Lewis Security

by Glenna Sinclair

  “How is it in here?” I whispered.

  “Not the nicest, but not too bad. Don’t pay attention to the stuff you see on TV—it’s not like that for me. I’m connected, so most people stay away from me. There’s guys from the organization here, too.” I hated his use of code. The organization. He could’ve been talking about a business. Then again, it was a business in a way.

  “So you’re not really alone,” I mused.

  “No, not really. Things could be worse. A lot worse.” He stared at me, willing me to understand.

  “I get it.”

  “So it’s a good thing I’m here.”

  “You’ll never get me to believe that,” I whispered with a quivering chin. Damn it, and I told myself I wouldn’t cry.

  “Don’t,” he implored. “I can’t take that.”

  I nodded as I fought to control myself. When I was sure I had my emotions pushed down, I replied, “I’m sorry. But I don’t believe you. This isn’t a good thing, Mikey.”

  “Listen to me. I made my choices. This is the outcome.” A smile floated across his face. “Remember when you drew on Dad’s car?”

  “Like I could ever forget, but I didn’t draw. I wrote.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, you learned about consequences, right? You did that, so a bunch of other things got screwed up because of it. Including vacation, which really pissed me off.” But he grinned a little.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “This is the same thing, right? Just a lot bigger. And more, you know, life sentence-length.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut to hold the tears behind my eyelids. I couldn’t let myself break down in front of him. “I just wish…”

  “Yeah. Me too. I wish a lot of things. But you know what they say about wishing, right? Wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one gets full faster.”

  “Charming,” I smirked.

  “But you get the point. All wishing does is make things worse.” He leaned in a little closer. “You’re okay, right?”

  “Yes. I’m okay. Everything’s fine on this end.”

  He let out a deep breath. “Good.”

  There was something that had haunted me for months, all through the trial and sentencing and the time afterward. “Would you have done it?”

  “Done what?”

  I tilted my head to the side and frowned. “You know what.”

  His expression shifted. “Honestly, Moll? I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t say no and mean it. I wasn’t thinking clear then. I was a mess that day. It was eating me up inside, the thought that they were gonna come after me when they knew everything. I don’t think I had slept in three solid days. Everything was a mess in my head. I was scared to death, I know that.”

  And I had to live with it. I just had to accept that he might have shot me if Brett hadn’t come to my rescue the way he did. My own brother. But then again, he had taken a bullet for me later on when he agreed to the offer Ricardo gave him. Did they cancel each other out? Maybe, maybe not. Some things in life never got a clean answer, I guessed. I had to get used to it.

  “What about your friend with the great aim?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Huh?”

  “You know who I mean.” He tapped his bicep, still smirking.

  My cheeks warmed up. “Why are you asking me about him? He’s just a person.”

  “Mm-hmm. Just a person who had his arms around you after. I saw. That wasn’t just a hug.”

  “Don’t hold it against him.” I tapped my own bicep.

  “I don’t. We both did what we had to do that day to protect somebody.” He gave me a wistful smile. “Though I never thought I would have to deal with one of your boyfriends shooting me.”

  “He’s not—”

  “Sure, sure, whatever. Just tell him I don’t hold it against him, okay? You know. If you ever see him again.” His smiled faded. “And when you see Mom and Dad… Tell them this isn’t their fault. I know they’ll think it is anyway, but it isn’t. Nobody had more chances than I did. This was all me. Tell them.”

  “Time’s up.” The burly guard walked the length of the room behind the inmates.

  “Tell them,” he said again as he pressed a hand against his side of the glass.

  I did the same. “I will. I promise.” He blurred in front of me as my eyes teared, and I watched as he got in line and filed out of the room along with the others.

  I stepped back outside a few minutes later and shaded my eyes against the sun’s strong rays. It was like night and day, going from inside the prison where everything was artificial down to the lighting to out in the parking lot. I heard voices on the other side of a wall which I assumed separated where I stood from the prison yard. My brother was out there, or would be soon. Among all the others.

  He could take care of himself, and so could the others who were taking care of him while he was there. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was leaving part of my heart behind. It wasn’t exactly like leaving him in another city where things were going well and he had a job and an apartment and a life. I would miss him, but I wouldn’t fret. How did people on the outside deal with knowing their loved one was inside? I would find out soon enough, wouldn’t I?

  I looked across the tops of several rows of cars and saw Brett waiting for me, leaning against his truck with his thumbs in his belt loops. I wondered if he knew how gorgeous he looked, standing there like that. And how needed. Because I needed him more and more every day. He got me. He understood what I was going through, the guilt I felt every day. And he always listened. I had only lasted a few days after Michael’s arrest before calling to ask if he wanted to get together for a drink. We had been together ever since, seeing each other whenever we could when he was working on a case. He’d checked in with Pax before driving me to the prison. He knew I couldn’t walk out of there and make the drive home alone.

  He wasn’t bad to look at, either.

  “How is he?” He wrapped his big, strong arms around me and let me rest my head against his chest. It felt so good after what I had just been through.

  “He’s all right. Better than I thought he would be.”

  “Good. He’ll be all right in there. They’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”

  “I know.” I squeezed my eyes shut tight and tried to force out the image of the way he looked in that jumpsuit. It killed me inside. I hated to imagine my amazing, talented, smart brother in there. I had to stop thinking of him as the person I used to know, however, and I was working on that, too.

  “And how are you?” He leaned back a little, and I straightened up and looked up into his face.

  “I’m good. I really am.”

  “Did you get your answer?”

  I winced. “Yes, but it’s not as cut-and-dry as I thought it would be. What is, right?”

  He ran a tender hand over my hair. “You’re right. Nothing’s that simple. Well…maybe one thing.” He smiled.

  “What’s that?”

  “The way I love you.”

  And that was just what I needed to hear. He always knew.

  Epilogue – Brett

  “I promise, this won’t take long.” Molly smiled over at me from the passenger seat.

  “Don’t rush them through it or anything,” I said. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Of course, it’s a big deal.” She squeezed my knee. “It’s our first anniversary, and my boyfriend was sweet enough to make plans. This is a big deal for me.”

  “It’s nothing huge. I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. You know me by now. I don’t need anything huge.” One more squeeze of my knee and she went back to checking her phone.

  She wasn’t kidding. She had to be the easiest woman in the world to please. If anything, she asked me on the regular not to go overboard when I bought things for her. She wanted only one Christmas present, only one thing for her birthday. And if they were too extravagant, she’d fold her arms and lo
ok at me in that way she had. I would tell her again and again that it made me happy to spoil her a little, and eventually she would cave and admit she loved whatever I had picked out. It was sort of our pattern.

  I hoped she would like what I planned for our anniversary. But I was pretty sure she would.

  We were on our way to Central Park so she could take engagement pictures for a couple who’d found her website—which, incidentally, was her birthday gift. I had worked with a developer friend of mine to put together something that would showcase her work and make it easier for clients to book appointments. My insides had quaked when I first showed it to her.

  “You can change it any way you want—I have the guy on retainer, so the sky’s the limit. But I thought this was a solid jumping off point.” And when she’d sat there, silent, I was so sure she would say she hated it. I could just imagine her jumping up and asking who in the hell I thought I was, having a website built for her without her knowing anything about it.

  Instead, she had thrown her arms around my neck and burst into tears. “I love it so much, don’t ever change anything about it, it’s beautiful!” She said a lot of other things, too, but I couldn’t make them out through her sobs. So that was a hit. And ever since, she had been booked solid.

  I dropped her off with her equipment, then parked in the closest garage and walked to the park. It was a beautiful day, comfortable for early August. There were hundreds, thousands of people in the park on a day like that. I saw picnickers and kids on roller skates, joggers and cyclists and people doing yoga on the grass. There was an older couple in front of me—they might have been in their seventies—holding hands as they walked. They didn’t walk fast, but they kept holding onto each other. Who the hell was Molly turning me into, that I noticed something like that? Dylan would laugh his ass off if he knew I even entertained that thought, but I had the feeling Spencer would get it.

  Molly had set up just outside Belvedere Castle, where the couple had asked her to meet them. They looked happy and in love and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. I stood back, at a distance, while Molly got to know them a little better and took a couple of test shots.

  She was still trying to get me to model for her, but that was a little too much to ask. Even for her, it wouldn’t feel right. She tried to pass it off as a way to get experience with the human form, but I told her she could find any model for that. “I’d have to pay them,” she would always remind me. “Besides, what if it’s some hot firefighter or sexy cowboy and I end up falling for them, instead?”

  That still wasn’t enough for me. She never stopped trying, though.

  “Okay,” she called out. “Let’s start over here, by this wall.” She asked them to put their arms around each other, with the girl’s left hand on the guy’s chest. Even from a distance, I caught the sparkle off the rock she was wearing. It was enough to make me want to shake the dude’s hand. He wasn’t screwing around.

  “That’s great. Now, what about if you sit on the wall, Greta, and William can stand between your legs, facing me. Now, wrap your arms around his neck with your left hand on top.” They did as she asked and she gave them a thumbs up while shooting more pictures.

  By that time, they had attracted a little attention. A crowd of maybe two-dozen people stood around to watch, and I heard them asking each other if the two getting the shots done were famous. They were good looking, sure, but people did things like that in the park all the time. That didn’t stop the onlookers from watching every minute.

  “Hey, Molly?” William glanced at me, then turned his attention back to her. “We had an idea for a photo. Do you mind if we give it a try?”

  “Oh, of course! Whatever you two have in mind!”

  I waited with my breath held as Greta walked over to where her purse was sitting on the ground—under it was a folded piece of poster board. She took it over to where William stood. “Ready?” she asked Molly.

  “All set.”

  So William took one end and Greta took the other, and they held it open in front of them. By the time Molly read the sign I had printed special for the occasion, I was standing behind her with the ring box in my hand.

  “Molly, will you marry me?” I heard her whisper. Then she gasped and spun around. I heard other gasps, too, coming from the crowd of onlookers—when I dropped to one knee, the gasps turned to squeals.

  “Are you serious right now?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “I hope that’s not unhappiness,” I whispered.

  “No, no! I’m just…I don’t believe it, is all. Oh, my God!” She covered her mouth with her hands.

  “I have spent the last year of my life loving you, and it’s been the best year of my life. I want every other year to be just as good, but I need you to make that happen. I promise if you say yes, I’ll fight for us until my last breath. What do you think? Will you marry me?”

  “Do you even have to ask? Yes, I will!” She was in my arms before I had even fully stood, and a cheer went through the crowd. We might as well have been the only two people in the world, though, as we kissed and her tears wet our faces.

  She pulled away and pointed at Greta and William. “Are you even really engaged?” she asked.

  “Yes!” Greta laughed. “Brett asked us to do this during the shoot and we couldn’t resist.”

  “Hey, you haven’t even looked at your ring.” I slid it over her finger, and her mouth dropped open when the center diamond sparkled. I thought it gave Greta’s ring a run for its money.

  And I could’ve predicted the next words out of my fiancée’s mouth. “Brett Miller, you know this is too much. I can’t accept such an extravagant ring!”

  “You will, and you’ll wear it, and you’ll love it.” I kissed the tip of her nose and pulled her closer to me. “That’s an order from your future husband.”

  “Well…” She looked at it again and wiggled her hand, chewing her lip. “I mean, if it’s an order, who am I to refuse?”

  ***

  Later, we were in the shower and I was holding her hips from behind while her palms pressed against the tile. I pulled her to me in time with my thrusts deep into her wet heat, hotter than the water hitting our bodies. She tightened as her cries got louder and longer, and I clenched my teeth and held on for her sake.

  “Yes!” She shouted, and her voice echoed through the small room. “Oh, God! Yes!” Her body shuddered convulsively while she clamped down around my length, and I waited until she was finished to slide out.

  She turned to face me and I pulled her into my arms. I was still hard, but I wanted to give her a minute to come down. We were both wrapped in steam, hot water washing over the both of us.

  “Tell me the truth,” I whispered as I stroked her back in long, slow strokes that ended at the curve of her ass. “Did you scream ‘yes’ at me, or at your ring?”

  She burst out laughing. “Maybe a little bit of both? I’m sorry, I can’t stop staring at it—and you can’t pretend it isn’t sexy as hell, because it is.”

  “I thought it was too extravagant,” I teased as I teased her body with my fingers. She let out a little whimper when I slid over the crack of her ass, down lower until I touched her swollen lips. One of her legs wrapped around my thigh, giving me better access to stroke the length of her cleft.

  “Maybe I…need to get used to…extravagance.” She cried out softly when I touched her clit, and all joking stopped as her hips started moving while she rode my hand. I held her tight to me, loving the way her heart hammered against mine as I drove her closer and closer all over again. Her arms were like a vice, her fingers like claws as she gripped me and whispered softly how much she loved it, how she wanted me to fuck her again and make her come. How she wanted me to come for her. I was almost ready to explode when I pressed her to the wall and slid inside her heat again, this time face-to-face.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and stood on tiptoe, one leg still over my thigh. I pushed up, thrusting deeper, and she groaned. Her
head dropped back against the tile, and I licked the exposed skin of her throat as I started fucking her the way she asked me to. There was no lovemaking then—we had plenty of time for that. I took her the way I needed to then, like an animal. We slapped together in a brisk, sharp rhythm and water splashed off our bodies as we crashed into each other.

  And she loved it as much as I did, grunting along with me every time I went as deep as I could go. I took her other leg and, lifting her, wrapped it around my hip. She held onto my shoulders and gasped in shock as I pummeled her with hard, deep strokes with her hips in my hands. “Oh! God! Yes! Brett!” She screamed out, her head falling back, water streaming over her and between us as she came again. This time I let go, too, almost roaring as the tension exploded.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered as I lifted her off, then lowered her feet to the floor of the tub. “What the hell was that and why haven’t we done that before?” She leaned her head against my chest.

  “There’s plenty of time to do everything we want to do to each other,” I promised.

  “I know.” She wrapped her arms around my back. “The rest of our lives.”

  BOOK 3:DYLAN

  Prologue – Pax

  I sat at my desk with a half-dozen letters spread out in front of me. They were all the same in many ways—same handwriting, same mocking tone. The same promises that we would meet again, sooner than I ever thought. The last of the letters had just shown up over the weekend, and it was the last straw. I picked up the desk phone to call an old friend.

  “Hello?” He sounded harassed, tired, burned out. I guessed a prison warden would be a prime candidate for burn-out.

  “Chuck. Is it a bad time?”

  “Paxton Lewis. You know it’s never a bad time for you. It’s just the usual busy morning around here. How’s it going?”

  “It’s been better.”

  “Which is, I guess, why you’re calling.”

  I smirked. “Yeah, I guess it is. I don’t call when things are going well.”