Heath shook his head. “Mom’s in a flurry about Ryan finally bringing a girl home, so don’t break her heart tonight. Give her a few days, until she realizes she witnessed just another instance of her son’s outrageous sex life.”
Much to Jordan’s surprise, Ryan stiffened and moved right in his brother’s face. “Heath, shut up now,” he murmured with lethal calm.
She didn’t understand the silent communication going on between the two brothers, but the entire situation felt embarrassing and ridiculous. When her boss turned toward her again and studied her with a thoughtful expression, she straightened her shoulders, bracing herself.
But his voice was suddenly sympathetic. “By the way, Esposito, here, my name is Heath, not Lieutenant.”
“Then please call me Jordan instead of Esposito,” she replied dryly, “Heath.”
***
Jordan wanted to ask Ellen for her meat loaf recipe. She was convinced she could win the entire station’s undying love if she cooked this meal for them.
Oblivious to anything else, she put another piece of the juicy loaf into her mouth, not caring that the seams of her dress might burst. So what if they did? It wouldn’t be the end of the world, and it would have been worth it, she mused, sitting next to Ryan and relishing every bite of her food while only halfheartedly listening to the family chatter.
Despite her worries that dinner at Ryan’s mother’s house would end in disaster, she felt surprisingly at home, which was probably due to the fact that the whole family was rather convivial. She had already talked with his sister and heard about how Kayleigh Fitzpatrick was an emergency physician and had been on the fire station’s ambulance team a few times. Jordan had already known Ryan’s father used to be chief, but she realized only now how deeply rooted the Fitzpatrick clan was in the fire station where she was now working, too. Even Kyle had worked there before he began studying medicine.
She sat between Ryan and his sister, taking in all manner of information like a sponge. Since she, too, came from a family where dinner conversation often revolved around police work, it was easy to feel right at home. The Fitzpatricks discussed Ryan’s current case, Kayleigh’s patients, and news from the fire squad, and since a blanket of silence had descended over her own family’s dinner table eight months ago, she was grateful for this normalcy.
“Say, Ryan, I noticed the date for the trial was postponed. I thought the attorney had already prepared you for your testimony?” Ryan’s older brother Shane, who was also a detective, but with another department, gave him a questioning look. At the same time, he poured his wife a glass of lemonade. “What’s going on there?”
Jordan looked at Ryan, who answered in typical brisk police-officer fashion. “One of the witnesses backed out. The attorney wants to get him into protective custody, but the man refuses to testify. He’s gotten a slew of threatening letters over the last few days.”
Heath cleared his throat. “Is it just me, or does that sound a little like the mafia?”
Wide-eyed, Jordan watched Ryan shrug, morphing from bigmouthed womanizer into serious cop. “You aren’t that far off base. The company we busted is just a cover for a nationwide network that’s trying its hand at forced prostitution. The attorney wants to bust the entire network, but the witnesses keep backing out one by one. Now he’s ready to offer them a spot in the witness protection program, but that’s not a piece of cake, either.”
“Wow, sounds like fraud department is more exciting right now than homicide.” Shane Fitzpatrick smacked his lips. “Our last stiff was a ninety-year-old retiree found dead in his apartment after two weeks.”
“Don’t spoil my dinner again,” Heath complained loudly.
Ryan’s mom frowned at Shane, too. “I don’t think we should talk about corpses, Shane. The poor man, dying at home alone.” She clucked her tongue. “Show a little more piety, please.”
“I’m all for a change of subject,” Heath said.
“Me, too, Heath,” Ellen Fitzpatrick agreed.
That seemed to be their cue to scrutinize Jordan.
“So what made you decide to become a firefighter, Jordan?” Heath’s wife asked as she cut a potato in half.
Although Jordan would have preferred to continue to just listen to their conversation, she replied politely. “It all started with a high school chemistry experiment gone wrong, which ended in us being escorted from the lab by a fire squad. After that, I was sure that that’s what I wanted to do.” She shrugged one shoulder and wondered what her lieutenant’s beautiful wife, who was an elementary school teacher, must think of a woman in such a male-dominated profession.
But Hayden Fitzpatrick said with great earnestness, “I admire that, really. There are far too few female firefighters.”
“Considering how often Joey visits Heath at the station, don’t you think your daughter might want to follow in his footsteps one day?” Jordan asked.
To her surprise, Heath’s mother was quicker to reply than her son or his wife, and she sounded absolutely delighted by the idea. “Just imagine,” she crooned, “our Joey becoming chief of the fire department, just like her grandpa!”
Heath laughed out loud and winked at Jordan across the table. “I really don’t want to rob you of your illusions, but I think Joey likes playing with her Barbies far too much to become a firefighter.” He looked at Jordan. “Or am I wrong? Did you play with dolls a lot?”
She suppressed a laugh. “The only doll I ever owned was a Christmas gift from my grandparents. My brothers tied her to a tree, and we shot at her with bows and arrows. Naturally, our grandparents weren’t amused.”
If she had expected horrified faces, she’d been wrong. Her boss burst into roaring laughter.
Ryan, on the other hand, who was about to finish his second helping of meat loaf, leaned back in his chair and put a hand on her naked knee. He gave her a curious look. “You shot your own doll with a bow and arrow?”
Why did he have to highlight her tomboy ways like that?
Jordan nodded doubtfully but then stuck out her chin to regain her confidence. “I’m also an ace shooter, my dear. My dad started taking me hunting when I was six.”
Shane chuckled at that. “Jesus, you remind me of Kayleigh! She was just as warlike!”
“Hey!” his sister snapped. “I played with Barbies, okay?”
“You shaved their heads, Kayleigh,” Shane reminded her with a snort. “Your room looked like a doll army barracks!”
“I thought their hair would grow back, like mine,” Kayleigh protested as she stole a few bacon-wrapped green beans from her boyfriend’s plate.
When he didn’t protest, Jordan concluded it had to be love. She, on the other hand, would have rammed her fork into Ryan’s hand if he’d tried to nab the delicious green beans from her plate.
But Ryan didn’t seem to be wasting another thought on food. Instead, he’d taken to studying her with a curious mixture of disbelief, interest, and thoughtfulness. “I didn’t know you hunted.”
Feeling uneasy, Jordan shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
To let him know she didn’t really want to talk about this, she put another piece of meat loaf in her mouth, only to feel his heavy hand, which was still on her knee, start to move upward slowly.
She almost jumped out of her seat. Panicking a little, she wondered what to do. She certainly wasn’t about to let Ryan fondle her at his mother’s dinner table. While the white tablecloth hid the fact that his hand had started to wander, Jordan wanted to set him straight.
She pressed her legs together and fidgeted in her seat.
That didn’t stop him from tracing little circles on her skin with his thumb, which immediately gave her goosebumps, making her skin tingle.
When she felt the heat suffuse her cheeks, she held her breath, feeling as if everyone else at the table could see what Ryan was doing under the tablecloth.
Ryan, however, as his fingertips continued to explore every inch of her thigh, acted as if nothing was g
oing on. “No offense, Aidan,” he called over Jordan’s head, “but I’m still surprised Kayleigh didn’t bring home her lesbian friend after college. She wasn’t notorious for her right hook in high school for nothing.”
Jordan glanced nervously at Kayleigh Fitzpatrick’s tall boyfriend, who merely grinned and stroked Kayleigh’s short hair. “I’m pretty sure your sister’s not a lesbian, Ryan.”
“God, all the testosterone at this table is going to spoil even my voracious appetite at some point.” Kayleigh grunted. “How can you bear it, Jordan? Ryan is such an annoying bigmouth.”
Jordan fidgeted in her chair as she met the questioning looks of the others. Ryan continued to caress her thigh, and then his hand slipped higher and tried to slide past the trim of her panties.
Her voice was a little hoarse as she stammered, “You c-can’t take him seriously most of the time.”
“If only that were so easy,” Kayleigh sighed.
When Ryan’s fingers conquered the barrier and touched her naked skin inside her panties, Jordan pushed back her chair, excused herself breathlessly, and escaped to the guest bathroom.
In there, she forced herself to breathe evenly, avoiding the mirror since she was sure her face would be beet-red. What the hell was he thinking, trying to cop a feel at his mom’s dinner table, with the entire family around?
She wanted to kick his ass.
At the same time, his touch had been frightfully arousing, and Jordan still felt all jittery. All she could think of was how much she wanted to sleep with him.
Jesus!
She closed her eyes, ashamed of herself.
She was in his mother’s house! She shouldn’t be thinking about his glorious naked body, or how talented he was with his fingers and other parts of his body.
“Jordan?” To make matters worse, the annoying man was now knocking on the door of the guest bathroom. Couldn’t he leave her alone in here at least?
She took a few deep breaths to steady herself and then opened the door reluctantly, facing him with a reproachful expression.
But she didn’t get to give him the planned piece of her mind. Instead, he pushed her backwards into the tiny bathroom, squeezed in there with her, and closed the door behind him.
“What the—”
That was all she managed to get out before he attacked her with a kiss that took her breath away and made her knees weak. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders of their own accord, and her elbow hit the wall behind her.
Ryan bumped his hip against the sink, but they were oblivious to anything but their ravenously kissing mouths and their bodies, clinging to each other with moans of desire. They were acting like drowning people who couldn’t get enough of each other, and it seemed almost as if they were trying to kill one another with a never-ending kiss.
Jordan pressed herself against him, devouring his mouth and letting him devour hers, while her fingers dug into his shoulders. She didn’t care that she couldn’t breathe.
She felt dizzy as his hands slipped around her back and grabbed her butt cheeks.
Close to dissolving with lust, she tore her lips away from his and asked, panting, “What … what are we doing here?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” He sounded just as asthmatic and hardly intelligible at all.
“Ryan.” She shook her head as if to clear it, put her trembling hands against his shoulders, and pushed him away, even though she wanted to wrap herself around him. “Jesus … we’re in your mother’s house!”
“For three hours, all I’ve been able to think about is tearing your clothes off.” His lips twisted into an almost grim smile. “You make me absolutely horny, Jordan. I can’t help it.”
She felt her knees go weak again. If she didn’t watch out, Ryan Fitzpatrick would convince her to slip out and do it in the backseat of his car …
A sheepish cough and a light knock could be heard from the other side of the door. “Ryan? I don’t want to interrupt, but Mom is asking whether you’re finished with your plates. Everyone’s waiting for dessert, you know. Plus, I need to pee.”
“There’s an upstairs bathroom, Shane,” Ryan reminded his brother grumpily, while still staring hungrily at Jordan’s lips.
“Nope, can’t go there. The flush isn’t working,” Shane’s amused voice came from the other side.
“Oh, crap!” Ryan groaned in such a pitiful way that Jordan almost laughed.
Almost.
He leaned forward and whispered urgently into her ear, “We’re going to stay for ten more minutes, and then we’re leaving. I want to finish what we started.”
Jordan wanted to maintain a little of her dignity, so she raised her chin and cocked an eyebrow. Her shivering body betrayed her, however, and her voice was too croaky to be dignified. “I never said I would go home with you after this, Fitzpatrick.”
“Oh, but you will.” He had the confidence of a man who knows the woman in front of him can’t think of anything but his naked body. He gave her a presumptuous grin and put his thumb on the spot on her neck where her pulse throbbed rapidly. “You will, Esposito.”
Chapter 10
“What’s going on between you and Jordan?”
“What do you mean ‘going on’?”
“Don’t play me for a fool, Ryan.”
Ryan evaded a pebble in this path as he jogged next to his oldest brother. Since the weather was fantastic, they’d put on their running shoes really early this morning, and the harbor path and adjoining green were still mostly empty. The stretch between Navy Yard and Pier 8 was generally very popular with both Bostonians and tourists, and in two hours, this area would be swarming with people wanting to enjoy the beautifully sunny Saturday on the waterfront. But so far, Heath and Ryan had only encountered a few lonely runners, people walking their dogs, and a few hot-dog sellers looking to reserve the prime spots for their carts.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Ryan answered. He was glad Heath had turned into an unhurried jogger after his pulled ligament a few months ago, because Ryan was not in top form today. The leisurely pace was just right to prevent him looking like a huffing asthmatic in front of his brother.
“Well, then, please enlighten me,” Heath demanded. “First, you bring my recruit to our family dinner and tell Mom she’s your girlfriend, and now you’re really giving the impression you’ve finally landed in relationship-land.”
Ryan shook his head defensively. “What makes you say that?” he asked, irritated.
Heath let out a gasp and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “What makes me say that? Are you serious?”
“Heath, don’t talk in riddles,” Ryan demanded, trying to focus on the rhythm of his breathing. In mid-July, it sometimes got uncomfortably warm even this early in the day—especially when there was no breeze. Like today.
But his brother didn’t seem to be bothered by the weather. “Yesterday, Mike told me he saw you at the pub with her a few days ago. And Kyle told me she answered your phone yesterday morning and said you were out getting breakfast. I also know your car was parked in front of her place several times over the last two weeks.”
Although Ryan wasn’t particularly secretive about his sex life, it bothered him that his brother seemed to be spying on him. He frowned. “I thought your job was to fight fires, Heath,” he grumbled, “how come the family doesn’t know you’re working as a private investigator now?”
“Don’t be a dick.” Heath was less out of breath than Ryan, and his voice sounded suspiciously sympathetic. “The guys at the station are real gossips, you know that. And Hayden is totally curious. She and Kayleigh are always chatting about you and Jordan and what might be going on between you.”
“Wonderful.” Ryan rolled his eyes. His burning calves didn’t seem to be the most annoying thing on this fine morning anymore.
“They’re just curious—the guys even more than Hayden and Kayleigh.”
“I realized a while ago that the women in our family regularly run their mouths about my lo
ve life, but why would your men do a thing like that?”
“What do you expect?” Heath uttered a laugh. “Since we found you tied naked to your bed, the guys have been placing bets on you … or against you. Whichever way you want to see it.”
“What?” Ryan gasped for air. “What are they betting on?”
Heath needed a moment to dodge a few stones in his path. “Oh … you know how they are. When there isn’t a lot to do, they get bored.”
“Why don’t they read a goddamn book?”
“Very funny.”
Ryan ground his teeth. “What the hell are they betting on, Heath?”
His brother shrugged. “I don’t know about all the bets, but a few are about when you’re next going to be tied up by an angry flame.”
“I really don’t think that’s funny,” Ryan griped and brushed the sweat from his forehead. “Can’t you tell them to knock it off?”
“Nope. That’s out of the question,” his loving brother said categorically. “I bet twenty bucks myself that we won’t have to come cut you loose from your cuffs for at least three months.”
For a brief moment, Ryan was knocked out of his stride, almost stumbling over his own feet. He sped up to catch up with his brother.
What the hell?
“What?” Outraged, he struggled to keep up with Heath. “You have the nerve to tell me you bet money on my love life?”
“Yep.” Heath threw him a patronizing glance. “Just do me a favor and leave those handcuffs out of your playtime for a while so I don’t lose my twenty bucks.”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You’re such an asshole!”
His brother answered this insult with a cheerful laugh.
Fifteen minutes later, they finished their round and bought two bottles of water from one of the vendors, before slowly starting back.
Ryan raised the bottle to his lips and took a long sip, pretending not to notice his brother’s scrutinizing gaze.
But of course that didn’t keep Heath from returning to their previous topic. “So what is going on between you and Jordan?”
All Tied Up (The Boston Five Series #4) Page 11