by Cassie Wild
My throat tightened, swelled. There were things I wanted to say to him, but I didn’t dare. Holding it inside made the ache worse, and I went to close my eyes.
“Look at me, Briar…” I couldn’t resist that voice and dragged my lids open to stare at him. “Tha’s my girl,” he whispered, his accent thickening.
The words made me shiver. Once more, things unspoken rose up in my throat. Instead of saying them, I kissed him. I poured all those unspoken words, all my feelings into that kiss.
Cormac groaned, and I felt his body shudder. He caught me by the hip and rolled, twisting and shifting until I was draped over him. I rose up, looking down as I started to rock against him.
“I love the look o’ you,” he said.
“Stop talking,” I told him as I started to move against him more feverishly.
He laughed, his hands going to my hips.
I hadn’t meant to amuse him. I just couldn’t keep fighting what I felt inside. Yet, at the same time…I couldn’t entirely trust him either.
Not yet.
He arched up under me, thrusting so deep, so high up into me that it ripped a gasp from my throat.
I cried out.
He did it again, and again, and again…With a broken cry, I came. It was too quick. I didn’t want it to be over, but I couldn’t stop the climax any easier than I could stop the torrent of feelings rising inside me.
Cormac held my hips tight against his as he thrust into me, short, rough jabs that had the climax spinning on and on until he’d drained every last drop of pleasure from me.
I sagged against his chest, felt the wild rhythm of his heart.
He stroked a hand down my hair.
Closing my eyes, I tried to calm my breathing.
He murmured my name and lifted my hand to his lips.
The ache in my chest spread just a little bit more.
Sixteen
Briar
Cormac had surprised me as I was wrapping gifts for my family, joining me in the kitchen with four boxes of Irish whiskey. “For your dad and brothers,” he said.
I cocked a brow at him. “What’s this?”
“Seems like your dad likes high-dollar scotch and Irish whiskey, but he ought to give this one a try.”
I picked up one of the boxes and gave it a pensive study before shifting my attention to him. “Where’s mine?”
“Here.”
I blinked as he pulled out something from behind his back. No. Two somethings. And one of them smelled divine. Lavender, I thought.
“Do I open them now?”
He shrugged. “Up to you, love.”
My heart shivered at the endearment. Offhand, I knew, but the hopeful thing in my chest still bounded in excitement.
I’d been struggling with certain revelations over the past few days and was no closer to figuring out how to deal with them now than I had been when I started. Since I wasn’t ready to let him know, I pushed all those feelings off to the side and fixed a sly smile on my face. “I’ll have you know that I’m never one to turn down a chance to open presents early.”
An amused smile appeared on his face as I snatched both bags away and marched over to the counter. I opened the heavier one first, correctly assuming it was a box of the same kind of whiskey. I put it to the side. I’d have a glass of it once I was done. Then I opened the second one—the one that smelled soooo lovely.
I found an entire assortment of lotions and soaps and bath stuff, all in the lush scent of lavender—and handmade in Ireland. Slanting a look at him, I asked, “Did you take a quick trip across the pond for these?”
“No.” With a roll of his eyes, he continued, “There are some shops that specialize in that sort of thing. My mum loves that scent.”
“You bought me soap that your mom likes?” I teased.
To my surprise, he blushed and started to stammer. “Well, yeah, but she…I mean…it reminds her of home, and…I…well…”
“Hey…” I went to him and pressed a kiss to his mouth. “I was teasing. And so what if she likes it? It just means she’s got amazing taste. It smells divine. I love lavender.”
“I noticed.” He caught a strand of my hair and curled it around his finger. “You’re always wearing it. And for the record, when you wear it, it doesn’t smell anything like when my mum does.”
“Glad you cleared that up,” I told him with a wide grin.
“Smart-ass.” He tugged me close, pressing his mouth to mine.
I stopped him when he would have deepened the kiss. “We need to get this stuff wrapped. You distract me, and we’ll be late.”
Despite his claims that he couldn’t buy anything for my family, Cormac hadn’t just bought whiskey for my dad and brothers, he’d picked up smaller sets of the bath items for Isabel and Daria.
When I told him he shouldn’t have, he shrugged it off. “My mum spent half my life trying to knock manners into me, Briar. Might have taken a while, but I’m finally remembering the lessons. Besides, it’s not like I spent a fortune.”
Now, weighted down with his packages and several of mine, we strode up the stairs to the broad porch, reaching the top just as my father opened the door for us.
“Briar! Merry Christmas!” He rushed out and caught me in a hug, then took the packages I held before turning a bright smile onto Cormac. “Good to see you again, son.”
Cormac gave him a polite nod as Brooks appeared in the doorway. He looked us both over. “Are there people under all those packages?”
“I think so.” Nodding toward my trunk, I said, “Want to help me get the rest?”
As he started past me, I glanced over at Cormac. “Are you good?”
“I’ve got him, darling. Don’t worry,” my father said before Cormac could respond.
Still, I looked at Cormac.
When he gave me a quick wink, I turned to join my brother.
“You think Dad’s going to kill him in the few seconds they’re alone?” Brooks asked, clearly amused.
“You’re so funny,” I told him dryly. “I bet you keep Daria laughing all the time with that wicked sense of humor.”
“Smart-ass.”
I grinned. “You know, Cormac said the same thing to me earlier today.”
“Well, you are a smart-ass, sis. Do you expect people not to point it out?”
I grabbed the few bags he didn’t, then hit the button to lower the trunk. Together we walked toward the house.
“You haven’t said anything,” Brooks said in a quiet voice.
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I blew out a tired breath. “I’m still trying to figure out what to say, Brooks. But you asked me to wait. I’m trying to trust you.”
“Dad sold off a few more of his…shadier businesses last week,” he said softly. “He’s making changes.”
“Why doesn’t he just sell them all off?”
“It’s not that easy.” Brooks sounded grimmer now.
But before I could ask why, the door opened and Declan appeared.
“Hey, man!” Brooks called out, his voice easier and lighter.
The man was a chameleon when he wanted to be.
“Not bad.” Seamus Downing smacked his lips and studied his glass appreciatively before he shifted his attention to Cormac. “Not bad at all.”
Cormac lifted his glass and offered my father a crooked grin. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Downing, you don’t have to be a fuckin’ rich man to appreciate good Irish whiskey.”
My father broke out in a rich, deep laugh. One by one, my brothers followed. Even Daria laughed, although from what I could tell, Isabel only offered a faint, strained smile.
At the end of the gift exchange, when Daria broke out the cookies and cocktails, Isabel bolted out of the room.
Whether anybody else noticed, I couldn’t say.
Granted, I’d been on edge most of the afternoon. Maybe I was paranoid. I didn’t know. I’d never felt like this before, and I’d certainly never been in a situation wher
e I felt so on edge. I’d definitely never had to handle anything like what I felt when compared to Isabel.
It wasn’t anything even remotely akin to jealousy.
But she watched Cormac.
It wasn’t with the same leering, hungry gaze I’d seen on the faces of women when we went out, either. There was something…speculative in her gaze. Something that made me worry, made me doubt.
I told myself I was worrying about nothing, told myself that Isabel, like me, was at odd ends.
Nobody else in the family noticed. They didn’t notice how she stood back from everything, watching Cormac and me, watching Brooks and me, watching everything with a distant, almost dispassionate air.
They didn’t even seem to notice how she managed to keep a polite distance between herself and everybody else in the room. It was an engaged sort of distance, and I admired the way she did it, laughing and smiling, but she wasn’t acting quite like herself.
But nobody else seemed to notice.
They definitely didn’t notice how she kept herself apart when her husband entered the room. She greeted him with the sort of smile one might give a stranger, then directed her attention to whatever trivial display was in front of her before letting her attention drift away.
So when she slid from the room, I was the only one who followed.
Isabel didn’t stop in the nearest hallway, and I had to jog to keep up with her. I was in decent shape, but compared to a dancer? I might as well be a couch potato. It took me a bit to close the distance, and by then, she was on her knees in a bathroom, tucked well off the main hall.
“Go away,” Isabel mumbled as I tried to wipe a thick washcloth over her forehead.
“Sure,” I said, indulging her. “When you can stand on your own two feet and point me in the right direction.”
She just groaned and bent back over the toilet.
“Go away,” she said again after a few uneventful moments passed. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Probably.” I touched my fingers to the pulse on her inner wrist. “And I’ll get right on that once you’re out there, shaking it with the rest of the family.”
She rolled a baleful eye toward me. “I don’t think I’m going to be shaking anything for a while.”
I weighed that comment against what I’d already considered. “How’s your appetite?”
“Shitty.” She sighed and dropped her brow onto her forearm. “Seriously, Briar. I appreciate the concern, but I’ve handled this for a couple of weeks. Just…go away.”
I couldn’t, though. I thought about Sean, and everything else. “I would…but you’re family, Iz.” Brushing a damp strand of hair back from her face, I asked, “Is there anything you’ve had luck holding down?”
She groaned.
But after a minute, her head lolled onto my palm, and she sighed. “Yeah. Maybe. I guess.”
“Going to tell me what it is, or do I get to play twenty questions?”
“Smart-ass.” A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. “I do okay with ginger ale.”
“Want me to get you some?”
She nodded. “Thank you.” She hesitated, then added, “But you’re still a smart-ass. Just like Sean.”
Her heart showed in her eyes just then.
Taking her hand in mine, I squeezed her fingers.
“Does he know?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “I…I haven’t figured out how to tell him.”
Seventeen
Cormac
I’d been given shitty jobs before, had accepted shitty jobs, even. I’d done it knowing they’d be shitty right from the start, and I’d done them anyway.
Yeah, I had my lines. Even for men like me, there were lines. For a lot of us, anyway. For some, there were no lines. But I had them, and they were clear as day.
On one side of the line, there were jobs I’d take. On the other, jobs I wouldn’t.
Even on the side of the jobs I’d take, though, there were some shitty things I’d done, and there was no denying it.
There had even been a time when a local drug dealer had told me he needed me to watch this girl the dealer had dated in high school. He claimed he was concerned the woman was working with the cops and trying to set him up.
It had been nothing more than a big, fat, fucking waste of time, and I’d ended up being the focus of the cops—exactly the way the asshole dealer had planned. The cops had sort of been watching her, but then I showed up, and they focused on me, and he slipped his old sweetheart out of the area.
Stupid me for not figuring it out.
Oddly enough, I got it now.
People did crazy things when their emotions were involved.
Maybe even lie to the people they cared about. It was something I’d never understood before, how people could twist themselves into knots over the feelings of others.
I sure as fuck understood now.
My nerves were shot, and I couldn’t keep my attention on the conversation, on anything as I roamed the house and checked the windows and watched the grounds. I felt like an attack might come from any given direction, and until I heard from Marcos that things were done and settled—that it was over—I wouldn’t feel better.
Over.
I wanted to punch myself in the head.
When would this be over?
I’d given Marcos information on these people.
Oh, they were neck-deep in some dirty shit, and there was no denying that. Not that I’d caught them in anything. But I knew this life, inside and out. I’d been living it for years, even for months before I’d run away from home. I’d been a grunt then, but even as a stupid teenager, I’d been roughing people up for money, keeping a bit of it on the sly and turning the rest over to whoever hired me.
But the Downings weren’t like the Castellanos.
I’d only ever worked for the brothers. I hadn’t met Basilio and had no idea what he was like. Of the two brothers, I could say that, without a doubt, Marcos was the more dangerous. His older brother was colder, likely more lethal, but Marcos was…unpredictable, and he played by a rule book neither his father or brother were aware of.
I had no doubt that if the other two Castellanos became aware of how uncontrollable Marcos had become, they’d take steps to rein him in. I probably should reach out to them, but it was possible they wouldn’t believe me. It was also possible they’d decide to eliminate me out of loyalty to him, even if they did realize they needed to get him under control. It was also possible they’d do nothing.
I couldn’t risk it.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
The feminine voice, tone challenging, caught my attention, and I looked up to find Isabel Castellanos—no, Isabel Downing—watching me from just a few feet away. Something about the look in her eyes put me on edge, but I kept my expression neutral as I met her gaze. “It’s a party. What’s not to enjoy?”
“A party.” She offered me a sharp-edged smile. “Sure. Food. Good booze.”
I glanced at the glass she held in her hand. It was mostly empty, and something told me that she wasn’t partaking the way just about everybody else was. “Can’t knock good booze. Would you like me to get you another drink?”
“I’m fine.”
Unless it was my imagination, her mouth tightened slightly, and she paled.
But her expression smoothed and cleared in the next moment, and she gave me a brilliant smile.
“You know, you look really familiar to me.” She wagged a finger at me, a bright, charming smile on her face.
I took extreme care not to react. I couldn’t afford it.
I’d seen Isabel Castellanos once or twice. Always at a distance. And that wasn’t including the times I’d seen her picture—always with her brothers or parents. Marcos only had a few personal photos at his house in Miami, but I’d seen them nonetheless.
But the pictures weren’t the issue.
The issue—or the issues—were the parties where I’d seen hi
s sister. Giving her a noncommittal look, I studied her over the rim of my class. “That right? I can’t say that you look at all familiar to me, Isabel. Well, except for when we met here.”
“Really?” She gave me a wide-eyed look. “You don’t think it’s possible we rubbed shoulders or anything? I mean, Briar told me you’re from Miami. That’s where my family is from.”
Fuck. Just how much had Briar told her?
I had no idea, but I somehow doubted she’d told her sister-in-law that I’d been hired by somebody in her sister-in-law’s family. That just seemed…foolish. And Briar wasn’t foolish.
“Really?” I tossed back the rest of my whiskey and put the glass down, giving Isabel my full attention, my face fixed in a curious, interested expression. “Somehow I don’t think we run in the same circles. What part of Miami are you from?”
She arched a brow. “Are you serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Isabel tossed her head back, laughing.
The sound was bright and cheery.
I wondered if I was the only one who heard the sharp edge under it.
Briar and Sean glanced toward us, but nobody else did. I had to assume nobody else heard that brittle note in her laughter.
Finally, her laughter faded, and she looked back at me with a glittering stare. “Briar never told you my maiden name?”
“I can’t say she did,” I told her, shaking my head and pretending to be confused.
“It’s Castellanos.”
I squinted my eyes for a second as I pretended to think. Then, with a grin, I nodded. “Your brothers run some clubs down there, don’t they?”
That clearly wasn’t the response she had been expecting because she pursed her lips, studying me for a long moment. “Yes.”
I expected her to say something else, but she just turned on her heel and strode off.
Keeping a casual eye on her, I went to refill my glass.
She went and spoke to Sean in a low voice, and by the time I’d topped off my scotch, Isabel had slid out of the room.
Sean wasn’t far behind her.
