by Kasey Krane
He looked like a man who wanted to always be in control.
While pounding me, he grabbed my face. His thumbs pressed into my cheeks hard. I had no choice but to look into his eyes. His cock pushed into me, then pulled out. I was so close to coming already and it looked like he had something to say to me.
“You are the sexiest woman I’ve been with,” he grunted, coming inside me.
I came too.
I wasn’t expecting those words from him. Especially not now when we weren’t drunk anymore. When he should have been busy regretting marrying me the previous night.
What was that supposed to mean?
We both came with moans and sighs until there was nothing left to do but part ways.
He released me and I came away from him, stopping myself from sinking to the floor. I wanted him to see that I was still in control of myself and the situation.
It was just sex, right? Nothing more.
There was nothing wrong with having sex. Not with your legal husband. Even though he was a complete stranger.
I stood under the shower, giving myself one last rinse while Colin stepped out and grabbed a towel.
“I have to go, my brothers are waiting for me. This is supposed to be a bachelor’s weekend. My oldest brother is getting married in a few weeks,” he said, while rubbing the towel in his hair.
I remembered it now. It was like deja-vu. He’d already given me this information the previous night.
I nodded. I guessed this was his polite way of asking me to hurry the fuck up.
By the time I’d dressed and stepped out of the bathroom, Colin was ready to leave.
Fresh shirt, clean pair of jeans, clean shaven. He looked even more handsome—how was that possible? Was I seeing things? Was I still drunk or just delusional?
Could sex actually influence your mind that much?
“So…what now?” I asked.
Colin had a note in his hand, which he handed to me. It had a phone number, that was it.
“Text me your number so we can keep in touch,” he said.
That was all? This was my husband and he just wanted me to text him so we could send each other legal updates?
I nodded, because I had no choice. He was right. What more could there be? Why was I finding it so difficult to detach from this moment?
“I’ll get my lawyers on the case and I’m sure it’s just a simple procedure. I’ll keep you posted.”
I nodded again, and for some reason, I could feel a tug in my soul. I wished I had a little more time with him. Why? To do what?
This was what I wanted, right? This was what needed to be done.
Sever all ties.
Colin walked up to the door and held it open. It was time to go.
In the elevator we were silent, barely even looking at each other.
We stepped out when it stopped and I still didn’t know what to say.
“Hey, thanks for the night,” he said abruptly. I stared at him in surprise. “Even though I don’t remember most of it, I must have had fun if I ended up marrying you at the end of it.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” I replied.
“Colin!” We both heard someone shout his name from the other end of the lobby.
He waved at the man who looked vaguely familiar to me.
“Come on, man!” Someone else shouted. I noticed they were standing in a group together.
A group of exceptionally handsome men. Colin shrugged, then turned to me with a wink.
“Gotta go. See you around, I guess,” he said, walking backwards. At the verge of disappearing from my life forever. I didn’t even know if I’d see him again.
All I could do was stand and stare. I watched as he ran over to the group of men. They were laughing and talking loudly. All eyes in the lobby were on them. Nobody could look away.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d seen some of those faces before.
In files.
On a computer somewhere.
They were part of classified information.
They were the Doherty brothers.
Ten
Colin
The plan for this day was to hit as many casinos as we could, and my brothers lapped it up. Finally, without the prospect of drunken chicks hitting on us, Killian and Aidan seemed to be able to relax and just have fun.
Yeah, it seemed like everyone around me was having fun.
Except, me.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the mess I’d fallen into. A mess I created for myself. No matter how tasty she looked on the dance floor, I should have stuck by my brothers the previous night. I should have sniffed trouble the moment I got close to her.
Now, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
We were at a swanky casino where my brothers sat around a blackjack table. I made an excuse about getting a drink and stepped away. I went to the bar and stood there by myself, knocking back shot after shot.
Hair of the dog.
It was my only chance of making it through the day despite the throbbing ache between my eyes. I was still hungover.
The only time I had felt human was when I was with Marley earlier. She did something to me that I couldn’t explain.
It had to be this mysterious quality in her that made me marry her. I was too drunk to resist it. I mistook her sex appeal for something else.
What?
I had no explanation for it.
Getting married had never crossed my mind. Not once. Not even with Tina.
And ever since she came into my life and then left, getting married and settling down was a laughable idea. I didn’t entertain it.
Then why did I go along with it the previous night? No matter how drunk I was, why didn’t the alarm bells go off in my head?
“A man like you shouldn’t be drinking alone.” I heard a low female voice beside me and turned to find a girl in a sexy shimmering gold dress. She had a martini in her hand which she was sipping from. I barely even looked at her face but she already pissed me off.
On any other night, anywhere else—I would have smiled at the opportunity of banging another chick.
I had no interest in her tonight.
“What makes you think you know what kind of a man I am?” I snarled at her.
Her cheeks flushed and maybe she couldn’t tell if I was just making conversation or being an asshole.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” she continued.
I put my glass down on the bar with a bang and turned to face her. She cowered a little, quickly realizing she had misjudged my tone.
“Stay the fuck away from me before you regret ever looking in my direction.” The words poured out of me like venom. I didn’t know who I was mad at, but she looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Give this lady another one of those.” It was Aidan. He was standing directly behind me and speaking to the bartender, referring to her martini. Apparently, my voice had attracted the attention of a few people around us and they were all watching me.
Aidan smiled at the girl and then grabbed my arm.
“And you need to stop drinking,” he snarled in my ear.
I tried to get away from him but Aidan had a pretty solid grip on me and he took me to a different part of the casino. Clearly to get me away from my brothers because he didn’t want them to see me like this. At one point, I just relented and let him lead me away.
Then he handed me a bottle of water from a table nearby.
“Drink this.”
“You’re asking me to hydrate?” I said with a laugh.
“No. I’m telling you.”
He watched as I drank half the bottle. Against my will.
I wasn’t going to admit to him that I actually felt good from it.
“Are you going to explain why you have a ring on your finger?” he asked next.
Shit.
I’d forgotten to take the cheap-ass ring
off my finger. I flung the bottle of water away and fiddled with the ring but it wouldn’t come off.
A smile curled on Aidan’s lips.
“Is it what I think it is?”
I couldn’t look him in the eye. I looked everywhere else but at him, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for wearing a fucking ring on my finger.
“Is that why you disappeared for so long? You went and married that chick from last night?” Aidan’s voice was a mixture of pure shock and unbridled laughter.
“Fuck off,” I growled at him and tried to walk away.
Then he grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me back.
“You listen to me, Colin. This is Killian’s weekend. This is supposed to be about him and not your idiotic drunken story from last night.”
I jerked his hands away from me and smoothened the front of my shirt.
“It’s like you’re looking for trouble on purpose. You want to make a scene and piss everyone off? Do it. But you’ll regret it tomorrow. We are not in New York right now. Stop picking fights. You know better than that.”
Aidan was serious as he spoke. His eyes were narrowed at me and I had to admit he was right. He was right about everything.
I didn’t even know what was making me so mad.
The fact that I’d done something stupid or because Marley wasn’t there with me?
Aidan waited a few beats before he spoke again.
“‘You ready to talk?” he asked.
I ran a hand through my hair and breathed out slowly.
“There’s nothing to say. You’ve guessed it. I got drunk and married the girl I banged last night.”
Aidan shrugged.
“Okay. So fuckin’ what? This is Las Vegas. Everyone does it here,” he said.
Aidan didn’t get it. He watched me with a fuckin’ grin on his face that I wanted to wipe off.
I felt like I was losing my mind.
“What’s the big deal, man? You get it annulled. Forget about it. And if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to see her again.”
I leaned against the table and stared up at the ceiling like I was watching stars.
“And if you’re really lucky, then you’ll convince her to perform her wifely duties,” Aidan continued with a snicker.
I glared at him and he shook his head.
“What?”
“I don’t think we’re seeing each other again,” I replied hoarsely.
“And that bothers you?”
“No, it doesn’t!” I snapped.
“Then what is the matter with you, man? You look like your soul has been drained out of you. It’s a sham wedding. It means nothing.”
Those words felt like punches in the gut.
I knew it was a sham wedding. I knew it meant nothing. I didn’t even know her last name. I wouldn’t have known how to go looking for her if I wanted to see her again. I kept checking my phone all day to see if she’d texted me and she hadn’t.
It was obvious that Marley had taken the news much worse than I did. And I thought I was allergic to settling down.
“I’m just hungover, all right?” I growled at Aidan.
“Yeah, okay. We all hear you. You had too much to drink. You banged a chick all night and ended up marrying her. You regret it in the morning. Get over it. It’s Killian’s weekend, remember?”
He finally walked away and it looked like he was going to leave me alone. I needed to be left alone.
I didn’t know how long I had before one of the others came looking for me, so I just stood there and drank some more of the water.
Aidan was right about everything. What was the big deal?
Why couldn’t we have fun? Why did I care so much about what happened with her? Technically, she meant nothing to me. But today, she clouded my every thought like a shadow.
Yeah, it was a stupid move. I never planned on getting married—she said she didn’t either. But why couldn’t we make the best of a bad situation?
I kept thinking about Marley in the shower. Her wet body, her milky smooth skin and dark luscious hair. I wanted her again.
I didn’t want any other girl. Not tonight.
Wasn’t a man entitled to have his woman whenever he wanted? And she was my woman by law. At least for a few more weeks.
But I was just kidding myself, because I had no idea when I would see her again. Chances were that she had no plans of seeing me either, and I would just have to make my peace with it.
Eleven
Marley
I shouldn’t have gone into work that day. Not when I was feeling this shit. Not when I was almost blinded by the hangover still raging around my brain.
But stupidly, I thought if I went to the precinct it would keep my mind off everything else.
Thankfully, I remembered to take the ring off my finger before I walked into the office. The last thing I needed was someone noticing it and spreading the news around. They loved tormenting me there.
It was midday and I was several hours late, so I kept my head down when I arrived. I hoped nobody would notice me slip in, but obviously they did.
Apparently they didn’t have someone to do the coffee-run in the morning and that had put them in a funk. For a change, some of them had to go get their own coffees.
“I had to drink the disgusting stuff from the machine,” one of them complained, shaking his head at me like I had disappointed him.
“I wasn’t feeling very well,” I responded, slumping down in my chair and hoping to gain some sympathy.
“Yeah, you look like shit. You got a bug or something?” another guy asked.
I switched on my computer, hoping they would soon leave me alone and I’d be able to stare blankly at the screen for hours.
“It’s not a bug. Don’t worry. You’re not going to get sick,” I murmured.
“We should send her out to that taco place for our lunch,” someone suggested. I felt a pang of anger in the middle of my chest.
They were already discussing tacos between themselves. This was a whole new low. I was a qualified detective who was being treated as nothing better than a food delivery service.
“You better write this down, Price,” one of the guys shouted at me like he was losing his patience. “Or you’ll get the orders all wrong.”
I blinked at him and eventually realized what he meant. They wanted to give me their taco orders. They were serious about this.
“I have stuff to do. I’m behind,” I tried.
“Stuff like what? What are you working on, Price?” another one asked with a snicker.
They all knew I wasn’t working on a case. I hadn’t been involved in anything substantial. They were all in on the scheme together—to keep me from doing anything productive.
I could feel the rage coursing through my veins.
If only they knew what I knew. If they had seen what I saw—they would be foaming at the mouth with greed.
I was in close contact with a member of the Doherty family. I’d spent the night with him. In fact, I was now married to him. Technically, some would argue I was a part of the Doherty family myself.
These assholes had no idea the kind of information I could potentially be sitting on.
But I said nothing.
Instead, I picked up a notebook and ripped out a sheet of paper to take down their orders.
Being accidentally married to Colin Doherty was powerful and I would have to use it accordingly.
I stood in line at the food truck. This was going to take a while. I tried to keep reminding myself it was for the best—it was better being out here instead of at the precinct, listening to their idiotic locker room jokes and jabs thrown in my direction.
I definitely didn’t have the stomach for that today.
A kid was in the queue ahead of me and she was standing between her parents, holding their hands and chattering happily with them. My eyes were repeatedly drawn in their direction because of how picture-perfect and happy they looked together.
To be able to spend time with both my parents together. I wanted them to be affectionate and hold my hands. To take me out for ice cream and ask me how school was going. Anything to make me feel like they actually gave a damn about me. Normal everyday stuff other kids my age took for granted.
I had to look away from the family because I realized my eyes were filled with hot embarrassing tears.
I couldn’t keep the memories out. Of crawling under my bed up in my room, while my parents fought violently downstairs. It was the same memory that kept returning to me every time I thought of them recently.
Mom had made fish pie that night because it was my favorite. I was surprised when she took it out of the oven. I didn’t know she even realized I liked it.
Dad rarely ever ate with us, and it was only when he walked into the kitchen and saw the fish pie on the table—that I understood why my mother had cooked it that night.
He hated fish pie. Couldn’t stand it.
The sight of it angered him so much that he picked it up and flung it to the wall. They started fighting and I ran out of the room, sobbing uncontrollably. They didn’t notice.
They were more interested in fighting with each other. From my room upstairs, I heard glasses shattering, doors being slammed, their loud voices reverberating through our house.
Eventually there was silence. When it was quiet for a while, I tiptoed down the stairs to find Dad sitting at the kitchen table, still fuming in his own wrath. He saw me and it was like he finally remembered he had a kid.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked him in a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter where she is, kiddo. We’re going out for pizza. How about that?”
The smile on his face was forced. He thought I would be thrilled at the prospect but I wasn’t. I didn’t care about pizza. I cared about what was going on between them and how miserable they both looked. All the time.
I couldn’t understand what they were doing to each other. I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t be a happy family.