Three Hitmen: A Triple Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 2)

by Alice May Ball

  The heat of their ridged flesh hardened and grew in the grip of my fingers. My lips parted and my eyelids drooped. I managed to say, “Am I bad enough yet?”

  “God, no,” Liam lifted his face from my neck and his eyes danced like flames. His hand slid inside the open white shirt and cupped my breast. Squeezed it and heightened the ache in my hard nipple. “No, you’re barely even started yet. Wouldn’t you say, Declan?”

  “That long scarf.” I twitched at the dark tone in Declan’s voice. His free hand lifted the gray silk and wound it loosely around my neck.

  “Ah,” Liam said, “I know what your mind’s working on there,” and he chuckled. “You’re thinking about a little gasp, are you not?”

  Declan’s voice went a tone lower, “You know how I love that.”

  I’d heard the two men talk about something like that before and I still didn’t know what it meant. It was something sexual, obviously. Something we would get to try. I had no doubts about that. From the tones of their voices I knew that it would be something dark. Scary, maybe. They were dark and scary men. That was a big part of why I loved them so much, why I felt so drawn to them, like I couldn’t live without them. Even though we’d only known each other a very short time, even though we had spent so few days together, and fewer nights, I knew that my life was theirs and I couldn’t ever imagine it without them.

  Liam’s eyes glinted as his hand joined with Declan’s between my thighs. “Would you say that she was bad enough yet?”

  How I could have had the good luck to be trapped, jammed, pinned between these two gorgeous killers, I couldn’t say, but there was no going back now. Without them, I thought I would simply die.

  Declan’s breath was warm on my ear, “Ah, no.” He pressed his finger through the torn silk and teased the base of my throbbing clit. “She’s a long way to go yet.”

  The house phone chirruped. Again.

  Declan stiffened. “Has Irons been calling?”

  I gripped both of their cocks tighter. Wanting this moment to last. To extend. To go where it should. To take us, take me, where I knew it would not.

  I had to tell them, “He said he was coming.”

  Liam’s breath was hot on my neck, “God damnit,” and his hands tightened on my shoulders. The phone chirruped again.

  When he called earlier, he said that he would be coming straight away. And that must have been more than half an hour ago. Even though I told him that Liam and Declan were out, he said that he would come.

  If anything, when I told him, “I don’t know what time they’ll be back,” he sounded even more determined.

  “I’ll come right over.”

  He couldn’t talk business with me. I had no part in the business. Liam and Declan told him that, over and over. Irons kept on insisting that I would ‘have a part to play,’ like he was the boss of them. Which it started to look like, he kind of was, in a way.

  Liam and Declan were never possessive or jealous with me, except around Irons. They both stiffened whenever his name came up.

  The three of us were bound to Irons. We never talked about it, hardly ever even mentioned him, but he was always there. The thought of him. What he would demand of Declan and Liam. And what he was going to want from me. We all knew that it was coming.

  There was a bang on the door.

  ~~~~

  Liam lifted his hand to me to wait where I was as he turned to go to the door, like he might be able just open the door and stay there. Talk to Irons. Keep him in the hallway. Come back to pick up where he left off.

  His pants had a damp patch over his thigh. Where his leg had been I felt cold and a little lost. Declan wasn’t as tight behind me. We all knew that Irons would be coming in, that we would have to sit down with him. But it was easy to tell that none of us wanted it. Maybe my reasons weren’t quite the same as Liam’s and Declan’s.

  Liam pulled the door open. Irons’ eyes shone like lasers over Liam’s shoulder, into the suite. Hunting. Looking for me. I knew it. He didn’t speak. Immediately his intense gaze fixed on me. Scanned up my legs. Over the rumpled shirt. Inside where the linen hung open. Lingered on the way up my hot cleavage and my throat. Then snapped into my eyes.

  When he looked at me, it felt like a physical force, like his eyes skewered me and held me. Liam didn’t move to invite Irons in, but Irons didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry.

  Eventually, Liam said, “What can I do for you?”

  Irons carried on looking at me for a while, like he challenged me to guess what he was thinking. After the way his eyes had toured my body, I thought I could probably make a good enough guess. Over Liam’s shoulder, I couldn’t see much of Irons apart from his face. His eyes mainly. But I could see that he didn’t move.

  Irons had a stillness that always made me draw breath. Like I needed to be prepared. Like I couldn’t tell what would happen next. Liam and Declan were the most exciting men I had even met. But Irons was probably the scariest.

  Finally, Irons’ eyes let go of me and he asked Liam, “Got a decent whiskey?”

  Liam’s head tipped up as he said, “You’d better come in.” And began to move aside.

  Irons’ perfectly tailored dark gray suit had a hint of blue in the sheen. His silk tie was a shade of the same blue. He wore supple, black brogues and a belt with a heavy silver buckle and an intricate rope pattern at the edges.

  All of the cushions and pillows from the armchairs and the two couches were scattered about the room. There were sheets and strands of clothing, mostly mine, draped and flung everywhere.

  As Irons stepped into the suite, Declan began to rise, saying, “Maybe we should have a chat in one of the nice lounges downstairs.”

  Irons looked straight at me. I felt like a thunderbolt struck beneath me. He studied the damp patches on the shirt I was wearing, somewhat askew, and he asked me, “Are you ready to go downstairs?”

  Liam frowned, “This is a business conversation, I’m assuming.”

  Irons told him, “It’s business that concerns all three of you,” and he looked back at me again. I felt hot when he said, “All four of us.”

  Declan dragged a couple of chairs around the big glass coffee table and pulled a few cushions onto them. Liam brought over four glasses and a whiskey bottle from the drinks cabinet.

  ~~~~

  We all sat. Liam splashed whiskey in the four glasses and handed them around. Drinking whiskey this early in the day, I hadn’t ever done that before. Hollis, my husband, drank as soon as he was out of bed. Sometimes even before he got up. That was one reason alcohol didn’t appeal to me early in the day.

  Whiskey seemed like a very different thing. Sitting in an expensive hotel suite, wearing not much more than heels and a man’s shirt, and that was mostly undone, drinking whiskey with three dangerous men in the morning light, this would not have been how I imagined my life just a few weeks ago. It all seemed very gangster.

  I took a pull on my whiskey, inhaling the smoky caramel and gulping on the burn.

  Irons slid a folder onto the table. Declan watched him and frowned. He looked down at the folder on the table and said, “That’s not the way of it.”

  “Not usually.” Liam said and his eyes narrowed.

  “We get documents as email.” Declan said. “There’s a secure address.”

  Liam said, “We read all of the documents on screen. Nothing gets printed.”

  “Nothing to be disposed of.” Declan didn’t move to pick up the folder. Nor did Liam.

  “That way, we haven’t any need to worry about copies.”

  Irons looked back at them. “There wasn’t time.”

  Declan lowered an eyebrow, “It’s a job in a hurry, is that it?”

  Liam’s voice was low, “Are you wanting something done against the clock?”

  “There is a schedule,” said Irons, “So, in that sense, yes.”

  Irons looked from Liam to Declan. “The subject is heavily guarded and quite high profile.”


  Declan drew in a breath. Liam’s eyebrow lifted as he sat back, pointing the fingers of his clasped hands. Irons’ eyes had slid into mine. I tried to keep from squirming on the couch, but it was tough. I was prickly and hot.

  Liam said, “Do you have Mr. Arden’s sanction for this?”

  Irons was still looking at me. “Arden has given me complete discretion,” he said, “If you have an issue you’d like to take to him, of course that’s up to you.” His eyes travelled over my curves and the hint of his sardonic grin pulled at the corner of his mouth as he went on talking to Liam. “It’s not something I would advise you to do, but you must do what you think is in your own best interests.”

  Irons looked down at the folder again, then back up. “All you need to know about the subject, or at least the best information we have on hand, is in the file. The work needs to be complete by Wednesday morning.”

  Irons looked at me again, slowly and with relish before he got up to leave. He said, “The target is due in town the day after tomorrow. As soon as I know more, I’ll let you know.”

  His eyes swept across the three of us like a searchlight. “Should be a straightforward thing. You,” looking straight at me and making me hot, “You’ll have a room in his hotel. Meet him in the hotel bar or the lobby. Get him talking. Encourage him up to your room.” His eye fixed me hard and that smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Then he looked over to Liam and Declan, “Or maybe you’d sooner plan something for him in his own room. Up to you, of course.”

  After a moment, Declan asked him, “And what’s his business here, this traveling fellow?”

  “He’s a circuit judge.”

  Liam let out a low whistle.

  Chapter 3

  When Irons left, Declan closed the door behind him but Liam sat, watching Courtenay with a cat-like grin.

  “Ah,” he said, “I think the lovely Miss Mainstreet has some feelings stirring for our dark lord.”

  From across the room, Declan watched her reaction. She shifted on her cushion. She shook her head with a smile as she looked from one man to the other.

  “What?” she said, laughing.

  “No!”

  Declan looked at Liam. Liam looked back at him and they both grinned. Declan’s grin didn’t spread quite as fast as Liam’s. Liam paused before he went on.

  “What do you think about your man’s story there?”

  Declan sat back with us around the table. “The business about the email you mean?”

  Liam lifted his glass and rolled the amber whiskey around. “Has Irons emailed anything to us though the secure address?”

  “I’m not sure that he has. What are you getting at?”

  “I’m wondering if he knows it.”

  “The email address? Are you wondering if he’s legit?”

  “I’m wondering how close his connection with Arden is.”

  Declan lifted a hand, “But it may not be a connection with Arden at all anymore. It could be that we’ve been passed on. Handed over. Acquired.”

  “It’s a possibility, I guess. Irons price for helping us out when he did could have been to take over the contact.” Liam sat back, peering into his glass, “Do you want to take the chance and find out, though, set up a direct call to Arden and ask him straight out?”

  “I think, on balance, that’s something I’d very much rather not do. How about yourself?”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, tight-lipped, “It’s something I’d be keen to avoid, too.” He looked up, “It’s kind of farfetched, too, wouldn’t you say? I mean, however fucking venal Irons is, he’s a trial lawyer. A defense lawyer at that. How much use do you think he would have for our services?”

  “Did you see that Breaking Bad?”

  “Yeah, okay, but I don’t see your man Irons as the Better Call Saul guy.”

  “We’d need to be sure of our ground, Declan, before we even thought about trying to get to Arden. I don’t disagree with you. I don’t like the fucker any more than you do, and I’m thinking the same way. We’d need to think carefully before we did anything drastic on him, if he’s Arden’s trusted representative, though.”

  “If he is that.”

  “Right enough, as you say. But assuming that he is, then we’re going to have to handle our man there with a degree of delicacy and care. Kid gloves, as you might say.”

  “I want to be handling him with surgical fucking gloves.” Declan scowled. “I didn’t much like his whole routine of, ‘This contract requires all three of you.’ He got me a little bit mad there, I have to tell you.”

  “Well, we made it clear to him that we don’t want him to see Courtenay as a part of this. She doesn’t come with the package.”

  “She came hard enough with your package last night.”

  Liam smiled for a moment as he looked at Courtenay. Her face colored and she squeezed his thigh. Then he told Declan, “He wasn’t happy when you told him, ‘She’s not available to you,’ now was he?”

  Courtenay said, “Are you guys serious? Do you really think that Irons is, I don’t know, an imposter or something?”

  Liam nodded, “Something, for sure. It’s hard to say what. Definitely someone who likes to live dangerously, though, wouldn’t you say?”

  Courtenay’s brow wrinkled, “What do you mean?”

  Declan chuckled. “An enthusiast for a gasp, our Mr. Irons seems to be. Likes a choke.”

  Liam laughed too.

  “I don’t get it,” Courtenay looked from one man to the other.

  Liam leaned over to lay his big paw over the back of her hand, “It means that he likes to be choked. During sex.”

  Courtenay blinked. For a moment she was speechless, “Wh… How would you know that?”

  Declan said, “His neck is awful sturdy. Quite disproportionately strong, from the looks of his body. Gets a bit more exercise than the rest of him does.”

  “Tsk,” Liam said, “Don’t try to make it sound like you’re Sherlock fucking Holmes,” and he ran the back of his index finger down the side of Declan’s throat.

  “Okay,” Declan smiled as he raised both palms and he told Courtenay, “There was a mark on his neck, too, did you not see it?” Liam’s finger traced down Declan’s throat again.

  Courtenay shook her head.

  “Under his ear, it was. Had the same pattern as the edge of his belt.” Liam said, “Surprising you missed it. Considering how hard you were studying every inch of him.”

  “Why?”

  Liam’s eyes sparkled. “You tell me, Miss Swordswallow.” Declan scowled and caught Liam’s hand. He bit the end of Liam’s forefinger before he let the hand go, but he didn’t look around at him or speak.

  “No,” she said, frowning, “I mean, why would you do that?”

  “Choking?” Declan’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Nobody did that in the locker rooms at your school?”

  “Or behind the bleachers?” Liam grinned.