Unworthy (The Worthy Series Book 1)

by Lynne Silver

  “You’re my fantasy tonight,” he whispered against her lips. “I’m trying to be professional, but I want to take you to the back room, bend you over the desk, and fuck you from behind.” Her pupils visibly dilated, which made his dick impossibly harder.

  “So do it,” she said in a husky, low voice.

  “You’re a bad influence on me.”

  She laughed. “I aim to…”

  But he never got to hear what she aimed to do because there was a commotion at the door that had him putting Cat off his lap onto the floor next to him and leaning to see what was happening.

  “Déjà vu,” Drew said from across the table and started for the door at the same time as Ian.

  He knew Cat was directly on his heels, and though he wanted to protect her, she couldn’t be shielded from the fact that her brother was shouting to be let in at the front door. He gave a prearranged signal to his bouncers and they followed orders, letting Danny slide past them and into the club. At which point, Ian stepped to Danny’s side and took hold of his arm in a firm grip.

  He had two advantages working for him tonight. One, the drugs had wasted Danny’s body, making Ian much stronger; and two, Danny was confused and his brain not firing on all synapses. This made it easy for Ian to walk him through the club to the back room and shove him in a chair away from the temptations of the party.

  He gave a head tilt to Drew, who knew his part was to keep Cat out of the back office. When the door was shut behind him blocking the music and other party sounds, Ian sat on the desk and looked at Danny, who was slouched in his chair. How much of his best friend remained in that body?

  “Remember when we filled the school pool with bubble bath?”

  Ian gave a small shake of his head. Where the hell had that come from?

  Danny blinked at him. Then grinned. “The bubbles lasted a week.”

  Ian laughed. “The swim team had to shovel a lane to practice.”

  “And I took Rebecca What’s-her-face skinny dipping,” Danny said.

  “She’s married to Stefan Berger. Went to the wedding over the summer.”

  Danny looked mildly interested in that bit of gossip and then blinked fuzzily and looked around the office. “Where’m I?” He half rose from the chair, but Ian easily pushed him back down.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Bout what?” His words were right, but his gaze was unfocused and all over the room.

  “We need to talk about the drugs.”

  Danny attempted to stand again.

  “Sit the fuck down.”

  “Don’t bother, Ian. I’m fine.”

  “Oh really? You’re fine.”

  Danny’s unfocused gaze refocused and gave a direct look to Ian. “The fuck do you care?”

  Ian clenched his fists. “Why do I fucking care? Because you were my best friend, Danny. Because you used to have plans for your life and now you’ve got nothing. But mostly I care because of your sister.”

  “Cat?”

  “Yes, Cat. Your sister, who spends way too much time worrying about you and cleaning up your shit.”

  “Not true. I’m fine.”

  Ian bent to get in his face. “Oh really? Does Thanksgiving ring a bell? You threw up all over my parents’ dining room.”

  “Had a stomach bug.”

  “Bullshit. Your stomach is shot to shit. When’s the last time you ate a real meal? Or the last time you did one fucking thing to take care of yourself?” He held up a hand and ticked things off on his fingers. “You dropped out of college. You spent all the money from your parents. You have no job. And you fucking punched your sister ‘cause you were too out of your mind to notice.”

  “I punched Cat?”

  It took all of Ian’s will power not to punch him. “Yes, motherfucker. You punched your sister. Had a bruise for a week.”

  “Shit,” Danny muttered. “Accident.”

  “No. It was no accident. You’re an addict, Danny, and it needs to stop.”

  This time, when Danny stood, Ian allowed it.

  “I’m fine, Ian. Get out of my business and my sister’s. Stay out of our lives.”

  “Then we have a problem. Because your sister is my business. She’s in my life, and I’m not letting her go. If you want to stay in her life, I suggest you get clean.”

  Danny stumbled toward him and tried to give him an easily dodged shove. “You’re gonna keep me from my sister?”

  “No. You’re doing that all on your own. But if I think she’s in danger from you or any of your dealers, hell yes, I’m building a fucking concrete wall between her and you. I don’t want to see you at any I.D. events. My bouncers will call the police, no questions asked. You want to see your sister, you call me and I’ll set it up.” He tried to hand him a card with his number on it, but it was ignored.

  “Fuck off, Ian.” Danny pushed his way out the door, brushing past Cat who’d been waiting anxiously outside the room.

  Ian left a moment after Danny and had to face the wrath of Cat, who got in his face. “What the hell was that?” she shouted over the music. “Why’d you lock me out?”

  He cupped her cheeks in his palms. “Let it go, Cat.”

  She shoved his hands off her. “Are you kidding me? What did you say to him? And don’t say it’s none of my business. That’s my brother.”

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “By keeping me from my only living family member?”

  “If he’s a danger to you? Hell yes.”

  “How is Danny a danger to me?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Cat. He punched you. He had you cleaning up vomit, and let’s not forget the very not-nice men who want a lot of money from him.” He realized they were shouting at each other causing a total scene in the middle of his party. If someone else were acting like this, he’d let it go for a minute to create drama and then send his muscle over to clean up the disturbance and make it disappear. “Let’s talk about this later.”

  “Later? Not possible.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because if you’re making me choose between Danny and you, I’m going to have to choose my brother.”

  He involuntarily took a step back feeling as if she’d punched him. “Cat, I’m trying to keep you safe, and that means you have to choose. Your brother is a fucked-up mess.” As soon as he said the words, he realized it was the worst thing he could’ve said. She glared at him, eyes full of tears and something that resembled hatred. And then he made it worse by continuing to speak. “I’m not trying to hurt you. Just pointing out reality. You need to open your eyes.”

  “My eyes are wide open, Ian Lawrence. You know what I see? I see a man who runs when things get hard. You were scared by what I had to offer when I was eighteen, so you ran. You told yourself it was for my own good, but I call bullshit. And now, you don’t like that my brother has problems. It’s easier to cut him from our lives than to help him. So bye-bye to Danny? Well, guess what? That’s not how I operate.”

  He looked down at her, realizing she was right. She operated differently, and it was one of the things he liked best about her. She was loyal to a fault, and his biggest complaint was that he suspected he was jealous that her loyalty wasn’t for him.

  “Well?” Her hands were on her hips, and her tube top had shifted, threatening to spill her breasts out.

  He realized she was waiting for him to speak. “Don’t ask me to knowingly put you in danger.”

  Her lips parted, obviously in anger. “I’m an adult, Ian. I make my own choices, especially when they concern my family.”

  He frowned, not sure where to go from here, but knowing they had to settle this and couldn’t in the middle of a party. “Come with me.” He didn’t wait for her response, and instead dragged her by the hand to the back office where he’d recently threatened her brother. Only their usual combustible chemistry had them reaching for each other the moment they were inside the office. He didn’t bother with the lights, an
d instead positioned her facing the desk, hands planted on the surface, ass jutting out. He closed the distance behind her, letting her feel his length along her spine.

  “Ian, what are you doing? We’re still fighting,” she said, but there was a hitch in her breath, telling him she liked what he was doing to her body.

  His arms wrapped around her to cup her breasts from behind, and his lips skated the edge of her ear. “Fight over. You win as long as you promise me something. Well, two things.”

  “What?” She gasped as his teeth came down not so gently on her ear lobe and his fingers pinched her nipples.

  “You’re never alone with your brother, especially when he’s been using.”

  “O-okay.”

  “And. I want the same as you give him. I want your loyalty. I want to be included in the Catherine Ross circle. You understand that it’s not only you and Danny against the world. You have me.” He gave a purposeful thrust against her ass giving her a preview of what she was getting in about two minutes. “Got it?”

  “Yes,” she said in a whisper. “I get you.”

  And then he proceeded to give her himself. She was too short to comfortably fuck her from behind, so he pulled over an armless chair from the corner of the office and sat. “Take off your shorts,” he ordered and watched as she stepped out of them, keeping the heels and strapless top on. His hands kept busy unbuttoning his pants and freeing his dick.

  She turned to face him. The only light in the room came from the blue and yellow lights of the computer and phone equipment, highlighting her in shadows.

  He tugged the top down, freeing her breasts, and lifted her up to straddle him. His cock was straining for release, but he had more pressing matters like putting his mouth on her breasts and toying with her nipples.

  Her nails dug into his shoulder blades over the fabric of his shirt. She tasted delicious and uniquely Cat, and he was ruined for any other woman. It had always been her for him.

  “Right there,” he muttered as her hips angled to let his dick slide right down her warm, wet center. He pulled her close, angling to get his head into heaven. He nudged in slightly, eliciting a gasp from her and a groan from him. “Are you mine, Cat?” He moved her on him, teasing her with the tip of his dick. “All mine?”

  Her forehead fell onto his shoulder, her lips wetting his skin through the shirt. “All yours, Ian.”

  “That’s right, baby.” He slid all the way in, wanting to shout at how good it felt sheathed snugly in her tight pussy. He let himself enjoy the moment for one second, then two. Then it was too dangerous and he pulled out to somehow maneuver a condom on and get right back inside her.

  Even with her heels on, she was too short to use the ground as leverage. His biceps got a workout as he lifted and lowered her onto his cock. His hips thrust in rhythm. A rhythm he’d been unconsciously seeking for years. Exactly seven. He’d been chasing this feeling for years in all the wrong places, never realizing he could’ve had it all along.

  Cat had once offered him a taste of heaven and he’d stupidly turned it down. He was an asshole, but some deity had seen fit to launch her back into his life, and this time he was smart enough to hold tight.

  They found completion at the same time, and Ian held her fast from falling off his lap. Her lips rested on his shoulder while she struggled to catch her breath. All was right in his world, and he felt like he fucking owned Miami. “We good, baby?”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes and she quickly climbed off his lap.

  “What?” he asked. She had his head spinning from trying to keep up.

  He watched in silence as she dressed and then turned to him.

  “We can’t keep having sex instead of talking. I need to think, Ian.”

  His body felt leaden and glued to the chair at her unexpected words. “What do you mean? Are we over?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I can’t keep feeling torn between you and Danny. I need to think about things.”

  “Think about what? What is there to think about?” It was clear in his mind. She’d given him her loyalty, which meant she was his. Danny was a lost cause. If anything could be done to save him, he’d have done it. He wasn’t a total asshole.

  “You want me to give up on Danny.”

  He groaned.

  “See? You won’t even talk about it.”

  “I’m fucking sick of going in circles. I refuse to watch you go down in flames with your brother. He doesn’t give a shit about you or anything other than his next fix. Why can’t you see that?”

  “Why can’t you see that we can help him? Maybe he’d go to rehab.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve offered that? I was his best friend, Cat. Watching him kill himself hurts me, too.” He rose and fastened his pants. “He’s lost, Catherine. Told me he doesn’t have a drug problem.” He shook his head. “There’s no arguing with denial. I’m falling in love with you, but I can’t watch you go down with Danny. Don’t ask me to.”

  Cat pulled into her driveway at four a.m. to see lights blazing in the house and an unfamiliar piece of shit car where her car usually parked. The long ride from South Beach to South Miami had seemed to take longer than the normal half hour. Her brain was too full of thoughts of Ian and her brother. After she and Ian had sex in the back office, she’d gone to do her job for the rest of the night but known she’d sucked. Men tried to flirt with her, but she was in a funk and barely gave them a smile in response.

  On a normal night, she’d fake flirt with everyone, then give sweet smiles over to Ian’s table, thrilled she was going home with him at the end of the night. Knowing she was going home alone made her feel lonely. Yes, it was her choice to sleep in her own bed, but it didn’t mean she was happy about it.

  Now she was home with enough time for a few hours’ sleep before her shift at Amy’s store. Speaking of Amy, why were all the lights on? Usually Amy went to bed when Cat’s night was barely getting started. The front door opened the moment her bare feet hit the pavement from the car. Her heels were too high to drive in and tonight she’d forgotten to bring flip-flops.

  “Why haven’t you answered your phone?” Amy demanded from the doorway.

  Cat paused to pull her phone out from her oversized purse. There were half a dozen missed calls and texts from Amy starting around midnight. “I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to have our phones on us at work, and I didn’t check it before I drove home. Is everything okay?”

  “Then how did you know to come home?” Amy asked. “I thought you’d be going to Ian’s.”

  “I…” She shook her head, unable to formulate an answer. “What’s going on here? I thought you’d be sleeping.”

  Amy grasped her hand and tugged her gently in the house. Cat’s heart pounded in anticipation. “Were we robbed?”

  Amy didn’t answer and Cat followed her down the hall to her own bedroom where a large male body lay on her bed with the lights off. She flipped the light on and the man in the bed groaned.

  As soon as she understood what she was looking at, Cat’s stomach lurched and the contents threatened to regurgitate. “Danny?” She rushed to the bed and sat on the side, eliciting another groan from her brother.

  His face was bloody and disfigured and his stained T-shirt, which had looked awful in the club, looked ten times worse spattered in red that she realized was also blood. His arm was lying at an odd angle and she quickly knelt on the floor to stop from jostling his body.

  “Danny? What happened?” He didn’t respond, so she turned to Amy, who hovered in the doorway looking like she either wanted to call the police or an ambulance.

  “I was sleeping, but I woke up when I heard cars in the driveway,” Amy said. “I peeked out the window without turning the lights on and saw three men beating someone up.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  Amy shook her head. “I was too scared and wasn’t thinking straight. I turned on all the lights hoping that would make them go away, but they stayed until
I shouted out the window that I was calling the police.”

  Cat looked at her with wide eyes waiting for the rest of the story, but Amy stood frozen in her Hello Kitty nightshirt, incongruous with the tattoos peeking out. “And,” Cat prompted.

  Amy gave a little shake. Obviously the events of the night had her rattled. “It worked; the three men ran off leaving Danny in the driveway. With the lights on, I saw it was him, so I ran to bring him inside. He told me not to call the police.”

  Cat gave her semi-conscious brother a sharp look. “They must’ve followed him here,” she said to his supine body, and then back to Amy. “He came into the club tonight. He was drunk and stoned and who knows what else. Ian kicked him out. They must’ve been watching for him. Or watching the house.”

  Amy gasped at that revelation. Then she shook her head. “Do you think? Should we call the police now? I don’t know why I listened to him. He seemed lucid and coherent.” She stepped to the bed and for the first time, Cat saw a bowl of water with washcloths and other first aid ointments. Amy sat carefully on the edge of the bed and began wiping at Danny’s cuts with a damp cloth.

  She watched her roommate care for her brother for another minute as the adrenaline ebbed in her body.

  “I think his arm is broken,” she said.

  “Yes,” Amy said. “And probably some ribs. But I don’t think he’s in a serious condition or I would’ve called a paramedic.”

  “I’ll have to get him to the hospital to get it set.” How the hell was she going to manage it without calling an ambulance, and the bigger issue, how was she going to pay for his medical expenses?

  “Tonight? Or maybe wait for tomorrow. He’s in pain but seems to be sleeping now. It may be worse to move him. Take the morning off tomorrow and bring him to South Miami Hospital.”

  “Thank you,” Cat said suddenly, feeling a sob rise in her chest. “You are seriously the best roommate ever. Anyone else would’ve called the police and kicked us out.”

  “Believe me, the thought crossed my mind,” Amy said, but she kept her gaze on Danny and continued to dab at his wounds almost tenderly. “Are you going to call Ian? I’m relieved you came home tonight and didn’t sleep at his place.”