All That I Am (Men of Monroe Book 1)

by Rachel Brookes

  But he didn’t kiss me.

  His warm breath danced over my lips as they hovered over mine. It was the most beautiful kind of torture. Every single nerve ending I had sparked to life and electrified the space around us. I stilled in place. My breathing faltered. My heart rate spiked. Strong hands gripped my hips, and I didn’t think it was possible, but he found a way to pull me closer to his offering of warmth. This man was the unknown. He was a turbulent strength who’d forced itself into my life, without giving me a chance to react. But right now, I was putty in his hand, ready to give my mouth to him, and to be honest, anything he would ask for.

  The unwavering pull I had toward him first slammed into me the moment I felt his eyes boring into me at Hamilton’s. It intensified when I had my hands on him at Missy’s. But now, it was electrifying. I ignored it when I thought he was spoken for. But now what reason did I have?

  “What are you thinking?” he whispered, and with every word he spoke his lips delicately grazed over mine.

  “I don’t know.”

  That was the truth. I had no clue what to think. I wanted to rip my clothes off and have my way with him the moment I saw him, but now this felt way too intimate, and intimacy was something I was not looking for. What the hell was wrong with me? Thankfully, the universe was in my corner, because as I opened my mouth to say god-only-knows-what, the shrill of his phone penetrated the air around us and his forehead dropped to mine in frustration.

  “Hunt,” he growled into the phone he snatched up off the bench as he still held me close to the heat of his body. “This better be good.”

  I began to pull away, but his fingers bit into my hip, silently demanding that I stay.

  “Fuck, okay. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in five.”

  He ended the call, and I looked up at him and smiled. “Gotta go?”

  He replied by giving me a blinding smile.

  It was for the best. A simple drop off of a thank you present had escalated into seeing him shirtless, wanting to decorate his house, and almost kissing him. Not how I thought it would go. I desperately needed to buy Missy’s birthday present, then I needed to get back to Sass and get ready to open tomorrow, and I really needed to talk to Drew and find out why he thought I’d consider selling my share. Oh, and I had O’Leary to keep ignoring, seeing as how he’d texted me this morning. Seriously, my life was a mess. I did not need Ben and his alphaness distracting me from getting things back under control.

  Control was the only thing I had going for me.

  I could not lose it.

  He leaned in, placing a long-lasting kiss on my forehead while his fingers dug into my hip.

  “Thanks for the candles,” he whispered, while twisting a piece of my hair around his finger. “I’ve gotta get dressed and head into work.”

  That’s a shame.

  I dropped my gaze to the floor, but immediately my head snapped back up at the sound of his soft laughter.

  “Don’t have much control on that mouth of yours, do you?”

  My eyes shot wide.

  Oh god no.

  “Don’t you have to go and get dressed so you can go arrest people?” I scoffed, my cheeks tinting as the reality that I’d just said out loud what I’d been thinking hit me. “Make sure you say hi to David for me. I’ve got to make friends with him.”

  “Christ. You’re not going to start bringing him gifts, are you? Like cupcakes and shit like that?”

  “Oh, that is a good idea! What’s his favorite flavor?”

  His voice dropped low. “You are not bringing him cupcakes.”

  “Okay, muffins! Muffins are bigger versions of cupcakes, so that would be an even better gift!”

  “Do not bring him fucking muffins!”

  I walked over, grabbed my purse from the couch, and spun around to give him a smile. He gazed at me, brows pulled, jaw clenching, and I couldn’t stop myself from giggling at him.

  “Calm down, Detective. I was just messing with you!”

  I walked through his house toward the front door, and I knew he was watching me. I felt him always watching me. After opening the door, I hesitated and looked back over my shoulder. His eyes were still on me, and I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing.

  “You know what? You are right. I won’t bring him muffins. I’ll bring him a cake! Cake is the ultimate.”

  “Sasha, don—”

  “See you soon, Benjamin!”

  11

  BEN

  “Sasha Hamilton is relentless,” David announced, shaking his head with laughter, as soon as I stepped through the doors at the station.

  “If she brings you cupcakes, muffins, or cake, call me.” I warned.

  His eyes shot wide. “She’s something else.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  Knowing that I’d almost kissed her, and that I felt her broken breath on my lips and felt her body tremble against mine had set something off inside of me. Usually, I was in control of everything, but at that moment I lost it. That mouth of hers was going to undo me. Any other time I would have shut that down, but now I wanted more of it. I wanted to push her buttons, get her riled up, and go head-to-head with her because I knew I’d be given the gift of seeing the fire in her eye. I could never have predicted the girl I’d seen wearing those ass-cheek-showing jean shorts all those years ago would become the woman with a body of sin who wore tights skirts and fuck me heels better than anyone else, and who could possibly be the only woman who could put up with my bullshit.

  After I got to my desk, I unloaded my pockets of my keys, wallet, and phone and turned to Austin.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Prints were rushed through from the break-in at Sasha’s store.”

  “And?” I pushed, hoping he’d hurry up and get to the point.

  He jerked his head to the side, toward the interrogation room, and started moving. The fact that he couldn’t discuss the results in the common area sounded alarm bells. Once inside, he closed the door behind us and sucked in a breath. This was not good. Whatever he had to say he knew I was not going to like it.

  “Hart, start fucking talking.” I growled, my patience running out.

  “Prints on the door and lock came back matching O’Leary’s. What doesn’t match up is that the only prints found in her office belonged to Sasha, Missy Rogers, and Sasha’s casual employee, a young girl by the name of Anna Adams.”

  Edward O’Leary was a motherfucker of epic proportions and I’d known him for what felt like a lifetime. I’d been working on putting away his ass for a long fucking time. His return to Monroe signaled that he’d brought his filth to town. His dirty hands were into just about everything, but his preferences were women and drugs. He had a fondness for finding women who were down on their luck and promising them a life they could only dream of. Next thing they knew they were giving blowjobs for the cost of a whiskey, offering their pussy for the price of a movie and popcorn, and so far in debt that they felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. But just over two years ago, he made a grave mistake. He made it personal. But now, he’d made it really fucking personal.

  I tried and failed to get control of my mounting anger, and my words came out hostile. “Where the fuck is he now?”

  Austin had been beside me throughout it all, so my reaction did not faze him. “Captains got men out looking for him.”

  “Right.” I clenched my jaw, although I didn’t accept that as a suitable response.

  I stormed out of the interrogation room, the door swinging back and bouncing off the wall due to the force, and I thundered to my desk. After jamming my phone and wallet into my pocket, I clipped on my badge to my belt, secured my gun, and headed for the door with fierce determination in my steps.

  “Where the fuck are you going?” Austin roared behind me.

  “I’m not sitting around here twiddling my thumbs while that motherfucker is in town doing god only knows what.”

  “Calm the fuck
down. What do you expect to do when you find him? Believe me, I want to bring him in as much as you, but you of all people know we cannot fuck this up. You storming out of here pissed off, and needing to prove a fucking point, does not help.”

  We locked in a silent standoff while our thoughts screamed at one another. We’d been best friends since we could walk. We’d played high school and then college football together, and here we were both working for the Monroe PD. He knew shit about me that no one else did, as I did about him. Simply put, we’d take a bullet for one another, and on many occasions it almost came down to that. We’d already lived through a shit storm when it came to Edward O’Leary, and now the shit storm was way too close to home.

  And he was right.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” Captain demanded, stepping out of his office and looking between the two of us with a face mixed with fury and exhaustion.

  “O’Leary is out there, doing god only knows what, and I’m here sitting at a desk. It’s bullshit.”

  “We have men out there, and they’ll bring him in. If you can’t get a hold of yourself, you will not be getting anywhere near him.”

  My gaze shot to the roof as I tried to gain control. Flashbacks hit me. I spent six months working undercover on a case in Salt Lake because of O’Leary. I’d done and seen shit I couldn’t erase from my memories. Even though we’d both come from Monroe, he had no clue who I was and that served me well in the case. I’d also had a first hand view at his shit destroying someone that meant something to me. He’d stolen someone from my family. That shit made this person. That was on his head, and I knew he had blood on his hands. But the fucker was slippery. He had his crew do the dirty work and go down instead of him. That’s why he was still walking the streets like his shit didn’t stink. That’s why he thought he was untouchable.

  He wasn’t.

  “I’m good,” I said between gritted teeth.

  Captain gave me the once over, before warning, “Don’t make me regret it.”

  An hour had passed since O’Leary stormed back into my life and my anger hadn’t subsided. I was seconds away from going against Captain’s orders and getting out on the road, determined to bring him in myself.

  “Info just came in about the last known whereabouts of last nights victim.”

  I closed the file I’d been reading and looked over at Austin.

  “And according to his phone records, his last known whereabouts before the warehouse was . . . Fuck.”

  My interest piqued. “Where?”

  “Hamilton’s.”

  This was getting more fucked up by the second.

  “How about the names Jones gave of the people that paid him to pick up delivery? Did Jones prints come back?”

  “Both names came back relatively clean. Nothing that jumps out. And Jones is clear.”

  Just as expected.

  I sat back against my chair and rubbed my hands over my face as I let everything sink in. O’Leary. Hamilton’s. Sasha. This was getting entwined and unease lodged itself deep in my gut. What more could possibly happen?

  “Hunt, Hart,” We both looked over at Captain when his low rumbled hit the air. “O’Leary’s been spotted. He’s at Missy’s Diner, and he’s with Drew Hamilton. He’s getting brought in now.”

  12

  BEN

  My eyes remained locked onto the waiting area while my phone was pressed to my ear.

  I was waiting.

  “You got eyes?” I said into the phone.

  “Yeah, everything is good. Nothing to report.”

  “Call through if anything changes.”

  I ended the call and, without moving my eyes, I opened the drawer and threw my phone deep inside.

  “You going to be able to not rip his head off?” My gaze flashed to Austin, who had concern swamping his face.

  “I’m good,” I muttered, although I was far from good.

  As the seconds ticked over, flashes of the last time I’d come in contact with O’Leary hit in my thoughts. He was the reason I’d been working undercover in Utah. When the operation started, we had no clue of his involvement. Fuck, I didn’t even know of his connection to Monroe. But there he was, breaking women at a fast fucking rate and running drugs through Utah. But he was a smart man. He knew how to be connected but not too connected. That’s why his ass wasn’t rotting in a federal penitentiary right now.

  And then there was Jacqueline.

  Fuck.

  “Show time.”

  Austin’s voice pulled me from going to a place I didn’t want to visit, and I looked back to the waiting area.

  Edward O’Leary walked in, flanked by Rogerson, and his demeanor told me he was majorly pissed off. His infuriated gaze ran wild around the waiting area before zoning in to where I sat. Recognition flashed within his eyes before smugness settled on his face. Pushing back my chair, I took the lead and headed to the interrogation room. I felt Austin following. We’d only have a short amount of time to get this done, so I needed to keep my emotions in check. I couldn’t go losing my head. Austin would need to take the lead, and he knew it.

  I took a seat on one side of the table, and waited. The air in the room turned thick when O’Leary joined us.

  “Gentlemen. Long time no see.”

  My jaw clenched and in my peripheral vision I witnessed Austin’s shoulders pull back.

  Fuck, this guy was an asshole.

  “Let’s just get to the point, because we sure as fuck don’t want to be here,” I muttered between clenched teeth.

  Austin, thankfully, got straight to the point. “Do you want to explain to us why your prints were on the lock and door of a break-in at Sass last night?”

  O’Leary sat back in the seat, crossed his arms over his chest, and a smug look flashed over his face. This guy lived life thinking he was a fucking god, and that he was untouchable. So far he had been. Now, as I sat across from him, I was barely hanging on, but I didn’t break my stare. It was times like these that the grey started creeping in, and the link between right and wrong got very blurred. The thought of jumping over the table and putting my fist in his face crossed my mind numerous times, but that time would come, and when it did, I’d be the one with the smug look on my face.

  “Of course my prints are on the door,” he scoffed, as if it was the stupidest question he’d ever been asked. “Please do not tell me you dragged me away from a lunch meeting because of this shit?”

  I glared, trying to push past the anger, and trying to utilize my skills of reading body language, while Austin continued to ask the questions. “Answer the question.”

  “Last night I was with Sasha. I’m sure both of you know who she is. There is no way she wouldn’t have gotten the attention of you two. Tell me, are you still fucking your way around town?” His eyes flashed to me. “Call Da Maria’s. They’ll confirm we were there. Fuck, check the security footage if it makes you two sleep easier at night. I took her home, got my dick wet, and went back to the hotel. My fingerprints were on the fucking door because I was there two days ago. Ask Sasha’s ditsy employee, she saw me there. Anything else you want to know?”

  There were so many parts of what he was saying that pissed me off, but that wasn’t a surprise. He had a long history of pissing me off. But something Sasha had said to me last night continued to replay in my head. It’s been a crappy night, and I’ve already dealt with an asshole putting his hands on me. Now, O’Leary was insinuating he was fucking her?

  The tension in the room turned hostile, and I knew my silence was getting on his nerves.

  He leaned forward, his eyes locked with mine, and an evil smirk hit his lips. “How’s Jacqueline these days? How rude of me not to ask.”

  Nope.

  This was fucking bullshit.

  I pushed back from the table and the seat went flying into the glass wall behind, the loud crash echoing around the room. Austin jumped to his feet and his arm shot out to pull me back.

  “Calm down,” he
muttered to me, before turning his attention to O’Leary. “You need to pull your fucking head in and start talking; otherwise, we will find shit to keep you here. Don’t fucking test me, and you sure as fuck don’t want to test Hunt.”

  O’Leary chuckled. “You’ve got nothing on me.”

  Austin looked at me, but my attention was locked on O’Leary. It felt like I was going around in circles with this motherfucker. This shit had been going on for years, and now him being back in town, saying he was fucking Sasha Hamilton, and meeting up with Drew Hamilton, felt like it was all starting over again.

  I was going to have to do something I hadn’t done for over a year.

  I needed to connect with Jacqueline.

  She wouldn’t like that.

  But the first thing I had to do was find out the truth from Sasha. There was no way O’Leary was telling the truth. The Sasha I saw last night was not a woman who had been out for dinner and been fucked. There was no calmness about her. She was majorly pissed off and on edge. O’Leary was bullshitting us, which was, as usual, his way of buying time.

  But now, he was meeting up with Drew Hamilton.

  What the fuck was going on?

  13

  SASHA

  Grabbing Missy’s hand, I weaved my way through the packed dance floor of Hamilton’s. A live band had just started their set, and the crowd was buzzing with excitement and filling the dance floor. For most people, Saturday nights in Monroe were spent here drinking and laughing with friends, and rocking out to local musicians with the occasional out-of-towners. Tonight, Monroe did not disappoint, and I liked to think that most people were here for one of their favorite residents.

  Missy and I had spent the day shopping in preparation for tonight. A tradition that we had for each of our birthdays. We both worked hard all year round, so for that one day of the year, we went crazy. Our days started with a champagne breakfast, followed by mani/pedis and a major gossip at our favorite salon, then a minimum of four hours of intense shopping where we would each buy a fabulous new outfit, shoes, and accessories. We followed with a late lunch at our favorite restaurant, and then we headed to one of our houses to have cocktails and prepare for our night out. We’d been doing it since we were twenty-one, and so far we hadn’t missed a year.