by July Dawson
His hands brushed over my hips, pulling me in tight to his body. "No games. Not right now."
"Ugh!" I exclaimed, and I felt my nose wrinkle, letting Rob see my disgust. And at the same time, there was so much more than disgust. Rob's smirked widened. The hands spanning my hips pulled my body against his. My legs automatically slid around his lean waist, my arms tightening on his neck.
Rob whirled around with me, reaching one arm out to sweep the desk. I winced at the sound of books thudding against the floor, the sudden shatter of something – a coffee cup? One of Mitch's elaborate sea glass paperweights? I wondered how soundproof the office was, or if Liam was getting a cringeworthy play-by-play.
"I'll clean it up later," Rob growled, misinterpreting my wince. He set me down on the edge of the desk. Then cool air touched my body, separated from his heat, as he took a step back, pulling his shirt off over his head. His t-shirt briefly caught on his biceps, his arms up exposing the taut rippling six-pack of his abdomen. I couldn't help but reach out to touch his chest, and he was grinning when he'd whipped his t-shirt away.
Rob half-bent to step out of his jeans, kicking them away, and I leaned back on the cool wood of the table to shuck off my own jeans. As I pushed them down past my knees, he yanked them the rest of the way off, dropping them on the floor beside his own. Then, despite what had seemed like his own sense of urgency, he stopped with his hands on my thighs and leaned down to slowly kiss my thighs, my hip, my stomach, finding his way back up again to press his lips against mine. I dragged him close, my hands wrapping around his hard hip bones.
"Now," I murmured when their lips broke apart.
"You're the boss," he said. He ripped open the condom wrapper he must have palmed when he took off his pants, rolling it on quickly. I reached for him. He had a long, smooth cock, satisfying in my hands. I rubbed him against myself as if he were a toy. It was his turn to groan, even through the plastic barrier.
I smiled into his shoulder, glad to be the one in control, to finally satisfy some of my urge for him. His cock traced circles between my thighs, and I pushed him harder and harder against me until he slipped inside. Rob groaned with relief.
"My turn?" he asked, dropping a kiss in my hair.
"Your turn."
He began to pump into me, long, slow strokes that made my legs tightened around him. My fingers dug deep into his muscular shoulders. I went weak in the knees when I orgasmed, letting my head fall back, but Rob had a tight grip around me and he caught me in his arms.
"Okay," I murmured, feeling the smooth, polished wood of the desk under my ass, Rob's hands wrapped tightly around my hips. "Okay. I'll admit that was brilliant."
"See?"
I pushed him away with my hands even as I wanted to pull him closer. "It doesn't change anything. You have got to get it together, Rob. I won’t be bossed around. And I won’t put up with you turning hot and cold by—"
"Naomi," Rob's voice was frustrated as he interrupted me. "Listen—"
There was a sharp rap on the door. "Kids? Can you stop fighting for a minute?" Liam called. "We've got a guest."
24
Rob
I followed Naomi out of the study. Damn it, she looked adorable, walking away from me with her shoulders squared, mad as ever even though she'd been quaking with pleasure in my arms five minutes ago.
"Joe!" she called happily, darting forward.
Joe leaned down to hug her. Naomi looked petite next to him, dwarfed by his lean height, although I noticed that he held his damaged right leg behind him protectively.
"I heard y'all were desperately in need of a body guard," Joe told us as he squeezed Naomi tight. "Even an old one."
"I think this boy is in desperate need of a body guard," Naomi said, jerking a thumb at me over her shoulder. "Delaneys seem to have enemies everywhere. Maybe including me. I haven't decided yet."
"Naomi," I chided, but I could never finish what I'd been trying to say in the study with an audience. Joe might not care -- Joe always kept the family secrets -- but I couldn't say anything in front of Liam. They were taking note, I was sure, of Naomi's messy dark hair sliding out of her ponytail, her flushed cheeks.
I felt a wave of anger. What had happened between Naomi and me, what I wanted to happen again, was private. I hadn't had the chance to tug Naomi's hair and untucked top back into respectability. She'd flown out of the room at Liam's knock. It had seemed as if she wanted to escape me.
Joe grinned. "Yeah, yeah, since you guys were kids. Love and hate." He ruffled Naomi's hair as if she were still a kid.
She rolled her eyes, grinning. I felt a flare of odd jealousy. Naomi seemed so at ease with people like Joe who had been in her life since she was a child. Just not with me. Everything between us seemed to grind awkwardly.
Except for the sex, of course.
“We should go through everything like we said,” Liam said impatiently. “Rob, you’ve got to let Naomi go. She has a life of her own.”
Naomi gave Liam a look that I couldn’t quite decipher. Then she said, "Joe, you’ll keep Rob safe, okay?"
"I don't want you to go." I heard the authoritative note in my voice, the words an order, and I winced internally. That was the wrong note to take.
"Okay," Naomi said, nodding. “The thing is, I could go hang out with my parents. Get my work done. I wouldn’t be alone.”
She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
I shot Liam a dark look
"What did I do?" Liam demanded.
"Don't even," I said. I strode after Naomi, whose steps squeaked faster across the marble, as if she were racing for the door. "Naomi, stop!"
She spun on her heels. "No, Rob. No. You don't get to talk to me like that."
"I'm not trying to talk to you like that," I said. "But I know you aren't stupid. Going out there alone is stupid."
"I'll be with people."
"Great, then maybe you’ll put your family in danger. This isn't a joke."
She hesitated, and I felt guilty for scaring her all over again, as much as I needed her to listen to me. I rested my hands on her slender shoulders.
"Hey," I said, softly, trying to ignore the spectators. "You want me to say I'm sorry, I used the wrong tone? Sure. I'm sorry. But don't be stupid to get back at me."
Naomi glanced away from me, and I thought for a second that she was looking at the stairs, and I was about to turn to see who was there. Then I realized she was blinking away tears. Oh my god. Now I was making her cry. How was I making her cry?
"Rob is right," Joe said, stepping forward.
"You'll pay me to sit around your house and watch movies?" Naomi’s lips flickered as if she were trying to smile through her tears.
"Maybe you can vacuum," I said, "If you really feel the need."
Her lips quirked up slightly, half-heartedly, but it was something.
"I'll go look for some takeout menus," I said. “We could order in lunch. I have to have a planning meeting with the guys, though.”
“But not with me.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “Oh, let it go, Naomi.”
“Don’t be a jackass!” I told my brother. I thought of Mitch, warning us to always stick together, never to let anyone see the cracks between the Delaney brothers.
But Naomi looked at Liam coolly and didn’t answer. “I could go for calzones.”
“Great,” I said. “Thank you.”
Liam and Naomi walked away from each other as soon as I turned away. Liam strode quickly up the stairs to finish his search of the master bedroom. Naomi headed for the library.
It had to be transparent – me worrying about take-out when really, all I wanted to do was find and kill the men who were a danger to his family -- and Joe took it the way I meant it, following me into the kitchen.
"She drives me crazy," I mused out loud to no one, leaning back against the kitchen counter.
"That's not the problem," Joe said.
"The sooner we find out what was going on w
ith Dad, the sooner we can make sure the girls are safe. That we're all safe." I looked at Joe. "Is there anything you know about the trouble my dad got into? Anything you can tell me?"
Joe shook his head. "I overheard a lot, the nature of my business, and there were certainly deals made. Enemies made. I can work on a list."
I took a seat at the breakfast bar. "All right. Why did Dad have a bodyguard? That's not typical, right?"
"Mitch was never typical. He made a lot of enemies. Fast, once he turned to politics." Joe shook his head, his dark brown eyes sympathetic. "I know it was hard on you guys, what happened when you were teens. When everyone turned on him. But your dad did a lot of good, too. He was fearless."
"Fearless about where he put his dick," I said.
"Rob," Joe said. "I could hate your dad for how it all ended. But I don't know. I saw him do a lot of good. He wanted to stop big banking from hurting the little guys, that was why he left investment banking in the first place."
"After he made his millions."
"He introduced legislation that kept Americans in their homes." Joe nodded towards the door. "You know that he helped Naomi's parents keep their house? When her dad took that fall off a ladder, put him out of commission for six months? It wasn't abstract for your dad, even if he tried to work on the big picture. It was little things, too, like paying their mortgage for that year until they got on top of things."
I didn't want to think about Mitch as a complicated person. I'd felt so much pride in my dad as a kid. I'd brought him in for show-and-tell in kindergarten. I had been proud of the tall guy who sat on the floor, criss-cross-applesauce despite his expensive three-piece suit, and charmed my schoolmates. Sometimes it was hard to reconcile that guy with the one who had all the mistresses, who said awful things to his sons sometimes.
"Dad also used to say," I said, "The rich don't get rich because they're known for their generosity. So what am I supposed to make of that?"
Joe was looking at me hard, though, and he wasn't so easily sidetracked.
"I'm going to go to his house." I said abruptly, changing the subject. "See what I can find."
"The police aren't going to let you in there." Joe said.
"I know," I said. "Luckily I have my own little lock-picker."
Joe said, "If you don't want to forgive your father, that's fine. But you're going to have to try to make sense of him and what he did if you want to protect that girl."
25
Naomi
"What about this one?" Alice asked that afternoon, as she turned Rob's borrowed iPad around to show me a dress. A dress, of all things, at this time.
The two of us sat on the sofa in the den together, feet curled up beneath us. I was depositing checks electronically and balancing our books. I had thought Alice was studying for school. But apparently, no, she was studying Nordstrom.
“It's pretty, but really? Now?"
"If you're not going to cancel the gala..."
"I'm not going to cancel the gala. Even overprotective Rob agrees."
"It's sweet, I guess." Alice said.
"Don't," I warned.
"Don't what? Don't acknowledge that the boy likes you?" Alice's lips turned up mischievously. "Or that Rob’s grandmother said to me, you might want to avoid the study until it’s—”
I shushed her. Shaking my head, I said, "Shopping feels so frivolous when Rob's family is having trouble."
"Well, maybe it's not frivolous to Rob, because it's important to you."
"Ha." I had more that I wanted to say to my sister, but I couldn't figure out how to put it into words. I didn't want anyone pushing me along in my relationship with Rob when he was so obviously desperate to put the brakes on it. But if I told Alice that, the wild sex we'd had in the study would seem weak.
I was definitely weak where Rob was concerned.
My phone, perched on the chair arm next to the stack of endorsed checks, began to warble. Saved by the bell. I checked the number—one of our clients— and answered. "Lightspeed Cleaning, Naomi speaking. How many I help you?"
"Hi, Naomi." The voice on the other end sounded high and apologetic. "I'm calling about rescheduling."
"Oh, okay." The Baxters had standing weekly appointments on Mondays and Thursdays. "Is this a permanent change or just this week?"
"It's permanent, I guess."
"When do you want to change to?" I sounded cheerful, but reshuffling the calendar was a pain. Except that I had three workers now who didn't have anything to do.
"I... don't know. I'll call you back with that."
"Okay," I said. I was never getting a call back from the Baxters. "Is there something wrong? Something I can help you with?"
"No, Naomi, your service has been great. Oh, I have to go -- have a good day! I'll call you soon!"
"You too," I said. I set the phone back down, staring through the doors at the rustling willow trees out front.
Alice nudged me with her foot. "What's up?"
"We lost another client."
"Big one?"
"Not commercial, but twice a week residential."
"Okay. That's too bad, but why are you looking all mean mug?"
I pulled a face. Alice said, "I'm your sister. If anyone is an expert on your mean mug, I am. You think this is something more than a family that can no longer afford to have someone else fold their laundry..."
"It seems like it strains coincidence." The phone rang again. I looked at the caller ID and gave my sister a meaningful look. My anxiety felt like a stone in my belly as I picked up.
It was one of our other, precious commercial clients— a dentist's office— calling to cancel their services. The receptionist wouldn't tell me anything about why.
"Well, then I'll find somewhere else to get my teeth cleaned," I said to the phone. After she hung up.
Which reminded me of something. The whole Papadopolous family had always gone to that dentist's office, for as long as I could remember. Mom had recommended them to some of their customers. Like the Delaney family. It used to strike me as funny that my world and Rob's were so different, but that we had the same homework assignments and saw the same orthodontist.
Someone's family, though, had a hell of a lot more clout in the neighborhood than mine did.
"What are you thinking?" Alice prompted again.
"It's too ridiculous to accuse anyone of.” I leaned forward and patted her knee. "I'm going to keep my wild accusations to myself and see what happens."
"If there's anyone you can be wild with— besides Rob— you can share your wild accusations with me."
"I know. I don't want to say it out loud in case I'm wrong. It's awful."
Rob stepped into the doorway, his hands in his pockets, and my heart rose the willful way it always did when I saw him.
"Hey Naomi," he said. "Can I borrow you?"
Alice raised her eyebrows, and he said to her, "I need your sister in a professional capacity."
"What did you break?" I teased as I stood, expecting that he needed help preparing for his brothers that were coming in, or to move Mitch back to the house as Liam had suggested.
"I haven't broken anything yet," he said. "But I need to."
26
Rob
Naomi parked in the parking lot beneath Mitch’s condo building. I took a slow, deep breath, steeling my nerves, before I opened the door and climbed out.
I wouldn’t have expected Naomi to notice, but she rubbed her hand comfortingly over my back as we headed across the concrete floor to the elevators. I felt a spark of comfort as her slender hand brushed against my shoulder.
I hoped Mitch had made things easy. I hoped to find some kind of clue, a journal or documents that would point us towards a possible reason for my father to have been attacked. The police said it might be random. I didn't believe that for a minute.
I also hoped to find a key to the family lock box before I showed up to a bank where no amount of sweet-talking should get me in.
We took the elevator up to the lobby, where I headed briskly across the lobby to the bank of elevators. Alone when I pressed the button, I turned around to find Naomi, wide-eyed, looking around the plush marble lobby.
She smiled as if she knew she'd been caught, a self-conscious quirk of her lips, as she quickened her stride to reach my side. "It's nice.”
"Yeah, I guess," I said.
"I guess if you've been here, it's lost its charm," she said.
"I haven't," I said. "We had a holiday together a few years ago – I forget if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas – but we did it at the house. Mitch picked this place for its high security and deliberately low profile. As well as that worked out. He always claimed it didn't have room for the lot of us."
"When did Mitch buy this place?"
I reached past her to push the elevator button, inhaling the scent of her perfume, a floral with vanilla notes. A familiar tingle of desire ran through my body. Stay on task, Rob.
"Five, six years ago?"
She was silent, but I knew she was thinking about how Mitch had owned this place for half a decade without his sons seeing it.
"Rich families are dysfunctional. That's the comfort poor people take, right?"
"I didn't say any such thing. And I wouldn't take any joy in your family having troubles, Rob."
"I know," I said, feeling shitty for the way I'd said that, even though I was trying to be light-hearted. Everything I said to Naomi seemed to come out cock-eyed.
We got off on the eighth floor. The door with the crime scene tape: that was how I knew which was my father’s condominium.
I knocked, a quick rat-tat of my knuckles against the smooth wooden door. Why did I bother to knock? I shrugged self-consciously at Naomi.
Then I stood with my body blocking Naomi from the CCTV that looked down the hall, leaning casually against the door as if I were waiting for my father. Naomi hesitated for a second, and then she dug into her purse for the lock-picking kit. She half-crouched in front of the lock, and a minute later, the knob turned in her hand.