by Mary Calmes
Ian sat frozen, and it was hard to tell if he was even breathing.
I knew why.
The entire presentation didn’t include one single picture of him or his mother, and in fact, there was no mention of Colin being married at all before the current Mrs. Doyle. During the show, Ian got to see family vacations he’d never been on, Christmases he hadn’t been invited to, and graduations he had not attended. It lasted an hour but felt like five. The second it was over and everyone called for a speech, Ian stood as Colin made his way up to Lorcan and Erica, and bolted toward me.
People were clapping and moving around us, gathering close to see and hear Colin. No one noticed me grab for Ian, yank him toward me, and duck into the hallway.
“Breathe,” I ordered.
“I’m fine,” he said, his voice feigning nonchalance his eyes couldn’t quite muster. He was good and hurt.
“I know,” I replied, pretending to buy the fact that he was in no way affected by him and his mother being forgotten.
He inhaled deep, tugging on my jacket, fisting it in his hands, trying to get me closer.
“You can’t—this is your father’s house.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Don’t do that. Don’t make any part of this about me not wanting you, because you know that’s bullshit,” I warned him.
“Okay.”
“I will be all over you if that’s what you want.”
“Yes,” he croaked out. “That’s what I fuckin’ want.”
I lunged at him, hugging him tight, crushing him against me as I pressed my lips to his ear. “I love you, Ian Doyle. Only you, and every time you go away it fuckin’ kills me. I don’t ever want to us to be apart.”
He leaned into me, and I felt the power in his hard, muscular frame as he gave me his weight and his lips opened against the side of my throat.
“Someday, when I have a movie of my life, all that’ll be there will be you,” I promised huskily.
He kissed up to my jaw and then made his way to my mouth. When he tilted my head back and mauled me, I breathed him in, taking all he was offering. Walking him into the wall, I banged him up against it, rattling the pictures, wedging my thigh between his, pressing, pushing, wanting him naked under me, under my hands, desperately.
It was too much to ask to watch him be forgotten. He was the man I loved, and the slight, I realized quickly, urged me to get him home to show him how cherished he truly was.
“Miro.” He breathed out my name.
It was all I could do to not drag him out of the house, wanting, needing to be closer, to be inside him.
I could feel it as I stood wedged chest to chest against my lover, soaking in the hard drum beating of his heart as I lowered my mouth to the throbbing pulse in his throat and bit down.
His cry was hoarse but whispered as he bucked in my arms, took my face in his hands, and kissed me.
It was drugging and violent, hot and hungry, and I forgot where I was—all that mattered was him and my desire to have him.
“Fuck,” he gasped, turning his head, breaking the kiss, his hot breath puffing over my face. “I can’t even… think. Just—lemme go.”
Moving slow, like honey, I made sure to put my hands everywhere before finally curling my fingers through the belt loops of his jeans as I stood, panting, my forehead resting against his.
His hands were up under my light cashmere sweater, on my skin, sliding over my abdomen as he fought to get his body, unsteady after my onslaught, under control.
“Oh.”
Turning, I found his stepsister, Erica, standing in the hall, smiling tentatively at us.
“There you are, Ian,” she said softly. “We were all going to say something to Dad, a quick toast, and then we’ll have cake. Mom’s going now, and after her, Lor. You can go before me, though, if you like.”
She was startled. It was all over her face as she stood there, staring, watching us both panting and breathless from kissing. To her credit, her hesitant smile never wavered. There was no judgment in her gaze, merely surprise.
He shook his head. “No, Miro and I gotta go, actually. Duty calls.”
She squinted at us, clearly confused.
I pulled my ID and flipped it open as I’d been doing for the past three, almost four, years. “Deputy US Marshal.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“That’s why we were out here,” I explained. “I got a call and pulled Ian out.”
Her look turned skeptical.
“I mean—” I shrugged, because we had not drawn apart. I still had my hands clenched on his hips, his were on my sides under my sweater. We weren’t fooling anyone. “I was obviously all over him, but there was a reason for us being out here to begin with.”
It was a lie, but I hardly cared. They had not included Ian or his mother in the “walk down memory lane.” I was too pissed to care. “So, you know, you don’t have to wait on Ian for anything. You all can go on with it like you did the movie.”
She put her hand over her heart. “You’re very blunt.”
“Yeah, he is,” Ian said, and I was glad to hear the trace of laughter in his voice. I’d worried for a second that I’d overstepped. “But that’s how I like him.”
He eased free of me but took hold of the front of my sweater. “So we’ll see you.”
“Wait, I—” she began, rushing down the hall after us. “Are you sure you have to go? I’d love to hear more about being a marshal.”
Ian snorted out a laugh, which I loved hearing. It made it impossible not to lean sideways and kiss him. He covered his cheek where my lips had been and beamed at his stepsister. “You don’t give a crap.”
But unlike probably every other interaction they’d had, he was grinning in that wicked way where you were sure you’d never seen anything prettier in your life.
“No, I do,” she argued, clearly mesmerized by him. It was easy when Ian was being charming. He was irresistible. “I had no idea there were still marshals around. I thought they rode horses and got posses together.”
“We don’t saddle up, but there are still posses,” he assured her. “But now it’s called a task force.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
She took a step closer to him.
“Let’s go,” I growled, hand on the small of his back. “She doesn’t really give a crap.”
“But I do,” she snapped, and I understood why. She wanted him to stay, and I wasn’t helping. “Please don’t leave, Ian,” she pleaded, stepping in front of him, barring his escape. “If Miro needs to go, he should, but this is your father’s birthday.”
“Wouldn’t have known that from the video everyone just watched,” I said harshly, my annoyance there in the sharpness of my tone.
“That’s not fair,” she said defensively. “Ian wasn’t here for us to get input or pictures from. I mean, certainly we don’t have any of him or his mother.”
“No,” I replied icily, “of course you don’t.”
She was silent, seething in front of me.
For my part, I was shaking a little, too, realizing slowly that my hands had balled into fists. Ian being forgotten had turned me inside out.
We all heard her name called from the other room.
“Ian, I’m going to call you up first,” she told him, and I could hear the quaver in her voice along with the threat. “So you best be prepared and you better not go anywhere.”
I grabbed his shoulder and pulled even before she turned to walk back in the living room.
“Ian!” she stage-whispered after us.
“You know,” he said as I shoved him forward, toward the sliding glass door, then hurled it open with far more force than was actually necessary, “you never get mad.”
Which was a lie. I was just as prone to rage as the next guy. The difference was that this wasn’t about me. This was about the man I loved.
Unfortunately, the door took the brunt of my frustration, and I threw it closed behin
d us so hard, it bounced back and forth, creating a hazard for anyone following. Not that I cared. I was too furious to give a damn. Slipping around Ian, I pounded down the stairs and kicked a plastic chair out of my way when I reached the bottom. I realized I was growling at the same time, getting angrier by the second.
The more I thought about it, the worse it got. How dare they act as though Ian’s mother had never existed, and therefore him as well? What the fuck?
“Okay,” he said, pouncing on me as I charged around the side of the house, yanking me back against his body, one arm thrown across my chest, the other curled around my abdomen. He buried his face in the side of my neck, inhaling deeply as he hugged me.
I couldn’t breathe around the anger boiling in the pit of my stomach and the pent-up aggression searched for another outlet, as the chair had proven to be a poor target. I was ready to punch a hole through a wall.
“Miro,” he crooned into my ear, his voice a husky whisper. “You really love me.”
There was no talking around the lump in my throat or the fury throbbing in my temples. How dare his stepmother guilt him into coming and then treat him like he was nothing!
“I mean, I knew it ’cause you told me, but watching you get mad over me… holy fuck, that’s hot.”
I growled at him. It was all I could manage.
“I matter to you.”
Needing him off me, unable to calm down, I tried twisting free.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said, his voice thick and sexy in my ear as he exerted more pressure, wedging against me. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He had the leverage, but more importantly, my body was starting to respond to his groin pressed against my ass. His hands dug into my chest, his lips opened on the side of my neck as he kissed up the side, and the brute force of him making me submit to his will was turning fury into bone-melting desire.
When his hand moved to my cock, I jolted in his arms, wanting him to touch and stroke me, craving him on his knees.
“Miro,” he breathed out. “You’re crazy about me.”
My voice, when I finally spoke, was rough and crackly. “You’re all there is.”
He held me tighter. “Let’s go home. I want to lay with you on the couch. I want your hands and mouth all over me.”
Oh dear God, yes.
But I couldn’t move. The rush of heat tore through me, and I let my head fall back on his shoulders, the anger dissipating, everything refocusing on Ian. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he husked, giving me a final squeeze before letting me go. “Come on. Follow me.”
Whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, I was ready.
We were at the gate when someone yelled.
“You’re breaking his heart, you fuck!”
Turning toward the sound, I saw Lorcan walking out the front door with other guys his same age following him.
“Go back inside,” Ian called over, opening the gate and passing through. “I’m leaving, so don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t want you to leave, you selfish piece of shit,” Lorcan continued, quickening his stride, the others matching him. “I want you to come inside and beg his forgiveness.”
I closed the gate behind Ian, staying in the yard, and then pivoted to face Lorcan as he closed on me.
“Miro, let’s go,” Ian ordered.
“You didn’t put one picture of him or his mother in that fucking presentation, but he’s the selfish one?” I attacked, all my hostility resurfacing and targeting Ian’s stepbrother.
“Get out of my way, you fuckin’ faggot,” Lorcan snarled when he reached me, placing his hand on my chest to shove me out of the way.
I lost it.
I saw red and I… lost it.
One second he was touching me, the next he was on his knees and I had his wrist in my hand, bent backward at an angle that allowed no movement whatsoever. It was self-defense they taught you at the police academy—how to immobilize people so they couldn’t hurt you. It was reflexive for me, ingrained so long ago even before I was a marshal, back when I was green.
“Say you’re sorry,” I demanded, my voice menacing and low as I put pressure on his wrist that I knew from firsthand experience sent ripples of pain up his forearm and pulsing up through his bicep.
“Let him go!” some guy threatened as he gathered himself to charge.
Ian vaulted the gate and put himself between the rest of Lorcan’s pals and me. “Back the fuck off. He can break his arm like that.”
Everybody froze.
Lorcan made a choking, sniveling sound as I stood there looming over him, watching beads of sweat break out on his forehead.
“Miro,” Ian said gently. “Let him go and we’ll bail.”
“After he apologizes.”
“No,” Ian insisted, moving up beside me and patting my chest. “It’s not worth it.”
But it was to me. “Apologize,” I said to Lorcan.
“I apologize,” he heaved out, starting to tremble.
“Okay,” Ian said, eyes on me. “Come on, let’s go home.”
Releasing Lorcan, I turned to face Ian.
His grin was wicked. “I’m supposed to be the asshole, not you.”
I was going to yell, but he reached for me, grabbing hold of my jacket and dragging me close. “Let’s go get the car, Jones,” he ordered, and his voice, how low it was, and the smirk that accompanied it, made my stomach flutter.
I smiled as he held the gate open for me.
“You think it’s funny to treat people like that?”
I heard the comment, but I didn’t count on the guy coming over the top of the gate at me. I should have—they were young and hotheaded like Lorcan, plus they thought I was laughing at him when all I was doing was responding to Ian. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he caught me in a flying tackle… or tried.
He flung himself forward, Ian shoved me back, and the poor drunk asshole sailed between us and crashed down onto the middle of the sidewalk.
“Oh!” I yelled, stepping over the fallen man, looking down at him. “Did you break the sidewalk with your face?”
Ian squatted down next to the guy. “What the hell were you trying to do?”
Seeing their friend epically fail took the fight out of the others, and when he rolled to his back, Ian asked if he needed an ambulance.
My phone rang before I could hear the answer.
“Jones.”
“Yessir,” I answered, my back stiffening involuntarily because my boss was on the other end of the call.
“Listen,” he said curtly. “I need you and Doyle to report in right now. Advise me of your present location.”
I shared that we were out in Marynook, and he said he’d give us forty minutes to reach him. If it was going to be longer, he wanted updates from the car.
“May I ask what you need us to do, sir? Should we change or—”
“Don’t ask questions, simply come in. I want you and Doyle here immediately.”
It wasn’t like him to not tell us what was going on.
“Yessir.”
He ended the call and took in the situation. Lorcan’s friend was scraped up, bruised, all of which had nothing to do with Ian or me, except if we were responsible for the impetus.
“We gotta go,” I said to Ian, patting his shoulder as I moved by him to start down the sidewalk. “Boss man wants us now.”
Ian rose, shot a look at Lorcan, who appeared both shocked and confused, and then started down the street toward the car.
“Don’t come back,” Lorcan spat after us, having recovered from his momentary daze to yell. “Neither one of you is welcome.”
“Not a problem,” Ian called back over his shoulder, grabbing hold of my hand and squeezing tight before he leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I got everything I need right here.”
I WAS surprised when we reached the office to find everyone there. It wasn’t just me and Ian and our team, but other teams that now r
eported to our boss. As soon as we walked in, Kage called us into the conference room, where four other people were already sitting.
“Have you watched the news?” Kage asked before we even had a chance to find seats.
I glanced around the table before answering him. “No, sir.”
He indicated where he wanted Ian and me, and we dropped into the chairs at the end of the long table.
“This is Special Agent Oliver and his partner, Wojno, as well as Rohl and Thompson.”
I knew everyone but Oliver, who seemed to be in charge, judging by the way he leaned forward and stared at me. It would have been better if Wojno wasn’t there, because now I’d have to tell Ian that I’d slept with the man before my last boyfriend, Brent Ivers. It was always uncomfortable to reveal past hookups to your significant other.
I nodded, and Oliver clasped his hands in front of him as he studied me before turning to Ian. “We’re allowing you to be in on this briefing, Marshal Doyle, but it’s a courtesy, as you’re Marshal Jones’s partner and therefore would be asking questions. We expect total confidentiality and your compliance in this matter must be absolute.”
“Yessir.”
Oliver nodded and then returned his attention to me. “So, Jones, it was reported that Craig Hartley escaped from prison today, but it was actually three days ago.”
I was really proud of myself for not letting anyone see the jolt of fear that lanced through me, and for not throwing up right there on the table. Only Ian heard my sharp intake of breath, and I was thankful for his warm hand on my thigh under the table because it was the only thing real and grounding. My body flushed with a chill, and the heat from his palm coupled with the possessive hold was so much more than comforting.
“We were able to keep a lid on the information, as we wanted to run down leads before alerting the media, but now that all trails have gone cold, we need all the help we can get,” Oliver continued.
Three days the man who wanted to kill me had been running around free. The idea that he’d been on the loose and I’d had no idea was staggering. I could have opened the front door and there he would have been. It was absolutely terrifying.
“Keep in mind, Jones, that the moment we learned of his escape, you were under constant surveillance.”