Table of Contents
Internal Affair
Publication Page
Excerpt
PRAISE FOR AUTHOR
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Epilogue
About the Author
Also Available
An excerpt from Cuffed & Collared
Chapter One
Also Read
Thank You
Internal Affair
by
Samantha Cayto
Boston’s Brave Book Four
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Internal Affair
COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Samantha Cayto
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Diana Carlile
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com
Publishing History
First Scarlet Rose Edition, 2015
Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0234-8
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0235-5
Published in the United States of America
A cold case…the heat of desire…
Both could lead to danger…
“Look, I fully expect you to sleep in Ronan’s or Finn’s old room, your choice. I don’t want you to think this is intended to be an excuse to jump you or anything.” God, Daire’s face heated up. No smooth talker he.
Parker bit her lower lip and sauntered toward him. “What if I want you to jump me? What if I want to jump you?”
The breath left his lungs in a whoosh. “You don’t mean that,” he challenged in a strangled voice.
She stopped mere inches away and craned her neck to look up at him. “Oh, but I do. I’ve had some time to think about this.” She gestured between the two of them. “I’ve been on a self-imposed dry spell with men. I blame it on the emotional fall-out from breaking up with Evan. The truth is, though, I’ve been scared. Dating is scary and rejection is hard. Immersing myself in my job seemed much easier in comparison.”
“I understand how you feel.” Her story didn’t vary much from his own. When he’d been in deep with raising Finn and keeping Ronan on a short leash, it had given him a good excuse to pull out of the dating pool.
“The thing is,” Parker continued, her gaze never leaving his. “I hadn’t met you yet. Being celibate is easy when there’s no one around to tempt you.”
Amen to that!
“I tell myself getting involved with you is a bad idea. The investigation, dating another cop, dating a senior cop.” She ticked off the reasons, and he couldn’t argue with any of them. “Now?” She shrugged. “It might be a cliché, but almost getting killed or at least having the crap scared out of me has given me a new perspective. Tell me, why is it so wrong for us to act on our attraction? It doesn’t have to be for more than one night.”
Daire took a deep breath and closed the distance between them. He cupped her chin and tilted it back. “Yes, it does.”
PRAISE FOR AUTHOR
Samantha Cayto
AND HER BOOKS
BLUE HEAT
“…the adventure the book takes the reader on is griped with several unexpected twists and turns. I had a hard time putting this book down.”
~Victoria, Cocktails and Books
CUFFED & COLLARED
“The sex scenes were scorching. I enjoyed how the author balanced the murder mystery with romance.”
~Victoria, Cocktails and Books
Prologue
The temperature outside remained balmy, the perfect summer night in Boston even though the time approached midnight. But inside the morgue, it was freezing, a cold so brutal it drilled right down into Daire’s bones. Nothing could keep it out, not his uniform, nor the steady pace of his feet taking him inexorably to the viewing window. He gripped his hat with white-knuckles, barely keeping his hands from shaking. Every fiber of his body screamed at him to turn and run. He didn’t want to see what lay under white sheets on the metal gurneys in the tiny room.
He had to, of course. As the first-born son of Rory and Sheila Callaghan, the responsibility fell to him. Forget that he was a full-fledged adult with a shiny new badge on his chest. His duty lay in the arbitrary order of his birth. Take care of your brothers. He’d heard some variation of that order since he’d been four years old and peering down at the squalling thing that became Ronan. He hadn’t understood the enormity of his responsibility until Finn had come along. Even then, it seemed more of a pain than a privilege.
He knew better now. Now was when duty really counted. Who else but he should come to this awful place and do this excruciating thing? He wouldn’t put either of his brothers through this horror. He could barely make himself do it, putting one foot in front of the other, ignoring the cold, holding back the tears and screams that fought to escape his stoic façade.
The window was just there in front of him. He made his feet stop. Nodded to the technician behind the window, who lifted a corner of the first sheet. Oh, God, there he was, his father. Big Rory Callaghan, larger than life and invincible, yet not tonight. Tonight he was chalk-white, unmoving—dead.
Daire nodded again, curtly, and the technician moved on. This one was harder, so much harder. He couldn’t keep the tears at bay or the howl of outrage back. This was what remained of his beautiful, cheerful mother, her face marred with the force of violence done against her.
His hand flew to his badge, and he clutched it tight, wanting to tear it off. They would pay, the men who did this. He made a silent vow to his parents, to their cold bodies. Cop or no, he’d hunt down the men responsible and kill them all.
Chapter One
Two a.m. Daire sat up in bed and scrubbed his hands down his sweaty face. With winter right around the corner, the room was cold enough to raise goose bumps on his arms despite his fevered nightmare. The old house he’d lived in his entire life sucked up heat and spit it outside, so he liked to keep the thermostat down as much as possible. Only he remained living here anyway. There was no one left to complain about his frugality. There was no one left to worry over, either, yet he did what he always did after dreaming about the night his parents had been killed.
Pushing back the covers, he got out of bed and slipped on the worn flannel robe that had once belonged to his father. Perhaps it was crazy or maudlin or likely both, but he’d taken to occasionally wearing the thing after moving into his parents’ bedroom. He’d never washed it, either. It was probably just his imagination, but he swore he could still smell his old man’s cologne.
Hunching into the warmth of the robe, he began his methodical perimeter check of the house. He wove his way through each room on the second floor, rattling window latches to make sure they were locked. It was an old routine, one honed in the early months after his parents had been killed. He did it quickly and quietly, as if his brothers still lay asleep in their beds. He’d never wanted to worry them, so he’d employed every ounce of stealth he’d possessed, creeping around their beds, checking to make sure that they were safe and sound, as well as sec
ure. Not knowing who had killed his parents or why, the cop in him had feared he and his brothers also had targets on their backs. It had been a stupid concern maybe, given that Ronan had just started college and Finn high school. Who would want to harm them?
Then again, what had been the point of harming his mother? His father had been killed because he’d learned too much about the corrupt cops of Boston. But his mother? Perhaps she’d known too much as well, or at least the faceless, nameless killers had thought so. It hadn’t been such a stretch to think they’d believe the whole Callaghan family had to be wiped out. So, he’d watched his own back and kept his brothers on short leashes. God, how his brothers had chafed under his control, heaping all of their resentment, anger, and grief onto him without intending to hurt him, yet needing an outlet for it all. He’d borne it because he had to. He was the oldest. It was his duty.
He hadn’t known whom to blame for the miserable turn of their lives, still didn’t know, and the not knowing gnawed at him like a rabid thing lodged deep in his gut. Even now, more than eight years afterward, he felt the loss as keenly as ever and couldn’t shake the nightmares or the obsessive need to check every window, every door.
As he made his way to the first floor, it could have still been all those years ago. Little had changed—the furniture, the color of the walls, the sounds and smells of the old Charlestown house. His brothers were gone, living in their own homes with new families, although most of their childhood furniture and possessions remained. Why not? There was room enough, and Daire didn’t mind. It wasn’t as if he had a need to use any of the space himself.
Daire had no wife or children. There’d been no time for dating and no chance to plan a future for himself. In a blink of an eye, he’d become the father figure in a family of three. Working, paying bills, disciplining Finn and occasionally Ronan had consumed his life. No room in his life to chase after women in the hopes for the sex that could come from it…or the love. He’d tamped down his needs to focus on those of his brothers and his job. If he couldn’t find his father’s killer, the least he could do was honor his memory by becoming the best cop he could. He had a brand new badge that said lieutenant on it to prove how good he had become.
He walked to the front door and saw that the security system still glowed green. He’d installed it long ago with the little insurance money left after paying off the mortgage. He knew he’d find that no window or door had been breached on this level, either. He knew it, yet he checked anyway. That was the routine, and he found himself helpless to break it, knew he’d never get back to sleep until he finished his rounds. God he was pathetic.
Maybe he should get a dog. Rattling around in the empty house couldn’t be emotionally healthy, yet the thought of selling it, made him sad and a little sick. This was his home, his brothers’ home. Even though they didn’t live here technically, they came over all the time. So did his cousin, Regan, and his Uncle Jack.
He would not sell the house, but he would go back to bed. Everything checked out as it always did, and his familiar right hand would help tease the remaining stress out of him. His cock already stood perversely half-hard from adrenaline. He pressed one palm against the fly of his pajama bottoms as he headed back to his room. A moan escaped his lips at the spark of pleasure it caused, and the sound echoed up the stairs. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment even though no one but he could hear it. If he wanted to, he could prance around the house naked, jerking off at will. Just the thought of doing something so outrageous brought a slight smile to his lips. Daire Callaghan always did what was proper and right.
That included making sure he got some more sleep. Given that need, slipping his hand inside his pants to clasp his dick seemed almost another duty. His flesh had hardened fully now and throbbed within his hold. It was a big handful, both long and thick. He’d been blessed with considerably more than the average man. He’d known it since his late teens when an irrepressible Ronan had challenged him to play the “penis game,” although Ronan had used the word “dick.” The memory made him cringe, although the look of surprise and even envy on his brother’s face made up for it. Maybe it was better that his sex life had all but died. The few women he had slept with found him difficult to take. He’d always had to be very careful, never able to really let himself go.
His hand didn’t care. It easily grabbed what it could, massaging the familiar hot flesh. A particularly large vein ran down the underside. It always seemed to pulse to the beat of his heart. His balls were equally oversized, heavy and smooth as they sat snug up against his body. He gave them a gentle squeeze before sliding his fingers back up his cock. The tip leaked fluid, so he swiped it down to add lubrication. Not that his dick needed pampering. It liked rough handling, a tight grip, his thumb digging into the slit on the upstroke. He knew his body and his needs so well, it didn’t take more than a minute before his fist jerked him to messy completion, cum spurting out and soaking the top of his underwear.
His breath stuttered out with the force of the quick orgasm. Release without satisfaction. But it did the trick, making his eyelids too heavy to remain open. Part of him wanted to at least clean his hand and his cock, but he’d become so suddenly sleepy, he could do no more than roll over onto his side. Cleanliness had never been part of his OCD, thank God.
Besides, he had a new job to do. He needed the sleep if he was going to be able to function well. It mattered as it always did that he do the best job he could. Rory Callaghan’s son could do no less.
****
Amazing how a little obsessive compulsive checking behavior, a self-induced orgasm, and a large amount of coffee perked a guy up in the early morning. Daire strolled into work with a lot more energy than one would expect from a less than perfect night’s sleep.
The building and the people were still new to him. His promotion had forced a change in district because there were only so many positions available. He had a low tolerance to change for obvious reasons, and he didn’t possess anything like Ronan’s ability to instantly make friends out of strangers. As he passed the front desk, he flashed his badge on the assumption that no one here recognized him even after two weeks. The desk sergeant greeted him with a slight shake of his head as if to say he wasn’t as hopeless as the new lieutenant at remembering people’s faces.
Daire picked up his pace as if that alone would telegraph more confidence than he felt, walking into the squad room and weaving through the desks of the men and women he commanded. A chorus of “morning boss” and “hey, LT” greeted him, easing his tension and making him smile inwardly. He wondered if the thrill of the acknowledgment by his people would ever fade. Their tones were sincere, not forced or wary. He knew in his head he was good at his job and good as a commander. The lingering insecurity came from those long ago days when he feared he wouldn’t be up to the task of being the head of his family.
He entered his office, keeping the door and blinds open. His old lieutenant had maintained a policy of being available to his people. Daire had appreciated it as a subordinate and intended to carry on the tradition himself. The morning routine went by quickly, getting updates on his peoples’ cases, digging into paperwork. God, he hated that part of his job. No one had ever warned him that filings and reports increased exponentially with each promotion. At least he had a computer. He remembered how his father and Uncle Jack used to complain about the vagaries of typewriters. In the not so long ago days, he’d be pecking away at sticky keys and cursing at faded ribbon. Plus, his spelling ability sucked, no matter how many remedial classes they sent him to when he attended grade school. Spellchecker was not just his friend, but his savior.
Determined to do his job well and not complain too much yet, even inside his own head, he plugged away, wishing—guiltily—that some grisly murder would occur just to force his attention elsewhere. A soft knock on his doorjamb sent his head whipping up in relief. Any distraction was welcome, except he frowned as he looked at the woman standing in his doorway.
I
nstead of one of his subordinates, a petite Asian woman with straight, silky hair cut bluntly just below her chin stared back at him. Her face held a no-nonsense expression, not hostile, merely serious. She wore a basic black pants suit, with a crisp, white shirt and the kind of sensible shoes he’d seen on his almost sister-in-law Cassidy’s feet. They were coveted in particular by people who spent long hours on their feet, like medical professionals. This woman standing before him, however, screamed cop. In particular, she screamed internal affairs or as many cops would at least think of it as, if not call it, the rat squad.
Daire didn’t. Mostly. He knew a rat, um, investigative officer when he saw one, though. And this woman, who stood primly and patiently for him to acknowledge her with a soft briefcase clutched by one hand and slung over her shoulder, filled the bill.
Assuming one of his people had landed in hot water, he sat back in his chair on a silent sigh. “Can I help you?”
Parker Li straightened her already ramrod straight back and held Lieutenant Daire Callaghan’s gaze. She’d known he was fairly young for his post and had seen official pictures of him, but she hadn’t appreciated what the impact of seeing him in person would have on her. Handsome, sure, that was one word she could use to describe the man. Hot as holy hell would be more accurate, however. He had that whole black Irish look going for him, hair as dark as her own contrasting with pale skin and bright blue eyes that really should have been doled out only to bubble gum pop stars. Female ones.
She’d thought she’d successfully locked down her sexuality for the foreseeable future. She’d been wrong. Looking at this man, a man of superior rank, who no doubt knew where she came from and disliked her for it, sent her body into party-time mode. Her skin tingled with anticipation, and her tongue eagerly tried to pass her lips to lick them provocatively in invitation. She had to clench her teeth to keep it under control. Her body flushed with heat, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. For once, she wished she wore make-up every day. It might have covered up the blush she felt creeping up her cheeks.
Internal Affair Page 1
