It’s better if Bethany doesn’t suspect anything. I know she kicked him out once, but he came right back. Who knows how long it will be until she has the courage and the strength to get rid of him for good? And what could happen to the woman and her daughter in the meantime?
I feel a little guilty for interfering in their lives. But knowing she’s already tried to get rid of him once makes it seem a little less bad.
Besides, Mickey will only get caught if he actually does try to steal something. Right?
“I’ll think about it,” I say slowly. “And if I can figure out a way to make this work, then… yes. I’ll do it.”
“Really?” Rourke raises a brow.
“Yes, really,” I shoot back, a little defiantly. “You didn’t think I would?”
“Honestly? No. I didn’t.” The corners of his lips tilt upward.
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Because doing it with your help would be easier than doing it without.”
Am I crazy? I ask myself as Rourke looks at me with an impressed smile. Have I lost my mind, here? My heart starts to race as I contemplate what I’m planning to do. I realize I’m stepping over a line right now. A line I can’t cross back over once I’ve done it.
I’m not sure how I got here. But somehow, I still know that if I could replay the last thirty minutes, I’d end up in the same place. I know I’m not going to back out.
“I want Mickey out of Paisley and Bethany’s life,” I say simply. “And I know in my heart, both of them want him gone, too.” I suck in a deep, shaky breath. “And honestly, if this way stops you from beating Mickey senseless in the parking lot and going to jail yourself,” I say, trying to sound like I’m joking, “then I’m in.”
He leans forward some more, until his face is just inches from mine. “Don’t do this for me, Laney,” he warns in a low murmur. “I’m not asking you for that.”
The sound of my name in his mouth makes goosebumps pucker the skin of my arms. This is the first time he’s called me just by my name alone — not Laney the social worker, or hey you, or even darlin’.
The deep rasp of his voice is almost intimate. Almost like a caress from his rough, callused hands.
“I’m not doing it for you,” I say, looking down. But I’m not sure if it’s the truth.
“Promise me,” he insists. He reaches across the table and puts a finger under my chin, lifting my face up toward his.
The contact, unexpectedly electric, jolts me. Startled, I look up just as his eyes lock on mine.
In them is an expression I’ve never seen from him, or from any other man. It’s got nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about for the last fifteen minutes.
It’s hunger. A desire so raw, so immediate, it shakes me to my core.
In his eyes, I see all of my own desire reflected back at me.
Every thought I’ve had about his hands on my body, late at night as I lie in the dark.
Every dream I’ve woken from, my skin crying out to be touched.
Every time I’ve whispered his name as I find my release, slick fingers between my legs — and then told myself I need to stop thinking about him, even though it’s just a fantasy.
When he withdraws his hand, I’m trembling.
“Rourke,” I half-whisper, my unsteady voice betraying me. “I’m doing it for everyone. If you hurt him here at the hospital, people will see it.” I shake my head. “You’ll go to jail. And Mickey won’t. And he’ll still be with Paisley’s mom, and there won’t be anything we can do about it. You won’t have done them any good at all.”
His jawline hardens. “I’m gonna enjoy fucking this guy over,” he growls.
“Fine. But you’re right: if there’s a good way to do it, it’s this one.”
How is it that suddenly, trapping Mickey into trying to steal from the hospital seems like the sane course of action?
Rourke closes his eyes for a second, his jaw still tense. When he opens them again and looks at me, I see all the force of the emotions he’s trying to contain within himself.
“Tell me something, Laney the social worker,” he rasps. “Doesn’t it eat at you? Shit like this?”
“Yes,” I admit softly. “It does. I see a lot of things that really get to me. That make it hard to sleep at night, sometimes.” I let out a ragged breath. “But often, those cases are the ones where the course of action is clear. Where I don’t have to question what the best thing to do is. The worst cases for me— the hardest ones — are when both of the parents are unfit. It’s hard to know what to do in cases like that. To know at what point a child would be better off being removed from their family.” I shake my head. “At least here, we know Bethany loves Paisley. She’s just in a tough situation. There’s hope.”
I stare into Rourke’s glinting eyes. Maybe I should be afraid of him. But more than anything, I’m filled with admiration at how much he seems to care about this young girl.
“Why’d you decide to be a social worker?” he demands.
My mind is starting to reel with all these sudden changes of subject. “Why do you ask?”
His expression is unreadable. “You don’t seem like the type.”
Despite my confusion, I have to smile. “What does that mean? What does a social worker look like?”
“The ones I’ve met?” He scoffs. “Tired. Old. Prematurely gray.”
“How many social workers have you met?”
“No changing the subject,” he says gruffly. “I asked you a question.”
“I, um…” I hesitate. “Well, I guess it was the combination of a lot of things.”
I take a sip of my coffee, considering how much I should tell him.
“When I was a little girl,” I say, “I had this friend. Emma. Her parents were abusive to her. I didn’t really know the full extent of it at the time. I just knew that her mom was mean. And that whenever I’d see them together at school or something, my friend always looked really scared.”
Thinking back to that time, my stomach starts to hurt, even all these years later.
“One day, she didn’t show up to school. That in itself wasn’t that unusual. She skipped a lot, for whatever reason. But then she didn’t show up the next day, either. I remember that was a Friday. Because after that was the weekend. And I just figured she’d have to be back on Monday, you know?”
I swallow painfully. “Well, Monday came. And when I got to school, I remember that almost right away, it felt like something was… wrong. Something I couldn’t quite figure out. But all the teachers and other adults were acting really strange. They were usually so smiley and friendly. But that morning their faces looked weird. Like they were trying to look normal, but just couldn’t do it.
“When the bell rang and we were all sitting at our desks, our teacher sat on a stool in the front of the room. She look at us all, one by one. And then she told us that Emma was dead. She said there had been an accident, and that Emma had gotten hurt really bad. She left it as vague as possible, on purpose, I’m sure. So in my mind, I pictured a car accident or something.” I shake my head. “But you know, kids hear adults talking, when they think they’re alone. And a group of us kids heard some teachers whispering about it after school a couple of days later. It turned out, Emma’s mom had beaten her so badly that she died in the hospital from the injuries.”
“Jesus Christ,” Rourke mutters.
“So, my parents…” I continue, bitterness seeping into my voice. “Let’s just say, they’re well-off people. Very prominent in the community. When they heard about it, their reaction… well, it sickened me. Even at my young age. See, I had been friends with Emma for a while. But after the first time I brought her over to my house to play, my mom said I wasn’t allowed to have her over anymore. She was too poor. Her family wasn’t good enough for me to be friends with.”
Anger surges through me at the memories resurface as I continue.
“And when Emma died? They didn’t console me, or try t
o help me through it. No. Instead, my parents pulled me out of that public school. They enrolled me in a private academy. To keep me away from that kind of riff-raff in the future.”
I turn and stare at Rourke. His features are tense, jaw pulsing. But he doesn’t say a word. He just lets me keep talking.
“Years later — when I was in college and sort of hating the pressure my parents were putting on me to make me into a carbon copy of them — I got to be good friends with a girl who lived a floor below me in the dorms. She told me about her childhood. About how her dad was an alcoholic and physically abusive, and how a social worker had helped her mom and sisters escape from him. For some reason, her story made me think about Emma.” I lift one shoulder. “I guess it just triggered something in me. I went to the School of Social Work the next day and asked for an appointment with an advisor. And the rest is history.”
“How did your parents feel about that?”
I snort. “They’re still pissed about it, to this day. They have no idea what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it. They’re furious that they spent all that money on tuition — thinking they were essentially sending me to finishing school, so I could marry a nice, prominent rich guy. Instead, it turned me into a reprobate.”
He lets out a short bark of laughter. “You’re hardly a reprobate, Laney.”
“It’s all relative,” I tell him with a smirk. “I’m the black sheep of my family. To them, I may as well be selling myself on the street.”
“Your parents are that big a deal, huh?” He lets out a low whistle.
“You have no idea,” I say drily. “Fortunately, my younger sister is more than happy to be the good little girl I wasn’t. And she just got engaged, so I’m hoping maybe that will take some of the pressure off.” I glance up at the clock on the far wall. “Shoot, I’d better go,” I say apologetically. “I’ve got a mountain of work to do and I’ve already taken twice as long as I should have on this break.”
As uncomfortable as I was a few minutes ago, now I’m sorry to end the conversation. Thankfully, Rourke looks much calmer now. And he’s an oddly good listener. I stand and pick up my cup.
“Shouldn’t this count as work?” he suggests, gesturing. “We were talking about a patient, right?”
I laugh. “We were basically talking about breaking the law. Not sure that counts.”
“There’s the law, and then there’s doing the right thing. You’re just letting Mickey suffer the consequences of his actions.” Rourke says, standing as well.
The shop is deserted now, the few customers having left during our conversation. Even the barista is gone from behind the counter, probably in the back doing something.
I turn toward the milk and cream station, leaning over to deposit my coffee cup in the bin next to it.
When I swivel back around, Rourke is there, less than a foot away from me. So close I imagine I can feel the heat of his body on my skin.
At least I think it’s my imagination.
“I…” I begin, and stop. I don’t know what to say without calling attention to the fact that Rourke is close enough to kiss me. I look up at him, uncertain.
But then I don’t have to say anything at all.
Because his mouth is on mine.
The taste of him makes me dizzy. I feel myself falter, but then his arm is around my waist. His other hand moves behind my head, his fingers sliding up to my hair. The kiss deepens, awakening a hunger deep inside me that’s barely contained as I kiss back, my body making its own decisions as my brain takes a back seat. I’ve never been kissed like this before — it goes all the way through me, reaching every nerve ending, every cell, waking them all up until my whole body is yielding to his. He pulls me closer against him, and the hardness of his length pressing against me rips a moan of longing from my throat.
When he breaks the kiss, I’ve all but forgotten where I am.
“You’re really something, Laney the social worker,” he rumbles.
The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts us.
Turning my head toward it, I see Blake Barber standing just outside the coffee shop.
His eyes travel from Rourke to me, narrowing as they do. He lifts up an arm and taps his finger on an imaginary watch on his wrist, then stalks away.
“I… uh…” I stammer. “I better…”
Rourke chuckles low in his throat. “What an asshole that guy is. Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
Less than a minute later, we’re standing in front of my door. I’m still in a fog from the heat of his kiss.
Even though I’d be crazy to consider it after Blake just caught us, I’m almost hoping Rourke follows me into my office. But suddenly, he’s all business.
“I’ll be in touch about the plan,” he tells me gruffly. “I gotta go talk to my cop friend. Meantime, if you see Mickey around here, let one of Lords standing guard outside Paisley’s room know. I wanna have our guys keep track of that piece of shit while he’s here.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“And let me know what times of day you see him here. If there’s any patterns. I’ll ask the Lords to do the same.”
“Rourke,” I murmur, “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
His eyes meet mine, so deep I could drown in them.
“Why are you doing this?” I breathe. “I just told you about what made me decide to be a social worker. What makes you care so much about helping a little girl you don’t even know?”
“I was one of those kids who needed a savior when I was little. I didn’t get one.” He pauses, and when he continues his voice is hard as steel again. “So I’ll be damned if I’m gonna look the other way when I see someone in need of saving.”
14
Rourke
That chick Laney, man….
She is not what I thought she was.
I thought she was never gonna go for the plan to get Mickey out of the way. I was surprised as hell when it didn’t take much to convince her. Even though I knew she was worried about Paisley, too.
But, then, I didn’t know what Laney knew.
That piece of human filth has already hurt the little girl.
At first, I just wanted Mickey out of the picture. But now that it looks like the bruise they found on Paisley’s arm comes from him, I want him to suffer.
A lot.
And I want him to know why he’s suffering. Make it so he’ll never even think about raising a hand to Paisley or any other little kid again.
If he even lives to make the decision.
But that’s gonna have to come later. Right now, I got other shit to deal with. For now, we get him away from Paisley. Put him on ice. And hopefully give her mom some time to figure out that no worthless piece of shit like Mickey King is worth putting her daughter at risk.
I’ve never understood why the hell women stay with guys who don’t treat them right. But damned if I don’t know plenty of them who do.
My own mom was one, after all.
Like I told Laney, I was a kid who needed a savior when I was little. But saviors didn’t exist for me back then.
So I had to save myself. Me, and my kid sister.
And I’ll be damned if I let Paisley suffer the same fate.
I wonder whether shit would have been easier for me and Regan when we were kids if we’d had a social worker like Laney. Someone who actually gave a damn about us. Someone who would have tried to go to bat for us.
One thing’s for sure, though. If Delaney Hart been my social worker back in the day, I would have been beating my meat thinking about her every damn night.
My cock is hard as a bat as I ride out of the hospital parking lot, savoring the memory of the way her lips melted under mine. Fuck, I didn’t even really decide to kiss her. All of a sudden, I just was.
Hell, if it wasn’t for that pussy-ass hospital administrator interrupting us, I’d probably be balls-deep inside her in her tiny little office right now.
Jesus. I can
almost feel her warm, wet pussy around my aching cock.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last fucked anyone. That must be some kind of record for me. There’s no particular reason for it, really. Just that the girls who like to hang around the clubhouse aren’t really doing it for me these days. The same old overly made-up faces, the same old fake-ass tits… as hot as some of them are, they just don’t hold my interest anymore.
That’s why, instead of heading to the clubhouse from the hospital, I decide to just go home instead. As soon as I’m in my house, I go to the kitchen, pour myself a shot of whiskey, and settle in on the couch.
In a matter of seconds, I’m back at the hospital in my mind. When I knock on Laney’s door, she looks up and sucks that pillow-soft lower lip between her teeth.
My cock strains against my zipper. I pull it out and start to stroke, as slowly as I can stand it. My dick’s been hard for the last half-hour, and I can’t take much more.
The office door is locked now. Laney’s stripping for me, wriggling out of that tight little pencil skirt she was wearing today. She keeps the heels on, though. In my imagination, she’s wearing a lacy little barely-there pair of panties under that skirt, the crotch soaking wet because she’s been waiting for me. One by one, she undoes the buttons of her blouse, then tosses it on the chair. Her bra goes next. She unclasps the back, and they fall loose and free, the nipples rosy and hard as pebbles.
My strokes get faster.
Laney kneels in front of me. She looks up at me through her dark lashes, her eyes never leaving my face. She wraps those soft lips around me, taking my cock as deep as she can stand it. Her mouth is warm and wet as she starts to suck, moaning softly while she reaches up to pinch her nipples.
Jesus fuck, I can’t hold out. With a shout, I unload in her mouth, coming hard and fast in thick, ropy strands. When I’m finished, I see stars.
Holy shit. It’s been a while since I’ve come that hard.
If it feels this good just thinking about her, imagine what the real thing would be like.
Laney Hart, you’ve gotten inside my head.
Iron Will: Lords of Carnage: Ironwood MC Page 9