

  “Fuck you all,” I groused.

  “It’s like this giant glass terrarium that they work in,” Ian was explaining later as I was chuckling beside him. “I mean, seriously, it’s still in the nineties there, and it’s fuckin’ October.”

  “You didn’t have to go,” Kohn mentioned.

  Ian flipped him off.

  “When do you need to sit with the Feds and talk about Wojno?” Dorsey wanted to know.

  “Monday,” I sighed. “They’re coming to the office to talk to me.”

  Everyone was quiet after that.

  Once we had the house to ourselves, Ian took some Cokes and sandwiches out to the cops in the patrol car sitting on our curb. Until Hartley was caught, they’d be there night and day. It was a shitty gig, and I really hoped he’d show himself soon, because if he was still at large in January, we’d have to let the cops camp out in our living room. It would be way too cold to be guarding the house in the middle of winter in Chicago. No car heater could run that long.

  I was turning off the big lights and flipping on the ones we left on at night when I heard Ian come in behind me.

  “You’re supposed to be using the crutches.”

  Looking over my shoulder at him, I watched as he closed and locked the front door—we used a key and turned the deadbolt when we went in or out—before darting over to me.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why aren’t you using them?”

  “I’m contemplating the stairs.”

  He chuckled. “Oh yeah?”

  I grabbed hold of the bannister on the left, since on the right there was only the wall, looked him up and down, leering, and then took a breath. “Yeah… contemplating.”

  He swallowed hard, and his voice came out like dried leaves. “What’s with you?”

  “You. You’re with me.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And I wanna get laid.”

  His smile crinkled the lines around his eyes. “I don’t think you can do that with your surgery and—”

  “Yes, I can,” I assured him, bracing my arm and leaning so it would take my weight as I hopped.

  “Don’t do that,” he ordered. “You’ll tear your stitches.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yeah, but I do,” he rumbled, pushing by and stopping in front of me before kneeling, presenting me with his broad back.

  It took me a second. “Oh, fuck no.”

  He didn’t even try and hide the snickering. “Come on, M, lemme help you.”

  “Just move,” I grumbled, trying to push him out of the way with my knee. “Kage won’t let me out on the street with you if he thinks I can’t—”

  “Now,” he demanded, “or it’ll get really embarrassing for you.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I can caveman carry you up, if you’re into that.”

  “With my rib out and all?” I called his bluff.

  “It’s gone, it ain’t broken or healing,” he informed me. “It’s the ankle and the stitches in your shoulder at this point.”

  “Seriously, I—”

  “And you’re not going out with me, you know that.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  He turned and sat down, which meant he had to look up at me even though he was above me on the stairs. “You can’t, not until the ankle heals. You’re stuck at your desk until the cast is off and until you complete the PT and you get the all clear from the doctor.”

  “No, I—”

  “It’s at least six weeks and then however long the physical therapy takes after the cast comes off.”

  “You think I’m gonna be on desk duty for two months? I’ll die of boredom.”

  “You won’t die of anything, actually,” he growled, getting up and shoving by me, charging back down into the living room.

  “Oh, I get it,” I said, swiveling around so I could see him at the front door, grabbing Chickie’s leash and pulling on the navy knit jacket hanging there, what we both grabbed to wear to walk the dog, at least until it got cold enough outside to layer. “You want me to sit my ass behind a desk where I’ll be safe.”

  “And what the fuck is wrong with that?”

  “I’m a
goddamn marshal, the same as you. The threat of getting hurt is part of the job.”

  “I think you’ve had enough excitement for a while.”

  “You don’t get to decide that!”

  “No,” he agreed icily. “But your ankle does, doesn’t it?”

  I was stunned. “You’re happy I’m hurt.”

  “I am not, and that’s a shitty thing to say.”

  “You’re happy I’m off the street,” I accused.

  “And if I am?”

  “What the fuck, Ian? I’m your partner. Before anything else, I’m the guy who—”

  “No!” he roared. “Before anything else you’re my life, you stupid prick!”

  Thoroughly gobsmacked, I just stood there as he stormed out of the house with Chickie in tow, slamming the door so hard I was surprised it didn’t splinter.

  I sat down on the stairs and tried to put things together.

  Us being more than partners was new, but for whatever reason, I was still putting the bulk of my importance to him on the work partnership. And I knew a lot of it was because it was there that I had proven my worth to Ian Doyle to begin with. I was always the first guy through the door after him, and he knew he could count on me. But apparently, whether or not I followed him out into the field, I was still the guy he wanted to come home to.

  Getting up, I grabbed the crutch I had left leaning against the stairs, balanced myself as I held on to the railing, and with a sort of rocking motion, up on the right, lift, and lean back to the left, I made it up the stairs.

  Earlier in the day, Ian had run garbage bags up to the bathroom and put them under the sink so I’d have them when I took a shower. They would protect the cast that covered all but my toes on my left foot and extended up to under my knee. I secured a bag before I got in the shower. I had to figure out what I was going to wear to work on Monday, since with my boss, sweats and lounge pants weren’t going to cut it.

  I was drying my hair, towel wrapped around my waist, when I heard the front door open and close. After limping to the edge of the loft and looking down, I watched as Ian hung up Chickie’s leash, took off the jacket, and went to the kitchen to wash his hands. The point of taking the dog out was so he could take a crap, so even through two layers of bag, it felt gross. Once he was done, I was surprised he didn’t come up.