Yes.
“You want me to take you back to our hotel and show you the ways your body can come for me? Is that what you want?”
Yes. The idea makes my legs tremble with desire. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“I’m just asking. ’Cause for someone who is old enough to decide what she wants, you’ve been confusing the hell out of me.”
“What I said in Boston—”
“Nah, I want to talk to sober Carys. That’s the person I’m interested in right now. Drunk Carys is horny as fuck and hunting for a way to get off.”
“Screw you, Finn.”
His mouth quirks up, and he gives me a told-you-so smirk.
“God, you’re so infuriating. Why couldn’t you have sex with me without being an asshole about it?”
“Tomorrow morning I’m all yours.” He throws out his hands. “Tonight—you’re gonna sleep it off alone. You realize what’ll happen tomorrow? You’ll go back to skirting around me.” He makes a walking motion with his fingers. “Pretend like this conversation didn’t happen.”
“Maybe I won’t.” But my resolve slips. I want him, but I don’t want the complications from having him.
“You will.It’s safer that way.”
When the waitress appears behind Finn, I say, “Can we get the check, please? I think we’re done here.”
Chapter Eleven
Finn
The next morning, Carys wears dark glasses and won’t meet my gaze. Is she pissed at me for what I said last night, or does she regret coming on to me? Probably both.
We file into the car. Jay eyes the two of us in the rearview mirror but understands Carys well enough not to speak. We’re headed to the location where the FBI agent is holed up, waiting for his forged documents to start over. Jay runs a tight ship for Carys, and his ability to get shit done is impressive.
“How far away is this place?” I ask as the city fades into the distance.
“About half an hour,” Jay replies.
“Perfect.” I peek at Carys’s stony face and settle deeper into the seat. I slide my hands along my thighs, and I consider the least assholeish thing to say. “Sleep okay?”
“Shut up, Finn.”
Guess that wasn’t it. “Jetlag can be a bitch.”
Carys tips her glasses down her nose and looks at me over the top of them. My mind flashes to every sexy teacher fantasy I’ve ever had. As though she senses the tightening in my pants, she takes her sunglasses off with a sigh.
“I’m sorry about coming on to you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Without her glasses on, it’s obvious she didn’t sleep well, and she’s very hungover. “How do you want to handle FBI guy?”
The awkward post-coital conversation is a reason I didn’t sleep with her last night. If we’re going to have the discussion anyway, I might as well have fucked her for my trouble. At least I would have enjoyed that.
“You don’t want to talk about it?” she says.
“I said what needed to be said. Today we’re focused on getting your shit back and eliminating whatever or whoever is threatening you.”
With her fingers, she twists and turns her black shades. “I’ll take the lead in the conversation.”
“Approaching on our right,” Jay says as the car glides to a stop outside a short, squat, white-sided house that has seen better days.
“I’d say he didn’t get your money,” I say.
“Not everyone is frivolous.” She slides her glasses back onto her face.
“Guy was cash-strapped enough to grab me out of a warehouse overrun with agents. The money was for something imperative to him. Guaranteed.”
Carys mutters an agreement as Jay opens her door. I slide out behind her, happy with my view of her ass. The bright pink skirt she has on stretches and clings to the right places. I slide my gaze up her, over the loose black shirt fluttering in the wind to her hair in a tight bun at her nape. The combination of buttoned-up and wild has always appealed to me. I enjoy watching her come undone.
We pause at the door, Jay tense, alert.
Carys checks on me over her shoulder. “You gonna be cool?”
“Like a deep lake at the start of spring.” I wink.
She sighs and raps her knuckles on the steel. I take my position on the other side of Carys so Jay and I are flanking her. Anyone answers who is bad news, she’s getting shoved behind me. Her lovely ass is better off hitting the cracked concrete than anything more violent.
“Who is it?” A deep male voice calls from inside the house.
“Carys Van de Berg and her associates.” She drags her purse higher onto her shoulder.
The door inches open, and a pair of brown eyes peer out. Once he’s scanned us and the landscape behind, he creates enough space for Jay to slip in. I shoulder past Carys so she brings up the rear. People who sell their loyalty set me on edge.
“Why are you in such a shithole?” she says.
The question is more instinct than curiosity. Carys paid him a ton of money, and the furniture in the living room could have come from Goodwill. There are takeout wrappers scattered across everywhere. The guy’s been existing on cheap burgers.
“Finn.” Carys shoots me a warning glare.
My jaw hardens. Easy to forget I don’t run the show. We will have to talk about this collar and leash business. It’s a choke collar instead of something kinky and fun.
I raise my eyebrows. “You don’t want to understand why the guy who accepted so much of your money is living in the pit of despair?” I pick up a wrapper from a chair. “You can’t even afford a garbage can?”
FBI guy crosses his arms. “I rent. And what the fuck is it to you how I live?” He scans me. “Jesus. I can’t believe you lived, and you’re already walking around.”
I smirk. “Knock me down, and I come back twice as hard.”
He shakes his head. “So much God-damned blood all over me. I had to go get tested to make sure I didn’t catch anything off you—guys like you, you just never know.”
I growl and step toward him.
Carys throws out an arm to pin me in place. “You don’t speak to him like that.” She presses her arm into my chest when I push against it. “Finn’s question is valid. I paid you a fortune. Why are you living here?”
“Told ya. I rent. Also, you’ve only paid me half my money. I’ve been trying to figure out how the hell to sort that out.”
Out of the corner of my eye, her mouth tightens, and her arm drops from my chest.
“I paid you the full amount. Half the morning of the raid, half when Finn made it to Switzerland alive.”
“First half came, second half never appeared.”
With a frown, she examines Jay. “Explain this to me.”
Jay is focused on his phone. “Working on an answer now, boss. Doesn’t add up to me.” He sizes up the FBI guy. “You screwing with us Ricardo?”
“You want bank statements?” He grabs his phone from the greasy table.
I’m not the cleanest person in the world, but I’ve had a maid service for long enough this level of filth is repulsive. “What are you doing with the money?” I cross my arms.
“Not your business.” He concentrates on his phone, swiping through screens. “I need the second half of the transfer next week or I’m fucked.” He stares at Carys, ignoring me. “I get fucked? I find ways to fuck other people.”
I take a step forward. “You the person sending her the alarm clocks?”
Ricardo’s face morphs into disbelief tinged with annoyance. “I just said two minutes ago I was trying to figure out a plan to contact her. You think if I had an address, I’d be sending her an alarm clock?” He nods at Carys. “What kind of warning is that? Vague. Stupid. You want someone’s attention, you find what matters to them.” He passes his phone to Jay and then glares at me. “For example, I want to get to Carys, I’d wager I target you. She risked a hell of a lot to save you.” Calculation is clear in his gaze. “And your posture tells
me the feeling is mutual. Aww. Ain’t that sweet. Mutually assured destruction.”
I straighten, annoyed that my protectiveness is so obvious, so different from the way Jay treats her.
“So get me my money or I’ll figure out a way to make sure both of you pay with your own form of hell.”
“You don’t threaten me,” I growl.
He chuckles. “I just did. What are you going to do, Finn Donaghey? You’re nothing without your patsy guards.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Carys takes the phone from Jay and scans the information. She takes a handgun out of her purse. Without a word, she passes it to me.
The weight of it in my palm is relaxing, and the tension in the room dissipates. Is this a green light? I take a deep breath as I check it over.
“Before we came,” Carys says, “he said he still had this intense urge to murder someone from the FBI. I told him I wasn’t keen. Usually I prefer to handle things much more civilly. Make no mistake, Ricardo—you threaten me, you threaten Finn or Jay or anyone else associated with me, and I’ll set him loose. He’s been murdering people since he was fourteen. He knows all the ways to do it, and some of them you won’t see coming. The only thing holding him back is me.”
I focus on the gun as she talks. Her description of me as a barely restrained animal is painful and thrilling. As a kid, I didn’t have a choice. Lorcan was the soft one, and so I became harder and harder to protect him, to protect myself. Shoot first. Apologize later. Still my wildness is a big part of her attraction. When we got together, watching me fighting in The Cage made her realize I wasn’t a boy anymore. I was a man. She’d never deny it. Those qualities which are hard for her to resist are also why I can’t be with her. At some point I’ll make a mistake like last time, and she’ll pay the price. A consequence I cannot bear.
Jay nudges my shoulder while Carys and Ricardo negotiate new terms for their agreement. “Don’t shoot him.”
My lips quirk up, and I tuck the gun into the back of my jeans. “He’d probably already be dead if Carys wasn’t here. You don’t negotiate with disloyal people.”
“I hear ya on that. But disloyalty in others is sometimes the only way we can get shit done.”
I put my hands on my hips and only half-listen to Carys discussing the details of the money transfer. “Why didn’t you see it?” I ask Jay.
“See what?”
“Kim—Kimi.”
“Ah.” Jay rubs his face. “That’s a difficult question. We run a different organization here. You get me? The illegal stuff isn’t so brutal most of the time. Kim blended—she was easy to like, quick to gain our respect. Backstory held up when we ran our checks. Smart. Funny. Tough as nails in a tight spot. And Carys loved her in a very genuine way as only Carys can. I think she saw herself in Kim.” One eyebrow cocks up and then he tips his chin. “Why didn’t you see it?”
There had been noticeable shades of Carys in Kim—made sense they’d gravitate together. No nonsense, tough when needed, with this vulnerability underneath most people didn’t catch. I saw it a few times in Kim, much more often in Carys. Carys loved her—trusted her. I wanted to believe Carys hadn’t been fooled.
I run a hand through my hair and then return it to my hips. “I did, and then I didn’t. And then I did again. Lorcan—he—I don’t fucking know. But I needed to be sure if I was going to pull the trigger. To keep my brother on my side, her death had to be justified to him.” I give a humorless chuckle. “Little did I know, he understood what she was and didn’t fucking care.”
“You thought you could make Kim’s death justifiable to him?”
With a shrug, I puff out a breath. “I misread that one.”
He chuckles.
“All right.” Carys turns on her heel to me and Jay. “Let’s go. I need to trace this money now. Jesus Christ. I rescue you and my whole business goes to shit.”
“Uh, thanks for that, by the way. Not sure I’ve said those words.”
Carys waves me off as she strides to the front entrance. With the door ajar, she glances over her shoulder. Her mouth is open, ready to say something. Instinct kicks in when a sharp ting hits the gutter and waterspout. Time slows, narrows, focuses. Blood rushes to my brain, roaring, drowning out everything but Carys. Save her.
Grabbing her arm, I haul her to the ground, shielding her with my body as Jay yells, “Shots fired. Get down! Get down!”
Chapter Twelve
Carys
Finn’s chest is pressed to my face. He’s grappling for the gun at his waistband as his other arm helps shield me. It has to be the adrenaline. His injuries are still healing, and I’ve watched him walk enough the last few days to know he’s stiff and sore. His movements are sure, fluid, painless.
He glances at me, tucking his chin to meet my eyes. “Were you hit?”
I swallow. My shoulder stings. Is the pain from a bullet or how he dragged me to the ground? “I’m fine.”
Finn breaks eye contact to scan the rest of the area. “Jay!”
“Here.”
“Ricardo?” Silence greets his second rollcall. He has me pinned so close to the floor I can’t see what else is happening.
“He’s down.” Jay shuffles to the door.
“Dead?” Finn says.
“Not sure.”
“Shit.” Finn’s free hand holds the gun, but our position means his back is to the entrance. “Any more shots?”
“Haven’t heard anything for a minute.”
“Target?”
“Take your fucking pick. Could be you, Carys, or Ricardo. You’re all hot depending on who’s shooting.”
The pain in my shoulder isn’t lessening. Finn is half-turned toward the wall. He’s not touching the part that’s burning, so the sensation is not from any pressure he’s putting on it.
“Can I get up?” I take a deep breath, willing the sting to leave.
“No,” Jay’s and Finn’s voices ring out in unison.
“I’m going to get Carys secured away from the door,” Finn says. “Cover me.”
“Ready,” Jay says.
With astonishing swiftness, Finn rolls off me, scoops me up and carries me to the back of the tiny house. There are no pings or curses from Jay, so I’m hoping there are no more bullets. Finn sets me on the floor by the white kitchen cabinets and crouches to meet my eyes.
“You do not move until I call clear or Jay does, okay? You stay here.”
I don’t have a chance to respond before he’s gone. My shoulder aches, and I rub it in circular motions. The skin rotates under my fingers, making the burning worse. With a frown, I remove my hand and stare at my fingers. Wet. Bright red. Shit.
Scanning the kitchen, I grab the dishcloth hanging on the stove. When I hold the cloth against my injury, a sharp breath escapes me. Should I call for Finn? If television can be believed, a bullet to the shoulder is probably the most minor gunshot. Jay or Finn shouldn’t be distracted if there is danger at the door.
Worry eats at me. The silence in the other room is almost too much. In any other situation, I’d never sit here waiting for someone to help me. I can shoot a gun. But I gave the only weapon I carry to Finn. It would be stupid to charge into the other room unarmed. I could take a knife, but the joke about bringing a knife to a gunfight is only funny when you’re not the one stupid enough to do it. My brain circles for ideas, but the niggling thought I’ve been trying to keep at bay sneaks in. I could have died. If Finn hadn’t hauled me down, I might have died. Closing my eyes, I let my shoulders rest against the chipped cupboards.
“All clear!” Jay’s voice rings out.
I haul myself to my feet and take the towel away from my shoulder. It’s covered in blood but given the time I’ve been sitting there, there’s not a ridiculous amount. With a deep breath, I drop the cloth into the sink. There’s a mirror above it and the neckline of my shirt is wide. My finger finds the hole and slips in. Definitely shot.
“You okay?” Finn’s voice is quiet in the kitchen.
I snatch my hand away and whirl toward him. “Fine.” My smile is tight.
He tips his head at my shirt. “What were you doing?”
“Oh, it’s—well—just—"
He sets the gun on the counter and closes the distance between us. He touches my shoulder, and I gasp. His fingers find the hole. His gaze connects with mine, anger and worry warring in his pale depths. “You were fucking shot?”
“Um.” I press my lips together. “I think so?”
“Jesus Christ, Carys. When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m sure it’s not an actual bullet wound, a graze, a scratch probably, a burn.” I tug my sleeve over the mark.
Finn pushes my shirt away from my arm, and his fingers land on the three buttons at the top that’ll make the material very loose.
I cover his hand, stilling his progress. “Don’t.”
“I need to see.” His free hand circles around my neck, his thumb grazing my cheek. “You might need a doctor.”
I move his hand aside and undo the buttons myself. There is something deeply intimate in letting him undress me, especially when he’s like this—tame, concerned, almost loving. After a storm of violence, he’s often gentle, and his tenderness makes my chest ache with longing.
My sleeve slips down, and he turns me. With the cloth from the sink, he washes the wound. “A graze.”
“Lucky,” I whisper. His proximity, the tangy scent of him, this kindness will undo the immunity I’ve fought for today.
His thumb grazes the top of my arm, just beside the mark, and then he bends his head to kiss my shoulder. A shiver runs through me. Electrifying.
“Finn,” I murmur, and my body is liquid, pliable. He could do anything to me, and I’d let him.
His arms slide around my waist, and he buries his face in the crook of my neck. “God, how do you always smell so fucking amazing? Someday when I die, I hope the way you smell is the last thing I remember.”
I relish the simplicity of this moment. I breathe him in, letting my awareness of him flood my senses. Our desire won’t be fulfilled, not here in this house with danger outside the door. He’d never risk my safety. Being able to acknowledge the yearning between us makes me less unstable, more solid.
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