by Lisa Hughey
“So now you think he is working with her?”
She wrapped her arms around her waist in a defensive posture. “I don’t know.”
He could tell that admission had hurt her. She clearly wanted to believe the best in her partner. But sometimes that just wasn’t possible. The final damning fact was he’d been calling his mother…and he hadn’t been calling her.
“Anything else you need to share with me?” Jillian asked.
He hesitated. “Nope.”
They had fallen into an easy camaraderie. One that Hamish liked far too much.
“Then I guess we’re going to Boston.”
“We?” He loved the sound of that.
“Yes, we.”
Hamish closed the laptop with a click. “We still have to evade the Walsh brothers. They could be watching your office. And I don’t think we should go back to our respective flats.”
“Leave that to me.” Jillian pressed the button on the intercom. “Jake. I need you.”
After raiding the office closet—in actuality the “closet” was a room full of clothing and accessories for recon, research trips, and the occasional undercover gig—Jill and Hamish had enough clothes to eliminate the need to visit their respective apartments.
With Jake as a decoy, they were able to avoid any tails and caught a commuter flight to Boston Logan.
Jill rented a car and they headed up the coast to the center of the geographical area that they wanted to search.
Throughout the whole process. Jillian kept hoping that the evidence would not support the truth that Marsh was helping Beatrice Winter.
But the proof was right there on the computer. On Thanksgiving day, last Thursday, Marsh’s cell phone pinged off the tower north of Boston in Foxhead. The seizure drug that Beatrice needed had been purchased in the same town by three female patients. Sure, it was circumstantial, but the odds of those two events being connected were good.
The likely scenario was that Marsh was with Beatrice. Maybe…he didn’t know that she was a criminal, but it wasn’t looking good.
A quiet despair stole over her as she searched for logical reasons for Marsh to be hanging out with Beatrice without being in contact with Jillian. Nothing good came to mind.
“You okay?” Hamish hovered behind her.
She turned to look at him, thinking he’d been right. But if he was going to gloat, she would face it head-on.
“I’m fine.”
He was closer than she’d expected, and instead of glee, he wore a look of concern. “Any man worth his salt knows that fine doesn’t mean fine.”
“Points for reality.” Jill wanted to rest her head on his chest and just be. Instead she shifted her chin up and said, “I will be fine.”
“He might have an explanation—”
“This is what you’ve been pushing for since you barged into my office.” Jill shook her head. “Why are you backpedaling?”
He opened his mouth, paused, then tilted his head. “Oddly, I don’t like to see you distressed.”
Jillian wanted to laugh. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell that she was upset. “What makes you think I’m distressed?”
Instead of answering, he reached for her. “Come here.”
Reluctantly she let him pull her into his embrace. When his arms wrapped around her, that sense of coming home surprised her once again. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not. “He hugged her closer and she buried her face in his neck. “I need a hug.”
His arms felt good and she relaxed into the embrace, curling her arms around his waist. She shuddered as the tension from the past three months gutted through her.
“Fancy a drink?”
She laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Armed with a list of several Irish bars in the vicinity, they headed out to look for Beatrice…and Marsh.
On the third dive bar, they struck pay dirt.
“You recognize this woman?” Hamish asked. The clientele and the workers seemed more inclined to respond to a man rather than a woman.
“Who wants to know?”
“We’re from Adam’s Law Office.” Jill couldn’t stand by any longer. “She’s come into an inheritance from a client of ours and we’re trying to find her.”
“Who is your client?” the bartender asked.
Her response was cold and absolutely sincere. “I would never betray my confidential client’s identity.”
The bartender a big, scary-looking dude with a sleeve of tattoos on his left arm, studied them for another moment, then gestured for them to follow. “Come on in back.”
Hamish walked through the shadowy doorway first.
As soon as Jill walked through, someone grabbed her arms from behind. “What the hell?”
A guy bigger than the bartender, with a thick middle, huge biceps, and a beard a mountain man would be proud of, swung his meaty fist at Hamish’s stomach.
“Ooof.”
“What the hell are you doing?” she cried.
“What makes you think she’s here?”
“How the hell should I know? I just go where I’m told.” Jill was still pretending to be from the lawyer’s office. Her stomach turned at the smell of spilled beer and fry grease. “The firm’s investigator sent us here.”
The big guy swung at Hamish again. Luckily he was able to dance out of the way.
Jill struggled against the other guy’s hold. She didn’t want to step out of her law firm character unless she had to because it appeared that they might have found Beatrice. “Let me go!”
Apparently Hamish had no such compunction about continuing to be an attorney. He swung at the brute, getting in a nice uppercut before another guy grabbed him from behind.
“I want to talk to the owner.” Jill countered.
“I don’t appreciate people I don’t know coming into my bar and stirring shit up,” the mountain man said.
He was the owner?
“How is this stirring up shit?” She had used the same pretext as in Philadelphia. “Do you know this woman? She came into some money.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “We were warned about you.”
Warned? So Beatrice had put an insurance plan in place. How did she even find these guys?
“Fuck this.” She snapped her head back, hitting the guy holding her in the nose. The move scrambled her brain a bit, but his grip loosened as he let out a howl.
At the same time, Hamish broke free from his hold and swung at the owner’s face, his fist connecting with the beefy guy’s jaw with a thud. But then the guy who’d been holding him got in a shot to Hamish’s jaw and he came out swinging.
Jill broke from the moaning guy’s hold and whirled around. Kita’s training kicked in and she performed a quick kata, taking the guy to the ground.
Hamish moved with the rough awkwardness of a brawler—it wasn’t pretty but it got the job done—and managed to get a few more hooks in before he took another shot to the face.
“You have thirty seconds to get out.” The owner growled. “Don’t come back.”
Hamish grabbed her hand and went straight out the back. They made it in ten.
Chapter 13
Hamish and Jillian stumbled into the generic hotel room. Due to an apparently awesome convention nearby, the only hotel room they could get was a small dark room with a double bed. Fortunately, Jillian was able to prepay online, and they bypassed the front desk by checking in using the digital key app on her phone. They had gotten some serious looks when they’d snuck in a side door, and he shuddered to think what would have happened if they’d had to walk through the lobby.
She’d removed her coat and shoes but was still dressed in her jeans and a loose sky blue chambray shirt that draped over her breasts and created intriguing shadows.
Hamish shrugged out of his ruined shirt, the fabric ripped, one button missing, and tossed it over the desk chair in the corner. He toed off his trainers and kicked them under the desk. He bent over to remove h
is socks and groaned. His whole damn body hurt.
“I still think you should go to the hospital and get checked out.”
Hamish stubbornly pressed his swollen mouth together. “I’m fine. Besides, I don’t want any chance of the…altercation being reported to the police.”
Jill dampened a thin washcloth in the sink with cool water. “Sit down.”
He sat on the bed, legs spread, hands clasped between his knees, and closed his eyes. His eye socket throbbed with every inhale, and the rest of his body ached with soreness.
She handed him a hand towel filled with ice. “Put this on your eye.”
He grumbled and pressed the ball of ice to his purpling flesh.
Jill stood between his legs and tilted his chin up so she could see his cut. She dabbed at the one-inch cut gently.
“Christ, I could use a drink,” Hamish said.
“Not a good idea with a head wound.” She frowned. She was so close, the lines around her mouth were bracketed, and the stress of the past few days was visible. Her position placed her breasts right in front of his face that shadow tempting him with possibilities. Impossibly, his cock thickened.
“How do you want to play this tomorrow?” she asked huskily, as if her thoughts had gone to the same place as his.
It wasn’t that late. But it was a Sunday and the pharmacy was closed for the night. Life in a small town.
Hamish cleared his throat. “We’re going to go to the pharmacy and see if we can narrow down which of the three women is Brianna and attempt to get her address. Assuming she didn’t give a fake one, we’ll stake out that address and see if we can’t catch her. Hopefully the bar owner won’t alert her that we were asking questions.”
Hamish’s eyelids drifted closed and he winced when she cleaned out the cut. He could admit to being exhausted.
They were on the right track, he could feel it. Brianna was in his sights.
Even though Jillian was the one taking care of him right now, he wanted to take care of her. “Thanks for the assist on the…” He gestured to his head.
She smiled.
“The first time you tended to me, I thought it was out of character.”
She stiffened.
“Now I know that despite the tough-as-nails exterior, you hide a tender heart.”
She snorted. “Fat chance.”
“This is the most in-character thing you’ve done since I met you. You look out for everyone.”
She rolled her eyes and dabbed at his cut, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary.
“Nope.” But she smiled softly as if pleased by the fact that he noticed that she was a nurturer at heart.
“Aye.” Hamish prodded. “Admit it.”
She ignored him. “Lean back on the pillows.”
“Only if you lean with me.”
She shook her head.
“You’ve got to be as exhausted as I am,” Hamish cajoled. “It’s been a long fucking day.”
They had started the day in Philadelphia, in bed. He was happy that he was ending the day in Massachusetts, in bed with her again. “Come on, love.”
“Fine.” She tossed the damp cloth onto the end table.
Hamish scooted until his back was up against the pleated fake-leather headboard, still in his jeans and muscle vest.
Jillian hadn’t removed any clothing, dressed in jeans and that chambray shirt. She sat on the edge of the bed.
Hamish put a hand to his head. “Closer, love, in case I start to feel faint.”
She snorted. “Master manipulator. You’re fine.”
“Okay, honestly, closer because I need to hold onto you.” He let the laughter fall from his face. There had been a moment, when the bouncer had held Jillian and the owner was beating the shit out of him, when he’d felt powerless. She had been struggling, her arms bound behind her back, and the guy had started to drag her away.
In that moment, a killing rage had come over Hamish. He’d wanted to obliterate the fellow. But before he could unleash his mammoth wrath, Jillian had rescued herself.
“I was afraid for you.”
“The big bad NCA officer was afraid?” she teased.
“I knew eventually I would be able to break free, but I was terrified that before I could he would hurt you.”
“I am perfectly able to take care of myself.” As she’d proved.
“Terror isn’t rational, love.” He curled his arm around her shoulders and tugged her closer. Needing the contact, needing the reassurance that she was okay. The truth was he wanted more than a hug, needed that physical confirmation of her safety, a connection so pure it transcended rationality.
“Terror?” She tried to blow it off.
“I wanted to rip his fucking head off.” He kissed the side of her head and inhaled the patchouli scent, triggering a primordial rush of ownership, the need to stamp his physical seal of possession a drumbeat in his veins. “For daring to harm you.”
That shut her up.
“I should have known better than to walk into an unknown situation unprepared.”
“There’s no way we could have anticipated that attack.”
“Brianna is a master at convincing people to do what she wants.” Hamish squeezed her tighter. “I forgot and let down my guard.”
His heart had nearly stopped when the bouncer had grabbed her.
“I’m okay.” She attempted to calm him, stroking her hand down in his naked biceps. “You’re okay…sort of.”
His body responded to her soft stroke, his cock throbbing in time to the light touch, and he groaned.
“If you aren’t going to go to the hospital, I’ll need to check on you every few hours.”
“I’m at your disposal.”
“That sounds rather…provocative.”
“Use me at your will.” He didn’t have many close friends. And it had been a while since he’d had a lover. But he could get used to this. He and Charlie had been competitive. Charlie had been the jock, while Hamish had been the nerd.
But being a nerd had some benefits.
He’d studied female anatomy.
Just like cybercrime, where one small piece of intelligence could send an investigation into another level, a woman’s body was similar. He wanted to find her hidden erotic spots and bring her pleasure.
Hamish took her hand in his and stroked his fingers over the calluses he’d noticed the other day.
Now he realized they came from knitting. He stroked her hands with long slow pressure from his thumbs.
She moaned and his cock thickened again.
“That feels really good,” she breathed against his neck. “How did you know?”
“I grew up on a sheep farm. My mam knits sweaters to sell during the winters.” He continued to rub as she snuggled closer. “It can be hard on the hands.”
She must knit a lot.
“You have strong hands.” He raised her palm to his mouth and kissed the center softly.
She sighed and he kissed her again, this time caressing her skin with the tip of his tongue. Jillian lay on his chest, her chin tilted up and her gaze caught on his.
She curled her fingers around his neck and brought his mouth to hers.
Hamish’s heart constricted.
The moment felt significant.
She kissed him gently.
“Harder, love.”
“I’m trying not to hurt your mouth.” She feathered her fingertips over his swollen mouth.
“It will hurt more if you don’t give me a proper kiss.”
Hamish skimmed his fingers along her ribcage, lifting the soft chambray shirt so he could stroke her skin.
She arched into his touch.
He threaded his fingers through hers and rolled them so that he lay between her legs.
As her head hit the pillow, she winced.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ah, I’m a bit sore from the head butt.”
He rolled them again so they lay on their sides facing each o
ther. “You’re a bad ass.” He brushed the loose strands of hair from her cheek.
“Yeah, I’ll have to thank Kita.” She joked.
“Me too.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You hurt anywhere else?”
He wanted to take care of her. Wanted to soothe away every hurt and ache and wrap her up in a cocoon of safety.
She started to shake her head.
“Think about it before you answer.”
Jillian stared into his eyes, her chameleon gaze softening to the mottled gray of a Spring sky near his hometown. Mysterious and compelling at the same time. “I really am good.”
She trailed her fingers over his chest and gently brushed below his sternum. Now it was Hamish’s turn to wince.
“Does it hurt?”
“I’ll get over it.” He brushed off her concern. Because they were out of that back room and safe and they had a solid lead on Brianna. Life was good.
She brushed a kiss over his throbbing cheekbone. “Where’s your ice?”
She was doing it again, tending to him.
Jillian softly, slowly pressed her mouth to his, the touch light and tender. Hamish closed his eyes, gave himself over to her caress as he opened for the sensual assault.
He skimmed his fingers over the dip in her chambray top stroking the soft flesh between her breasts as she kissed her way down the bumps and bruises of his face and shoulders. He leaned closer and inhaled her scent, the musky aroma calming him.
Hamish slowly unbuttoned her shirt, wincing at the stiffness in his cracked knuckles. When he got to the button of her jeans, the scraped skin brushed against her belly.
“Your hands,” she murmured. “Let me.”
She quickly unbuttoned her jeans, pulled down the zipper, and wiggled out of them.
Hamish’s breath backed up in his throat at the gift she was giving him.
He’d really only wanted to hold her and feel her in his arms.
But as she held his gaze and let the blouse drop from her shoulders to reveal a lacy bra in a pristine white, his brain shifted to more carnal thoughts.
The sheer lace didn’t conceal the hard points of her nipples, and he couldn’t wait to sample her. He bent his head to worship her, closing his lips over the lace, tonguing the hard berry.
