Protecting Justice (The Justice Series Book 4)

by Adrienne Giordano

Still holding the phone to her ear, she glanced up, waved with her free hand and patted the spot next to her.

  “Okay, Dani, I have to go. As soon as you find this guy, call me…Right. Thank you.”

  She punched off the call, adjusted the blanket—pity, that—and shifted to face him. “That was my office. They’re on this Donald Fox.”

  She flapped one arm and the blanket slid down her shoulder. More skin. Please let her be naked under there. Call him twisted, but her conducting business while naked? Hot, hot, hot.

  “I mean, how did I not know my sister was screwing the president’s son?”

  Speaking of screwing…with the Donald Fox revelation on the video, came Heather’s admission that she and Ryan Nicols were involved. His eyes wandered to her leg again where the blanket separated just below her crotch. They needed that blanket gone. He met her gaze again. “If she didn’t tell you, how could you know?”

  “Exactly my point. I should have known that.”

  “Why?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re sisters. You don’t live inside each other’s skin. You met my sisters yesterday. They’re up my ass all the time. From the time we left that party last night, my phone was blowing up.”

  “I heard it.”

  “That was them. Texting me. Group texting. About you. Because that’s what they do. One of them asks a question and then the other three chime in. Twelve texts happen before I even get a word in. So, as you can imagine, I don’t tell them seventy-five percent of what goes on in my life. Doesn’t mean I don’t love them. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t step in front of a truck for them. It means it’s my life and when there’s something to report, I’ll report it. Otherwise, they need to stay the fuck out.”

  On cue, his phone rang. He hopped off the couch. “Swear to God, if this is one of them, I’m blasting her.” On his way to the bedroom, he looked back at Fallyn. “Please tell me you’re naked under that blanket and you’ll let me give you ten orgasms after I take this call.”

  In response, she ditched the blanket.

  Hello, nipples.

  Hallelujah.

  He scooped the phone off the nightstand and—whoa. Syd’s number. He poked the screen. “Hello?”

  “Gerard,” Grey said, “where the fuck are you?”

  Tony’s stomach dropped. Splat. Right to his feet as relief swarmed. He’d known Grey was recovering. Recovering, but not completely stable. That not-stable part ate away at him, burrowed deep inside, but thanks to Fallyn, he’d been trying to convince himself he hadn’t screwed up. That he’d pulled Grey from the wreckage. He’d gotten there in time. Still. Not stable. Those two little words rang in his ears, reminding him if he’d gotten there a little bit sooner…

  He spun around, lowered himself to the bed and slapped his free hand over his eyes. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Grey was on the phone. Talking to him. Talking.

  Not dead.

  Very much alive.

  “Grey, holy shit.”

  “Yeah. What? You thought I’d die? From a car wreck? If I’m going out, it’ll be better than a fucking car accident. Shit, Syd will probably talk me to death.”

  Alive.

  Tony laughed, shook his head a little. Thankful for this moment. For Grey talking to him. “Damn, it’s good to hear your voice.”

  “I gotta get out of this hospital. All night long they bug you. If you want rest, don’t come to the hospital.”

  Crabby. But hell, crabby was better than nothing any day.

  “Listen,” Grey said, “I got a call from the lab.”

  “Dude, are you kidding me? You almost died and you’re taking calls?”

  “Not with Warden Sydney here. Man, she’s tough. She took my phone away.”

  “Maybe because she loves you?”

  “Whaa, whaa. Shut up a second because she just went for coffee and I don’t have a lot of time. Before she confiscated my phone, I checked my messages. There’s a call from the lab. The results on the senator’s meds are in. You need to call them back. They have your name so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’d do it, but Syd’ll kill me.”

  Lab results. Tony straightened up. “I’m on it. What’s the number?”

  Grey read off the number and his contact’s name. “She’s back. I gotta go. Call me later.”

  The big, bad Justice Greystone was afraid of his fiancée. Tony would hang on to that bit of info candy. “I’ll holler back at ya when I have something.”

  “Good. And, Tony?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Thanks for saving my life. I owe you.”

  In the background, Syd’s voice came through the line. “Hang up,” she said. “Right now. You’re barely alive and you’re on the phone? What is wrong with you?”

  The line went dead, leaving Tony sitting on the bed in the quiet room, where the whirring of the heat through the vent circled in his mind. Grey had just thanked him. For saving his life. That one you got right.

  He let his shoulders sag, rolled his neck where tension had locked it tight. Brutal few days. But he’d saved a man’s life.

  A man who was probably getting his ass chewed out at that very second. Those two were a couple of hardasses. But they made it work.

  He stared out the door to the hallway that led to Fallyn. Another hardass. Just like him.

  If Grey and Syd could…

  “What’s up?”

  Fallyn, amazingly naked, leaned against the doorframe, one hand on her hip and that beautiful body there for him to visually—and hopefully more—feast on.

  “That,” he said, “was Grey.”

  “Stop it.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Spitting mad because he can’t get any rest and Syd won’t let him use his phone.”

  “And yet, he called you.”

  He nodded, but kept his eyes on her, moving up and down her long legs, over her belly to her breasts. Yeah, he wanted her. Always.

  “Fallyn?”

  “Yes?”

  “It hurts.”

  “What?”

  “How much I want you. All the time. It’s a physical ache in my chest. You’re so damned beautiful and ornery and…” he jammed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Damned fatigue. “We’re a train wreck together. We’re all go, go, go when we should be stop, stop, stop. But I don’t care. I want it all. I want…you. All of you.”

  She walked toward him, that amazing body tearing him up in all kinds of ways. She straddled him, settled her weight on him. This couldn’t be bad? No way. She rocked her hips against him, held his cheeks in her hands and kissed him. Long and slow and sweeping that wicked tongue across his lips.

  Sex with them was epic. Every time. They both knew it. But he wanted more. For the first time in way too long, he wanted this woman in his life.

  Every day. For the big stuff. The little stuff. Dinners, breakfast, a movie, whatever. As long as she was with him.

  He backed away from the kiss. “I don’t want a fuck buddy. None of this flying in from New York when you need to get laid. You get that, right?”

  She shoved him back on the bed, stretched across him. “Please. I’ve never had a fuck buddy and I’m not about to start now. Of course, I’ve also never had a man I cared about like this so early in. If we’re in this, we’re in it. Can you live with that?”

  Clamping his hand over her ass, he lifted her higher so he could get his damned shorts off. But…the lab. Goddammit. The lab. He set his hands on her hips, gave her a pat. “Grey said the lab results are in. I need to call them.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. Hesitated a second. “You’d rather call the lab than have me?”

  Ha. That’d be the day. “You wanna wait on the lab?”

  She levered up to straddle him again, rocked her hips one more time making him groan. “What I want is you. Then we’ll call the lab and we’ll find Donald Fox. We’ll do that because we’re good together. In many ways. But, right now, for once, what I want c
omes first.”

  * * *

  Sydney was giving her that look—the one that said she knew how the world worked, how shit happened every minute of every day, and yet, she didn’t really give a damn at the moment. She had her own shit to deal with. “I know you have a lot on your plate,” Syd said, “but I need a favor.”

  Tony and Fallyn had helped Sydney bring Grey home from the hospital. Tony hadn’t even had a chance to check in with the lab yet to find out the results of the tests. Syd had called, which happened to be the minute Fallyn was having her second morning orgasm, and announced that one Justice Greystone had thrown a hissy and checked himself out of the hospital. Against his doctor’s orders.

  The drugs had to be messing with him. Had to be.

  Tony and Fallyn had dropped everything mid-sex to go to the hospital.

  Two orgasms down, eight on rain check.

  Grey was far from being back to his old self physically. His personality, however, was just fine. He was, at that moment, giving Tony a hard time. “Stop acting like my goddamn nursemaid.” His voice echoed in the garage where Tony helped Grey out of Syd’s car. “I’m not helpless.”

  “Never said you were, boss,” Tony shot back. “Stop acting like a bratty toddler and lean on me or I’ll be forced to carry your worthless ass up the stairs to your bedroom fireman style. I’ll have Fallyn take a picture and send it to Monroe. He’ll have a t-shirt made out it before you can call me an SOB.”

  Mitch and Caroline were at the office working on an emergency case. A National Intelligence agent had gone missing under suspicious circumstances that involved a former FBI agent. Grey had insisted going into the office to handle it himself and Syd had been frantic. The only way they’d talked him out of it was putting Mitch and Caroline in charge of the investigation. They were former FBI, too, and had connections that might help lead to finding both men.

  Fallyn and Syd watched Tony and Grey argue from the safety of the kitchen door. Fallyn’s phone had dinged with a text from Dani as they followed Syd in Tony’s truck. The Pasche & Associates techie had located Donald Fox. His address, phone, employer, family members, his elementary school grades…the whole bloody works.

  Her fingers itched to dial the man up and get some answers. To take a drive, show up on his doorstep, and find out what the hell was going on.

  Right now, though, she had to figure out what Syd wanted.

  There were genuine reasons when you couldn’t do something for someone and then there were simply excuses you used to get out of doing it. Fallyn had genuine reasons for begging off on helping Sydney, but Syd needed her. Enough said.

  So instead of begging off, she found herself saying, “Anything, Sydney. What can I do?”

  She thought it would be something simple; a run to the grocery store or to pick up Grey’s meds at the pharmacy. Easy, peasy. She and Tony could get the errand done and head for Mr. Fox’s address in an hour or so.

  Or maybe all Sydney needed was a bottle of wine and some more of those wicked good cupcakes she’d introduced Fallyn to. It wasn’t every day you saw the man you loved nearly dead and if Syd needed sugar and liquor at nine in the morning, so be it.

  Syd’s dark eyes watched Grey reluctantly accept a hand from Tony when he lost his balance. “The Fresh Start Career Day is this afternoon.”

  Uh oh. Fallyn sensed she’d just stepped in quicksand. “And you need to be here with Grey.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m sure they’ll understand if you have to postpone,” Fallyn said. “Your fiancé nearly died.”

  Syd shook her head. “Too much time and energy has gone into this to postpone it. The women have worked their backsides off for weeks to prepare for it and they’ve invested a lot of emotional energy as well. This could be a jumping off point for many of them to get their lives back on track. They need this. Desperately. I can’t take that away. We have several national speakers lined up as well as recruiters from a temp service and the local community college to see if they can match any of the women up to jobs and/or continuing education services. I can’t postpone it.”

  Tony got Grey up the two short steps into the main house from the garage and Syd and Fallyn parted to let the two of them pass.

  “I can make it from here,” Grey said, pushing Tony’s hands off of his arms.

  Tony caught Fallyn’s and Syd’s eyes behind Grey’s back and shook his head. Grey was half hunched over and sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “Sure, man,” Tony said, staying right behind Grey as he held onto the kitchen countertop and snail-walked his way toward the living room. Grey couldn’t see him, but Tony kept his hands out to grab him in case he lost his balance and went down.

  Just like with me. He’s always there.

  Syd’s jaw was clenched. Fallyn felt for her. Torn between her fiancé and her job—a job where she was responsible for the safety and well-being of several dozen women.

  Sydney was a mother to them all.

  Fallyn wrestled with the guilt inching up on her. She wanted to help, she did. Throwing herself into the middle of career day with no prep and no team to help her wasn’t ideal. She always gave a hundred and ten percent. Hard to do when you had no clue what was needed. “Do you have an assistant or someone who can take your place? I have no experience with something like this, Syd, but I could help if your assistant simply needs a warm body to answer phones or make sure there’s water and coffee.”

  Syd clutched Fallyn’s arm. “I’m a one-woman show at the shelter. A few of my long-term gals assist me with new clients and day-to-day operations, but none of them have the confidence to take over something this big. I need someone who’s familiar with organizing large groups, greeting speakers, and making sure everyone sticks to the itinerary. I need someone who can schmooze with the best of them and make everyone, especially the Fresh Start women, feel comfortable. They don’t like new and they lack confidence. They don’t like stepping out of their comfort zones.”

  Grey made it to the couch. Tony helped him sit and prop his feet on the coffee table.

  Syd filled a glass with water and pointed at a teakettle on the stove. “Heat some water for tea, would you?”

  Fallyn nodded and filled the kettle while Syd took the water to Grey.

  “Where’s my whiskey?” she heard him grumble. “Water ain’t going to cut it.”

  Fallyn set the kettle on the burner and peeked around the corner. Syd hovered over Grey, sliding a pillow behind his head and covering his legs with a blanket. “No whiskey for you, Fed Boy. Your organs have been through enough in the past forty-eight plus hours and you’re on medications that don’t play well with alcohol. Fallyn’s making you tea.”

  Fallyn went in search of a mug.

  “Tea?” Grey barked. “I’m not drinking that namby-pamby shithouse tea of yours.”

  “Mint,” Syd called to Fallyn. “Top cupboard to your left.”

  What a hoot these two were. It was like they were already married. Fallyn smiled, snagging the box of mint tea and prepping a teabag for the mug.

  Grey’s voice was ominous. “I don’t drink tea, Syd, and you know it.”

  “Shut up, Greystone,” Tony chimed in, making his way into the kitchen. He slid up behind Fallyn at the counter and ran his hands up and down her hips, pinning her between the counter and his body. He nibbled the sensitive skin under her ear. The man was insatiable. “You’re getting tea,” he called back over his shoulder. “Stop your bellyaching.”

  “He’s right,” Syd added. Fallyn heard the TV click on.

  There was more arguing from the patient but Fallyn tuned it out as Tony’s hands did naughty things to her.

  Syd put a clamp on Grey’s grumblings and came back into the kitchen. Tony stopped molesting Fallyn and leaned against the counter as she poured the hot water into the mug.

  “That man,” Syd said, rubbing her fingers over her temples and down her neck, “could drive me to drink. Thanks for helping get him settled.”
/>   “No problem.” Tony lowered his voice. “Fal and I need to run a few errands. You need anything?”

  Syd looked at Fallyn. “Can you help me this afternoon?”

  At that moment, Grey called from his perch. “Tony, did you talk to Teeg yet about that lab report?”

  “No working,” Syd yelled back.

  Tony gave her a wry smile and went off to talk to Grey again.

  “I know you’re supposed to be laying low,” Syd said to Fallyn. “And putting on a career day at Fresh Start isn’t exactly staying under the radar, but with Caroline tied up, I need someone I can rely on.”

  She didn’t say trust. No, not Syd. She didn’t know Fallyn well enough to trust her, but she knew a kindred spirit when it came to getting a job done. She saw Fallyn as someone tough and indestructible like her.

  And didn’t that play right into Fallyn’s get-shit-done personality? Not to mention the fact Syd guessed Fallyn would help for the sole reason she felt so damn guilty about Grey. Yes, folks, we have a winner. “I’ll handle it,” Fallyn said.

  Syd gave her arm a squeeze. “I knew I could count on you.”

  She looked so wrung out, so relieved, Fallyn felt the urge to hug her.

  So she did. “Everything is going to be okay, Syd,” she said, drawing the woman into a sisterly hug. It felt weirdly right. Kind of like it had at the hospital.

  Like it had with Tony’s sisters by the end of the party yesterday. There had been lots of hugging before she and Tony had finally made it out. Even Tony’s mother had given Fallyn a hard squeeze and thanked Fallyn for making her son happy.

  There were tears in Sydney’s eyes when they broke apart. She dashed the back of her hands across them and blew out a sigh. “Thank you.”

  The weight of the world had been riding on her shoulders. She couldn’t let anyone down. Fallyn understood that. “No thanks necessary. I’ll need your files on everything—the speakers, the schedule, the caterer, you name it.”

  “There’s no caterer.” Sydney looked oddly amused. “Fresh Start doesn’t have funds for that and I couldn’t sweet talk any of the locals into donating their food and services. I was going to make sandwiches and a fruit salad but then this happened with Grey and I didn’t have a chance to shop. I can call Brice and Hope. Maybe they can get the fixings for me.”