by A. Zavarelli
“You don’t own me,” I laugh.
He captures my wrists and holds them above my head with one hand while the other pulls down my shorts. “Aye,” he grunts. “I fucking do.”
I smile back at his caveman bullshit in spite of myself. There’s no denying I like feeling a little bit helpless when he’s around.
It’s clear by the laser focus of his eyes and hands he’s done talking. Once my shorts are off, he yanks down his pants and wraps my legs around his waist. Then he grabs me by the hips and drops me onto his cock, using my back and the wall for leverage.
Before he moves, his eyes find mine and something in his expression changes.
“I know ye’ve had to be tough all your life, sweetheart,” he says. “But ye don’t have to do that with me. I’ll protect ye, and on occasion boast because ye’re mine. That’s just the way it goes.”
I bite back the wave of emotion his words bring on. It’s something I’ve always wanted, though I’m too proud to admit it. How long has it been since I had someone looking out for me too? Since I didn’t have to worry about the dangers lurking around every corner. That’s what Lachlan’s promising me. And right here and now, for a moment, I pretend that I can have it.
He fucks me hard. Harder than he’s ever fucked me. And just as I suspect he wants, I’m screaming when I come. The whole goddamn gym probably heard it. Lach’s still powering into me, and I can’t stop myself from stroking over his muscular chest and shoulders. He’s so incredibly hot. And he wants me. I reach forward and suck on his neck, tasting his salt and skin. He groans, and I suck harder.
He grips my ass and impales himself as deep as he can go before he jerks inside of me, swearing like a sailor. I pull away from his neck with a pop, smiling at the hickey I left for all the world to see.
“Oops.”
Lachlan grins and kisses me hard, holding me up with his arms. I don’t know where he’s finding the strength after everything we’ve done today. On top of that he’s still wounded, and it’s the last thing he should be doing. I slide down his body until my feet touch the floor
“Right.” He grabs my hand in his. “Now let’s hit the showers.”
27
MACKENZIE
ANOTHER WEEK PASSES without a whole lot of leads. I’ve been bored out of my mind hanging around the club, and Lachlan’s had Ronan at my side the entire time which I can totally tell he just looooves. I did however manage to get Sasha onboard with my plan. She agreed to let me know if she sees the Russian that was hanging around Talia. The longer I spend here, the more I gain her trust. It can only help that I’m keeping Donovan away from her.
So far dickhead has been avoiding the place, but he’s here tonight. I’m sitting at the bar waiting for Lachlan to get back when I notice Donny slinking towards the dressing room. Since Sasha’s on first, he no doubt expects her to be back there getting ready. Too bad for him that I’ve put a little wrinkle in his plan. I’m ready for him, and honestly, I’ve been counting down the minutes for this.
Every day for the last week we’ve taken over one of the downstairs storage areas and turned it into a makeshift dressing room for Sasha only. I made up a whole story about the other girls being bitchy as an excuse. Lach grumbled about it for all of two seconds before I used my lips to coerce him into it. Secretly, I don’t think he actually minds since he thinks Sasha and I are bonding. As it turns out, Lachlan is quite busy with his mobster activities, and me having a friend here gives him some peace of mind. Probably because he thinks it’ll keep me out of trouble. Hah.
While Ronan is engrossed in conversation with Conor, I slip off my bar stool and follow Donovan into the back. When he hears my footsteps behind him, he wheels around and glares at me.
“What the fuck you lookin’ at?”
Sheesh, someone’s touchy today. I can’t help but annoy him further with a smile.
“Looking for Sash?” I ask. “You won’t find her back here.”
He takes a step forward and flexes his arms, looking like a total cockhead. “What’s it to you what I’m doing, huh?”
I hold my ground and shrug. “Nothin’ to me. But you’re going to leave Sasha the hell alone from now on.”
His eyes flash with annoyance and he barks out a laugh. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talkin’ to?”
I reach forward and slam my hands against his chest, knocking him back in surprise.
“C’mon,” I goad him. “You like to smack girls around? Go on, give me your best shot. But unlike the ones you pick on, I promise I’ll fight back.”
Every muscle in his body is rippling with tension and his veins look like they’re about to explode. But he doesn’t move. “Big words coming from Crow’s little whore. You think he’s going to protect you forever, you got another thing coming.”
“I don’t see him here now.” I throw my arms out wide. “So, if you want to act like a big, tough man, then go right ahead.”
His eyes tell me he wants to. The fact that I’m under Lach’s protection pisses him off more than anything. He knows he can’t touch me and still live to tell about it, so he’s holding back. For now. But I don’t trust that it’s going to stay that way for long.
“You’re going to regret this,” he growls. “You dumb fucking broad.”
“Is there a problem here?”
I wheel around to find Lachlan, his focus narrowed dangerously on Donovan. I glance back at Donny and wink.
“I don’t know, Donny. Do we have a problem here?”
“No problem,” he barks out. “I was just telling Mack here how lucky she is to have you. That’s all.”
With a twisted sneer, he leaves the room, humming a little tune as he goes. Way too happily for my liking. I turn to find Lach still staring at the door Donny walked through, almost as if he’s debating going after him.
“You tell me if he gives ye any trouble, Mack,” he says.
“Aw.” I flutter my eyelashes at him. “Are you going to defend my honor?”
He walks up and pulls me into his arms, his expression dead serious. “Always, sweetheart.”
The incident with Donny has left me with my hackles up, but it’s only confirmed that Lachlan is serious. He’s not going to let me out of his sight, and he has every intention of protecting me. This is going to be a problem.
So I do the one thing that I swore I wouldn’t. It isn’t often I admit defeat, but in this situation, there’s no choice. I’ve tried to do things my way, mostly because I didn’t want to drag anyone else into it, and I’ve been saving all of my money until I could get the job here. But this is a case where I’d consider the expense a necessity. There’s an ex-cop turned PI who I think might be able to get me the information I’m looking for. The only problem is, I won’t be able to see him myself.
When I finally get a moment alone in Lach’s office, I pull out my cell phone and call Scarlett.
“Hey babe,” she answers. “It’s about damn time you called me.”
“Sorry,” I whisper. “But it’s been a little difficult.”
“Yeah, I figured,” she says. “So how’s it going?”
“Well, not great,” I answer honestly. “They’ve got eyes on me all the time, and… well, I’m going to need your help.”
“Thank God,” she sighs. “I’ve been bored out of my mind. Tell me what I can do for you.”
I glance at the door, knowing Lachlan will be back any second and spit it out. “I need you to go see my guy in the Dot. Tell him I need anything he can get me on Donovan O’Shea.”
Scarlett laughs, and I can hear her scrawling down a note, like she might somehow forget. I know she won’t, she’s sharper than I am. “Alright, babe.”
“Take whatever you need from my safe for payment,” I tell her. “And I will contact you, okay. Not the other way around.”
“Got it.”
The door swings open, and Lach gives me a curious look when he sees me on the phone. I flash him a smile and try not to draw suspici
on.
“Okay, grandma,” I say. “I have to go now. You take care and give gramps a hug for me.”
Scarlett snorts on the other line. “Yeah, sure thing, babe. I’ll get right on that.”
A click of the line, and I shove my phone back in my purse and cross my legs as Lach stalks around his desk and sits down in his chair.
“I thought your grandparents were dead,” he says.
“They are. But those are just some foster parents I stayed with for a while. Closest thing to family I’ve got left.”
Lachlan accepts my explanation without any more suspicion, which makes me feel both relieved and guilty at the same time.
“Come up here.” He pats the surface of his desk.
I grin and stand up, walking towards him slowly. Since the first night he took me, I’ve learned a thing or two about Lachlan Crow. He loves morning sex. Then again, he loves it anytime, really. Night or day. And he’s already made good on a few of his promises about his office. We have yet to christen his car though.
Things between us are crazy hot. Whatever hope I held for getting it out of my system is long gone now. I still don’t know if he’s banging anybody behind my back. I’m too afraid to ask. Too afraid of all the different feelings I’ve got running rampant inside of me. There’s a reason I generally keep people at a distance, and this is it. But there is no shield for Lachlan. No armor strong enough to keep him out.
When he looks at me now, his eyes hungry and fierce as I sit down before him, I know more than ever that it’s true. I underestimated what it would feel like to have someone look at me that way. Not just someone but him. He’s waking something inside of me. He’s breathing life into me. And I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t think I want it to stop.
His palms glide up my thighs, pushing the material of my dress up as he goes. The gray of his irises expand and swell as he grabs my ass and brings me to the edge of the desk. He splays my legs open and then steps between them, closing the distance between us.
“I’m having a shite of a day, Mack.” He grips my hair in his fist. “And I want ye to make it better.”
“Anything for you,” I whisper.
He kisses me. And then he has my hand, dragging it over the bulge in his jeans. I grip his hot cock and rub, jacking him off through the material. Almost instantly, his eyes fall half shut, and he lets out an agonized sound.
He looks a little off balance today. More on edge than I’m used to seeing him. And I know things must be really bad. He needs this. He needs me to take his stress away. I want to.
I tug on his zipper and slip my hand inside of his briefs, stroking him hard and rough the way he likes. He isn’t moving. He’s hardly even breathing. His eyes are closed and he’s just enjoying the moment. I slip down on my knees before him and he smiles. I already know what he’s thinking.
“You’re the only man I’ll ever bow down to like this,” I tell him.
I didn’t think he could get any harder, but I was wrong. He grips my hair and pulls my mouth all the way down on his shaft until I’m flush with his pelvis.
“Ah, Christ sweetheart,” he sighs.
And then he’s face fucking me. Hard and fast and all I can do is hold onto his thigh and squeeze his ass with my other hand. He drags my mouth up and down his shaft, making those noises that I love. I’m obsessed with those sounds, knowing that I caused them. Lach’s never looked sexier than he does right now. He’s looking down at me like I’m his savior, and I can’t fucking handle it. I want to be his relief. I want to be so many things to him, but not his savior. Because I’m not.
A tear escapes my eye, and I tell myself that it’s just from him gagging me. He grabs my head and pushes me all the way down on his cock while he blows his load inside my mouth.
“Take it,” he grunts.
I slavishly do as he says. And even when his grip has relaxed, and he’s stroking my hair, I’m still sucking on him. Taking care of him. What the fuck is wrong with me?
He’s hardly softened at all. And somehow I know that isn’t going to be the last of it. Just as I suspect, he bends down and pulls me back up to the desk, resting my ass right on the edge. And then he kneels until his face is right between my legs. He gives me a little shove until I fall back on my elbows and I’m staring up at the ceiling.
And then his mouth is on me, sucking, licking, biting at me. I don’t want to enjoy it because a part of me feels like I don’t deserve this. But when he pushes his tongue inside of me, my brain shuts off completely.
My breath quickens. My pulse flutters. My back snaps backwards as he buries his face between my legs. I hate him. I hate him for making me feel this way. So confused. So off balance. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I reach down and stroke his hair anyway. Fuck. I’ve never felt so conflicted. All of my frustrations, my confusion, my arousal… they combine to form an atomic bomb inside of me. And when it goes off, I scream out his name.
I collapse back onto the desk, and without any pause he’s pushing inside of me. Despite my exhaustion, my body sucks him in greedily. Lach groans and then pulls me backwards until we both collapse in the chair.
He pins my arms behind my back and licks my nipples until I can’t take it anymore.
“Fuck, these tits,” he grunts. “I love these goddamn tits.”
He’s always saying that. I smile at him and he kisses me hard.
“Move your hips for me,” he murmurs roughly.
I know what he wants, so I give it to him. A lap dance on his cock. He leans back and enjoys the show while I roll my hips in circles and feel him swelling even more inside of me.
“Ye’re dead gorgeous, sweetheart,” he says. “I love watching ye this way.”
“I’m the only one, right?” the words slip from my mouth before I can stop them.
Lachlan groans and wraps his fingers around my hips, taking control as he fucks me hard.
“Ye’re the only one, butterfly.” The words come between thrusts. “The only one I want.”
When I open my eyes and meet his, I believe him. He’s being open and honest right now, lost in the rush of ecstasy. I doubt he could string together a lie right now if he wanted to. And my heart feels lighter. So when he buries his face in my neck and comes again, I do something I can’t recall ever doing before. I wrap my arms around his waist and I hug him.
28
LACHLAN
“HOLD UP.” I tap at the screen. “Right there.”
Alexei freezes the image and works his magic on it. After several more clicks and buttons, the image comes clear. Ivan. He said something to the Armenians before he legged it out of the club that day. And then they lit the place up with bullets.
Alexei leans back in his chair on a sigh. “He doesn’t know about the cameras,” he confirms. “Viktor had them installed after one of our own started skimming from us.”
“So he hasn’t a clue that we’re aware of his betrayal?”
Alexei shakes his head and reaches for the cognac. “I couldn’t say. He hasn’t been around for a week now. Viktor is not happy.”
My fingers tap the wood desk in agitation. This news should come as a relief. Now we know for certain Ivan is the one feeding information to the Armenians. But it still doesn’t explain how he got the information. Ivan is just a soldier, and not one who’s privy to the details of every meeting or drop.
Then there’s still the matter of the ballistics report from my grandfather. Something about it doesn’t feel right. It’s too clean. Too easy. Ivan is a bloody idiot, but I don’t see him having reason to kill Carrick. There has to be more to it than that.
A part of me wants to explain it away. Maybe it was an accident. Our lads don’t get hit from friendly fire often, but it has occurred before. This doesn’t feel like one of those situations, no matter which angle I look at it from.
“Niall will want to meet.”
Alexei nods. “I’ll let Viktor know.”
He offers me a glass
of cognac and I take it.
“I’m likely to catch heat for this,” I tell him.
He looks ups at me, and there’s a bit of humor in his always serious eyes. I’ve always thought Alexei too weak when it comes to women. He can see now that I’m afflicted with the same madness.
“He’ll want to make the trade soon.”
I swallow everything that’s in my glass and allow it to burn my insides up.
This.
This is the reason why I don’t want to accept that Ivan’s responsible. I can’t let her go. But I’ve no choice. Alexei looks at me, and he knows. He knows full well exactly what he’s done to me.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”
“Then that makes two of us.” He shrugs and raises his glass to mine.
29
MACKENZIE
AFTER ANOTHER WEEK in Lachlan’s bed and life, the lines are starting to blur even more than I care to admit. When I walk into the bathroom and catch him shaving, it feels familiar. The steam is still evaporating from his shower, filled with the scent of his body wash. Everywhere I look, our things are scattered and strewn together. A tube of my lipstick, his aftershave… a laundry basket filled with his jeans and my lace underthings.
Every day, this is our routine. We wake up and he sinks inside of me, desperately trying to put a dent in the ravenous hunger we have for each other’s flesh. It doesn’t work. The thing I thought I’d be able to get out of my system is only growing stronger. I know it is for him too. Sometimes he takes me twice before we end up in the shower together. We take our time cleaning each other and then I sit up here and do my makeup while he shaves.
He's let his guard down around me. When he looks at me now, there’s no longer suspicion, but something else. It feels comfortable. And it feels like home.
It shouldn’t.
He's infiltrating my thoughts, my soul, my very life force... wrapping his fingers around them and squeezing. Every time I question my feelings, I think I must be going crazy. The things Lach is involved in… they aren’t new to me. I know men like him. I’ve known them all my life.
