The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  “Is it so wrong to want to know who I married?” she asked quietly.

  “No, love.” He felt a tingling across his skin, apprehension at the idea of breaking himself open the way she was asking him to. “It’s not too much.”

  Twenty-Six

  There were so many things she should have been thinking about as she packed several days’ worth of clothes in a duffle bag. The lessons she had to teach the next day. The flexion exercises she needed to work into Apollo’s routine. The fact that Brett was clearly trying to imply that she was the source of the heroin that had killed Davis, and therefore the killer. The fact that she hadn’t heard from Dad – or Bell Bar – in a few days, and Maryann would no doubt leave soon, throwing her back into the role of DD.

  But those were the things she’d thought of every day, for as long as she could remember, with no time off, no vacation, no relief. So Emmie wanted to think about the big house on the hill, and the man waiting for her inside it.

  Her man.

  She had showered, and dressed now in a loose white tank top and clean cutoffs, rolled a coat of gloss across her lips before she doused the lights and headed up to the house.

  There were honest to God butterflies in her stomach.

  She went to the front door, because that was the one Walsh seemed to use most, and found it unlocked, let herself in. The scent of food hit her first, and when she stepped into the cavernous living room, she spotted a dinky leather sofa, a chair, a little table…and Walsh.

  “You’ve been busy,” she said, because she didn’t know how she wanted to greet him just yet.

  He shrugged and scratched at his chin stubble in a self-conscious movement. “I brought over some stuff from my old place. And there’s frozen potato skins in the oven.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “If that’s alright.”

  She nodded, and inwardly, took a deep breath, bracing herself for whatever the night held. “Sounds good.”

  ~*~

  Mags and Ava both had funeral dresses. And sometimes, if she was going to school or some sort of writing meeting, Ava would wear slacks and pumps. But none of the women in Aidan’s life dressed like this.

  Across the white tablecloth and flickering candles, Tonya looked poured into a wine-colored dress that hugged every graceful line and swelling curve of her body. She was flashing a lot of cleavage, and a trio of diamonds on a silver chain disappeared down between her breasts, drawing his eyes there again and again. Her lipstick was dark, her eyes ringed in black, her hair a spill of shadow down her back.

  Aidan had been staring at her for a solid minute, all his charm drying to dust on his tongue.

  “Everything alright?” she asked, slicing into her tiny serving of chicken-whatever-the-hell.

  This was the third time he’d ground to a conversational halt since they’d sat down. It had to stop.

  “Yeah.” He pushed a grin across his face, hoped it was cocky enough. “Just thinking I ain’t dressed right for this place.”

  Her dark eyes moved up and down him, taking in his carefully pressed plaid shirt, the unholy amount of gel in his hair. Her smile was small, didn’t show any teeth. Predatory, almost, and how weird to think that about a woman. “You look fine.” There was a purr in her voice, and something that was definitely her foot slid up the inside of his leg under the table.

  Okay, so that answered the first date question.

  He felt his grin become easier, more natural. “I always wonder why chicks wanna get so dolled up all the time.”

  She made bold eye contact. “I wanted to look nice for you.”

  She was a seductress, this one. Like the more forward groupies, but with more style, and a better wardrobe. The thrill, though, is that she wasn’t part of his usual string. This was a classy girl, one with money and power and influence. She was unlike anyone he’d ever bedded before.

  A change, his father had said, and this was a change. Boy, was it ever a change.

  “I don’t think ‘nice’ covers it, sweetheart.”

  Her foot reached his knee, heading between his thighs.

  “Well then you’ll have to elaborate,” she said, smiling wide, “later.”

  ~*~

  “So what do you want to know? Or shall I just start at the beginning?” Walsh asked as he dragged two greasy potato skins onto his paper plate and then licked his fingers. He’d forgotten napkins, damn it.

  Emmie didn’t seem to mind that. She popped a speck of bacon into her mouth, touched her tongue to her fingertips – a potent reminder of all the things he still wanted to do with her. Her brows tucked together over her eyes. “I swear you look nervous.”

  “Hmm. Only a bit.”

  She grinned. “Well that’s nice for a change.” She squared up her shoulders, gave him a serious face. He loved that about her, the way she could be all business. “Okay. Well, I think the beginning is best. And then you’re welcome to my beginning, however lame that is.”

  Never, in his entire life, had a woman offered up her beginning to him. Her history. The little horrors that had brought her to his bed. He couldn’t squander that. Couldn’t hold anything back.

  He ducked his head over his plate, took a deep breath and said, “Well, Mum was easy to fool. You ought to know that…”

  The words poured out of him, faster and smoother than he’d thought possible. He told her about the squalid London flat into which his husbandless mother had brought him home. About them being hungry, the rare treat of a sweet, the elbows and fists from the other boys bigger than him.

  “I was a tiny thing,” he said, hearing his accent deepen with remembrance. “Everyone picked on me.”

  Her face was full of sympathy. She was small too. She understood.

  And so he moved onto Rottingdean, his grandparents, Gramps with his vicarious dreams. To Brighton Racecourse, and his short-lived time as a jockey. His epic failure after the rider beside him went down. And died.

  “Oh God,” she breathed. “But you didn’t mean to. You were defending yourself, and it was an accident.” She slapped her plate down like she wanted to storm off and track down the officials who’d banned him. “They couldn’t just do that to you!”

  “Can and did, love.”

  He didn’t tell her about Rita, because he didn’t want to spoil things. He didn’t want to tell her about a woman rejecting him, and his seed. Didn’t want to give her any ideas.

  But he told her about finding out that Phillip Calloway, the then VP of the London chapter, was his half-brother. How he’d joined the RAF instead. He faltered in the middle of the Afghanistan story, and she stared at him, deeply concerned, but didn’t press. Didn’t ask him about that medivac mission, about the woman garbed in black who’d been used as a human shield for the rat bastard who’d gunned down the two injured soldiers he was supposed to be rescuing. He didn’t tell her about killing that woman, as he’d put a bullet in the scum behind her; she seemed to know it, though, and her hand covered his on the tabletop.

  It was a short sprint to the finish after that. Back home he’d prospected, been patched, then been sent to Knoxville for a job, and stayed.

  “The Money Man. That’s what they call me.” His gaze was fixed on her tiny fingers, the way they stroked mindlessly across his knuckles again and again. “They send me in when a chapter needs to make some cash.” He offered her a half-assed smile. “The strip club fixer, that’s me.”

  Her frown was concerned, curious, but not disapproving. “The farm fixer too, apparently.”

  “This place was my idea. I thought we ought to make a go of it.”

  “Because you hate high density condos? Or because you hate high density condos next door to…however many bodies are over there?” Her fingers stilled, and then closed tight over his, asking. There was fear in her eyes, but there were bright shards of trust, too. She was giving him a chance to help her see, and that was sweeter than anything a woman had ever given him.

  He turned her hand over, cle
aved his palm to hers. Chose his words carefully. “The club works a certain way, pet. Some things have changed a little, over time, but most haven’t. It’s not modern, but that’s how it is.”

  “It’s a crime ring,” she said quietly.

  “It’s protective. Of itself. It’s self-sustaining. Which means there are some things I can’t ever tell you. Only a man with a patch on his back and a seat at the table can know all the secrets. The club doesn’t go around trying to break the law, but club comes first – club law trumps city, and state, and country law. Yeah? We protect it, and it protects the people who belong to it. The men who wear the patch. And the women we love, and the children they give us.”

  Her lips parted and she inhaled deeply. “Walsh–”

  “When someone tries to hurt us – any of us – we put ‘em down. Simple as that. It’s what we have to do to keep everyone safe.”

  “How many…” She swallowed. “How many people are buried over there?”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ll tell you as much as I can, but there’s some things you can’t know. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

  “That’s going to be difficult, given the circumstances.”

  “I know, love, I know.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “But I promise you – I promise – that I won’t let you get hurt. You’re my wife, and even if it’s just pretend, it means something to me.”

  Okay, time to look away now; he couldn’t drop all that on the poor girl and expect her to handle it well.

  But he couldn’t. His gaze was riveted to hers, and he was shocked by the softness in her face

  She twitched him a bare smile. “My turn now, right?”

  ~*~

  When Tonya asked if he wanted to come up, as they stood at the base of her expensive high-rise building, he accepted, and he ran through the advice his sister had given him. He needed to compliment her place, say the sorts of ridiculous, flowery things chicks always wanted to hear. He should be sure not to track mud onto her floors, and hold the doors for her, and…

  All that well-meaning shit fled from his mind the second they stepped into the elevator and Tonya turned the most unmistakable look his way.

  He moved toward her, but she met him partway, and when he caught the back of her head in his hand, she reached behind him and gripped his ass. The kiss was a crashing together, and it didn’t feel hesitant, or tender, or like a first kiss at all.

  She bit his lip hard, and he hissed, pulling back. “Shit.” He touched the spot with his thumb and drew back with a drop of blood. “Are you serious?”

  “Very.” Her hands moved up his stomach, smoothed across his chest. She leaned into him, pressed her breasts against him. Her face was flushed, eyes heavy-lidded. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

  If she wanted to play rough, he could play rough. “Nah.” He grinned. “Just wanna make sure you don’t get hurt, darlin’.”

  “Trust me. I won’t.”

  ~*~

  “Mine’s not very exciting,” Emmie said, a self-conscious blush warming her cheeks as she sank down low against the back of his cracked leather bachelor pad sofa. She wouldn’t admit it, but she’d always loved old leather couches like this. They were so cool against her skin in summer, and the leather never really lost its earthy smell.

  Walsh was beside her, his arm thrown over the back, so that if she wanted to, she could lean sideways and lie against him. That felt too intimate somehow, in this moment of secret-spilling, so she stayed in her slouch.

  “The farm I already know about,” he said, helpfully.

  “Right. And that’s most of it. Pretty much all you need to know about me is that I live, breathe, and sleep Briar Hall.” She sighed. “But here goes. Mom left when I was eight. Right after she put me in riding lessons. Dad didn’t drink then, but he was a sappy kind of guy. A bit of a nerd, incurably uncool. He was sweet, though.” She sent him a wan smile that he returned. “He always brought her flowers, and he had these hokey pet names for her. He adored her.

  “And she ran off with a minor league baseball player who called her ‘bitch’ and treated her like hell. She needed excitement. She needed danger.” She snorted. “She would love that I’m here with you.”

  “Hey now. I don’t call you names.”

  “No, you’re a perfect English gentleman,” she agreed, and laughed at his frown.

  Then sobered. “She’s married to some kind of nine-to-fiver now. They have kids. She sends me Christmas and birthday cards sometimes.” She shrugged. “Dad never got over it. And I’m afraid he wasn’t ever much of a dad afterward.” Another shrug. “That’s all there is to tell, really. I buried myself in this place. I didn’t have friendships or long-term relationships because I was so dedicated to the horses. And now…”

  “And now,” Walsh said quietly, smug smile pulling at his mouth, “you live in the big house, and it’s half yours.”

  She sat up straight. “I thought the club bought it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah. But Ghost ain’t gonna live out here and muck stalls for you. Far as the club is concerned, this place is yours and mine, to do what we want with, so long as it turns a profit.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Completely.”

  Emmie took a deep breath. It was the sort of dream she’d never allowed herself, because it had been too big, too far-fetched.

  “Em.” Walsh leaned toward her. “You’re not just the manager, love. Not anymore.”

  No, she was the mistress of this place she’d poured her life into. She was married to the owner. The sweet owner, who’d shown her more affection and care than anyone related to her, than anyone she’d worked for, than…anyone.

  She lunged forward and threw her arms around his neck.

  Twenty-Seven

  “You don’t need to keep walking me out,” Tango said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not going to get mugged.”

  “Don’t think me too practical, darling,” Ian said beside him, reaching up to play with the row of hoops going down Tango’s ear. “It’s just that I’m never quite done with you.”

  Tango bit down hard on his lip as deft fingertips tugged at one piercing and then the next, moving down to the sensitive lobe. He wanted to tell Ian to stop, but he knew that if he turned to face him, the words would never get a chance to leave his mouth.

  So he turned his head, and the kiss was consuming. Ian could be utterly soft and feminine in his manner, or he could be dominating, and this kiss was of the latter variety, his tongue shoving roughly into Tango’s mouth, his hands gripping the sides of his head.

  The elevator reached the parking garage level with a soft ding, and Tango shoved away, breathing ragged.

  Ian smiled rather smugly, wiped the moisture off his bottom lip with a quick flick of his thumb. “One last taste,” he said, and turned to face the frosted stainless doors as they slid open.

  Tango took a huge breath and tried to tidy his hair. He didn’t say goodbye; words always seemed to evade him at this moment. He stepped out into the chilly underground garage and made it about five steps toward his bike when Ian caught up to him, his slippers silent on the concrete, long-fingered hand curling around Tango’s wrist.

  “Wait,” he whispered, stilling, his breath halting as he scanned the rows of cars around them. “We’re being watched,” he said.

  “What?”

  Ian ignored him, reached over his shoulder and made a fast hand gesture that made no sense.

  “Ian–”

  “Shh. Kiss me again.”

  Tango frowned. “What in the–”

  Ian grabbed his head, brought their mouths together, and kissed the hell out of him. When he pulled back, Tango heard a scramble of feet on the tarmac, assorted shouts, grunts, and a loud, “Get your hands off me!”

  He shook away from Ian completely and saw that two of the Englishman’s no-necked security thugs were pulling a man out a black Explorer across the way. Tango was good with faces, and
he recognized this one immediately. “Oh shit.”

  “Go,” Ian told him with a little pat on the shoulder. He turned toward the captive, squalling man and straightened the lapels of his robe. “Go on, darling. I’ve got this.”

  Like he’d always been so good at doing, Tango followed orders, and left.

  ~*~

  They were going to have to make a serious furniture run, Walsh decided as he moved around the kitchen the next morning. He’d never been much of one for material aesthetics, but he’d awakened that morning with a deep sense of purpose in his gut, one that was personal and had nothing to do with the club. He’d decided some things, in the dark, with his woman curled against him. And for starters, he needed to make this place comfortable. He didn’t want them going into winter with one sofa and a floor mattress. This needed to be a home.

  “This house is going to spoil me,” Emmie said with a dreamy sigh as she came into the room, twisting her hair up into a curly blonde knot. “Did you know the tile floor in the bathroom is heated?”

  “It is?”

  “And it’s divine.” She wiggled her bare toes against the kitchen tiles in demonstration, smiling.

  She was dressed to ride and she was…well, bugger it, she was cute. She was beautiful and she was sexy and all those things, but she was cute too, and that was the thought that struck him as he stepped to her and dropped a kiss on her lips.

  “You okay?” he asked as he pulled back.

  Her smile took on a softer, almost embarrassed cast. Like she was remembering the way they’d tested out the Jacuzzi tub last night and found that it was a perfect fit for two. “I’m fine.” Her eyes dropped to his mouth, like maybe she wanted another kiss.

  His phone chimed with a text alert, breaking the moment. She turned away, going to the coffee pot.

  “Hey, there’s something I’ve been thinking about,” he said as he checked his phone.

  Ghost: Come in to the clubhouse.