by Mary Calmes
I could, I knew that. He was mine, my husband, my partner in all things, and the job didn’t matter, only life did, and for my life, there was Ian.
“Jesus, Miro, you feel so fuckin’ good.”
So did he.
I wanted more, craved more, and so tried to close the distance between us so he could piston inside, faster, harder, the burn of his entry, the stretch and fill, forcing out the cold, only his heat remaining.
“Miro, honey—you’re killing me. I’m trying to be—fuck—gentle.”
“Don’t need gentle,” I mewled, the ache in my voice making it crack and strain. “Need you all over me.”
Without hesitation he rolled me to my stomach and then lifted me roughly to my knees, rutting inside, hands on my shoulders so I couldn’t move.
“Ian,” I moaned, the domination, his power, making my whole body shudder as I clutched at the sheets and held on.
“You don’t belong to Craig Hartley, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I know you’re hurt, but I won’t allow you to be lost, you understand?”
“Ian,” I whined as he bent over me, one arm around my chest, and lifted me up, back, back until I was impaled on his cock and he was pushing up into me.
“You belong to me. You’re mine, and no one and nothing comes between us, not ever.”
“Yes.”
Ian stroking my shaft with his rough, callused hand, his cock finding the spot inside of me, driving me wild, pumping mercilessly up into me, had me chanting his name in an endless litany.
“Look at you coming apart,” he said, the low, seductive chuckle sending new ripples of electricity dancing over my skin. “I think I see my boy coming back to life.”
And I was. I was there in my head, in my body, feeling everything, wanting desperately to be able to have as much of him as I wanted.
“What do you need?” Ian rumbled.
“You under me.”
Carefully he lifted me off the end of his dick and then toppled over beside me, down onto the bed, rolling to his back. I pounced on him, straddling his thighs, and he took hold of his cock as I sank down over him, slowly but steadily until all of him was buried inside of me.
“Ride me.”
I wasn’t gentle, and he bowed up off the bed as I ground down onto him, over and over, taking what I needed until I pushed Ian to his limit and he manhandled me to my back, curled over me, lifted my legs over his shoulders, and stuffed me full, thrusting as hard as he could.
My muscles clenched around him as I came, and he was seconds behind, my name crawling out of his throat in a husky roar.
We were slick with sweat, panting, and Ian was still above me, still pushing in, still coming until he collapsed down into my arms, utterly spent.
I rubbed his damp hair, turned and kissed his cheek, and then lifted his head so I could see his face. Always, how dark his eyes got made me smile.
“I want you here with me.”
“I am,” I sighed.
“You have to talk to me all the time.”
I grinned. “You telling me that I hafta talk is kinda funny.”
“Just—do what you’re told, all right? Don’t be such a smartass.”
“Yes, dear,” I said playfully, easing him down for a kiss.
“You two better be done gettin’ your freak on up there because some people around here have husbands and daughters to feed!”
Ian ended the kiss and yelled down at her to keep her panties on.
“Chickie, your daddy wants you,” Aruna cooed. “Where’s Daddy?”
We both heard the dog galloping up the stairs.
“Goddamn, Chick, don’t—oh God, he broke my back!”
“Serves you right, asshat!” Aruna yelled.
I couldn’t stop laughing.
ONCE WE got up and dressed, Ian went down first, and then I followed, falling into Aruna’s arms when I reached her.
“Oh, baby,” she crooned, stroking my hair, petting me. “I’m not sorry the man’s dead, but I know that it had to be messy for you, not just one thing, so for that, you have my sympathy.”
I hugged her tight, and she squeezed me back.
“Let’s get some food in you, all right?”
Nodding, I sat down on a barstool, one of three that went on one side of our new kitchen island. The entire Greystone had improved quite a bit since Ian moved in.
I was eating, not really paying attention as Ian and Aruna talked, but when Aruna hauled off and smacked him, I was surprised.
“Why’re you hitting him?”
“Because he told Min about his promotion before me,” she snapped, scowling at him. “I’m right here, for heaven’s sake!”
I turned to look at Ian. “You talked to Min yesterday?”
“I talk to Min every week. You know that.”
I did, and it never ceased to amaze me because it was the weirdest thing. Of all my girlfriends, he’d bonded with Min. He really liked Aruna, but it was more sisterly, like he couldn’t say anything bad to her. He tolerated Catherine, and I got that. She could be a bit high-handed, conceited, and snooty, but I adored her. Janet, Ian wasn’t sure about. He liked her well enough, but she was definitely more my friend than anything else.
Min, however, he gelled with. She was low-key, blunt, prickly, did not suffer fools, and she had an affinity for all the same video games Ian did, from Call of Duty to Horizon to Borderlands. They played online with others, and it was uber-nerdy. They took it very seriously, and I’d been banned from playing or talking to either of them when they were on a “mission.” They even had headsets. Ian bought them at Christmas, and Min cried over FaceTime when she opened her present. Her new boyfriend, Jensen Drake, who owned a very well-respected custom car shop there in Burbank, had given her a ring—the ring—and she’d seriously been more excited about the headset. I apologized to Jensen, who just grinned and said that was why he loved her.
They made an interesting pair, the thousand-dollar-an-hour criminal attorney and the tatted-up car guy. They met at a fundraiser, and Min took one look and moved toward him, he said, like a shark in the water. He was entranced. She was beautiful and scary, and he told me he never knew what hit him. He wanted to marry her on their second date; she was worried he was too clingy. She finally agreed to move in with him because his house in Topanga Canyon was apparently just lovely. She could breathe there. That was a very good thing.
Jensen had impressed Ian, as he’d been a Navy SEAL who got out when he realized he wanted more for his life, and that included art and a family. With Min agreeing to marry him—even if the Harry Winston ring on her finger played second fiddle to a gaming headset—he had everything he wanted. Ian told me he knew the feeling.
“So you told Min all about your promotion?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I smiled.
“What? She gets me.”
I knew that. “Did she have any advice? I mean, she always does, right?”
“She did.”
“What was it?”
“To be my best self.”
I squinted at him. “The fuck does that mean?”
“I have no clue, but she was really pleased about my promotion—and yours—so that’s—”
“You got a promotion too?” Aruna yelled.
“God,” I groaned.
She swatted me, hard, and I rubbed my bicep as I told her all about Custodial, and then Ian explained what he was doing as well.
“Ohmygod, that’s perfect for you guys,” she sighed, beaming. “You were a ward of the state too; you’ll know exactly how to talk to those kids to make them feel cared for. My goodness, but your boss is a smart man. Moving Ian into a position where he can use his natural bossiness to cut through the red tape—”
“Hey!”
“—and you being a caretaker of kids since you suck at being a grown-up sometimes, especially in terms of your personal safety.”
“I… what?” I griped.
I really couldn’t disagree.
Chapter 11
MY PHONE woke me early the following morning, much too early for a Saturday, and when I moved, still tangled with Ian, he tightened his grip on me, as was his instinct.
“Phone,” I muttered, and he reached over me to grab it and hand it over at the same time his went off.
“Oh, what the hell,” he grumbled, rolling toward his nightstand to grab it as Chickie laid his head on the end of the bed to look at us. A voice blasted at me as soon as I answered it.
“Miro!”
It took me a second. “Min?” It was her, but I’d never heard that exact tremor in her voice before in my life. It was almost scary.
“I need help.”
My head cleared instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“Ned has lost his fuckin’ mind.”
“Ned?” I wasn’t sure I was understanding her. “Janet’s Ned?”
“Yes, Janet’s Ned.”
“What happened?”
“He checked Janet into the hospital yesterday and is trying to have her committed.”
I sat up straight. “But she just had a baby.”
“What does that have to do with what I’m telling you?”
I had no earthly idea, but it had made sense in my head.
A month ago Janet had delivered her first child. She was still out on maternity leave. Ian and I were supposed to go on our honeymoon, but we agreed we’d skip that and use our vacation for the birth of the baby instead. But I had wanted to wait until Cody, Janet’s son, was at least three months old so he wasn’t so boneless. I had held Sajani when she was a month old, and it freaked me out.
“Honey, I need you to wake up because I need you to save Janet.”
“Okay, go back,” I demanded, throwing off the covers, getting out of bed.
“It sounds like Ned’s mother got him going because Janet didn’t want to leave the baby with her. She convinced him that Janet is suffering from postpartum depression and suggested she go with Ned to a spa and rest.”
“There’s more, tell me more.”
“As I understand it, Janet and Ned were in the bedroom fighting about going out. Ned wanted to; Janet wanted to stay home with the baby, but when he tried to take Cody out of Janet’s arms to put him back into the crib, she tightened her hold, and Ned pulled at the same time,” she sighed. “In the process of this teeny tug-of-war, Cody fell, and as Janet was crying, Ned’s mother, who was also there, called the police.”
“The police?” I rasped, not believing how quickly something so innocent had escalated.
“Yeah. So when the police got there, Ned’s mother said that Janet was endangering her child. When they asked Ned for confirmation, he said that yes, she was, and had purposely dropped the baby. He blamed postpartum depression, and the cops took Janet to the hospital, but Ned had her transferred immediately to The Meadows Treatment Facility, which is where I need you to go spring her from this morning.”
“Wait.”
“Yes?” she said, and I could hear the tension and exasperation in her voice, like she didn’t want to explain things to me, she just wanted me to listen.
“Janet’s not some dying calf in a thunderstorm, right? I mean she’s strong and gutsy and—there’s no way she doesn’t stick up for herself in that situation and get the cops to listen to her,” I contended, knowing Janet, certain she would have argued, had a rebuttal for Ned’s allegation to defend her actions. “She would have told them that it was his fault, that he was the one trying to grab the baby away from her.”
“Normally, yes, I agree. I know she would have been able to handle this and stop it from blowing up, but this time she lost it.”
“Why?”
Sharp exhale of breath. “I don’t know. I think maybe she must have gotten scared, because it said on the police report that she started screaming and threatening Ned and his mother, and then she threw her cell phone at him while the police were right there.”
Hurling the phone at Ned was bad enough, but the fact there was an infant in the house compounded it. The big-picture concern would be that Janet was a danger to herself and others. Once the police made that determination, that would have been all they needed to take her into custody and remove her from her home.
I could feel my heart starting to pound. “And?”
“And that’s it.”
I couldn’t breathe. “When Cody fell—how—”
“He fell probably three feet onto the bed.”
It took me a moment. “I’m sorry?”
“No, you heard me right.”
“He fell onto the bed?” I could barely believe what I was hearing, and I was getting angrier by the second.
“Yeah.”
“Onto the bed?” I was flabbergasted. “Are you kidding?”
“I wish I was.”
“But—”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
“So Cody’s fine.”
“Totally fine, yes.”
“Then all this is because of Ned’s mother.”
“And Ned,” Min snapped, the anger seeping through her words. “Don’t forget him. But yes, his mother was there, and—well—it escalated from bad to worse.”
“No shit. So what now?”
“Now you go get her skinny ass out.”
“How?”
“Well, as you know, I don’t practice law in DC, but I have a colleague there, and he filed a restraining order for me on Janet’s behalf against Ned and his mother.”
“Just tell me what I need to do.”
“I need you to go there, get her out of the hospital, and go with her so she can take custody of Cody.”
“Where’s Cody now?”
“He’s with Ned and his mother,” she explained and then continued on, talking to me using so much legalese that I couldn’t even follow her. Clearly she was speaking to me like I was a colleague and not her friend.
“Min, tell me again and use small words.”
In the midst of her freaking out about Janet, she took a breath. “Okay, sorry, honey, I’m just—you know.”
“I know.”
“Okay, so, I filed for a court order to stop what Ned was doing with Janet at the hospital, and the restraining order had to be approved and served to make the baby legally Janet’s until this gets straightened out. I did that all yesterday, and it was in fact approved, but it was too late to be served by the court, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s all good, there’s just no one there to serve it on a Saturday.”
“Right. So did you send me a copy?”
“Yes. I emailed it to you, so print it out and get on a plane. I don’t want her in there any longer than she needs to be. She’s probably losing her fucking mind.”
“Course.”
“I’ll be in Chicago tomorrow morning. That’s the quickest I can get there because I’m in goddamn Puerto Vallarta instead of where I should be at home with Jensen!”
There was no time to ask. She was probably doing something for work, meeting a client or something else, but whatever it was, I suspected she wouldn’t ever do it again.
“It’s fine. Try not to worry. I’ll take care of it.”
“I know you will, I know,” she said frantically. “It’s just when Janet called me yesterday, I—she was hysterical, and I—I know she called me because I’m the lawyer, right, and I couldn’t fix it right away, and if she’d called you or Ian, I just—”
“It wouldn’t have been any better,” I assured her. “And there was no way she could have gotten hold of me yesterday. I was dealing with my own shit.”
“Yeah, no, sure—I—”
“Min, sweetie, you’re doin’ awesome.”
She took a quick breath. “Okay, so, listen, Catherine will meet you there at the hospital. She left Manhattan about ten minutes ago.”
“Leaving now.”
/> “Listen to me,” she said solemnly, and I heard the tears in her voice. “You do not let them keep her or that baby, do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Aruna should be there to get you and Ian in twenty minutes. Shower, shave, wear your suits, take your badges, get it done.”
In the middle of something this scary, I was struck by her absolute faith in not only me, but Ian too.
“Min—”
“Put Ian on the phone, please.”
Turning, I found him growling, obviously annoyed at whatever his call had been about.
“So that was my father on the phone, and he doesn’t think that the deal Stafford and I worked out for Lorcan is good enough, and he—Miro? What’s wrong?”
“Min wants to talk to you,” I said, holding my phone out for him.
“What’s wrong?” he repeated gruffly.
I jiggled the phone, and he grabbed it from me.
“Hello?”
He listened while I ran around and got into the shower. Even under the water, I heard him yelling.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I left the water on so Ian could get in right after, and as soon as I stepped out, he went in, slamming the shower door behind him.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill him.”
Meaning Ned, of course.
The doorbell rang, and I raced downstairs in only a towel to meet Aruna, who was there with Liam, holding Sajani’s hand.
“Minnow!” Sajani greeted me cheerfully, holding up her arms. Miro was not in her vocabulary, but the name of a small fish was.
Frickin’ kid.
Scooping her up, I carried her inside as Chickie barreled around the couch and up to me because I had his prize.
“Chickie!” she squealed, contorting in my arms to get down to be with him.
As soon as I set the tiny bird-boned toddler down, she opened her arms and wrapped them around Chickie’s muzzle. It should have been scary—he could have eaten her in one bite, maybe two—but instead it was sweet because her trust was complete and his protection unlimited. He’d stand between her and anything.
“Why are you not ready?” Aruna asked me irritably. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”
I was surprised. “She bought plane tickets?”