by Layla Reyne
A round of wolf whistles sounded behind them, and they broke apart, grinning.
“Thank you, for asking me to come with you,” Nic said.
Letting go of the shirt, Cam smoothed his hands up Nic’s firm chest and around his neck. “You said I’m your family.”
Nic circled his wrists, squeezing. “Last time I’ll ask, I swear, but are you sure you want to risk all this, your old life here and your new one in San Francisco, for me? With all the shit swirling around with Vaughn and my father, I wouldn’t blame—”
Cam leaned forward again, a quick kiss to stop Nic’s careening arguments. He pulled back, but stayed close enough to feel Nic’s stuttered breath on his lips. “You risked your life for me. For the peace my family here needed. Now if I want to do the same for the man I love, let me.”
The kiss Nic laid on him then wasn’t quick or chaste, and they won more applause and Edye’s laughing shout of “get a room.”
Cam came up for air, smiling wide. “Come home with me, Dominic.”
Nic’s usual confidence bordering on arrogance vanished, eyes darting from his shoes, to their hands, and back. He was laid bare, before Cam and an audience. “Are you saying the offer still stands?” He swallowed hard, summoning what he could and meeting Cam’s eyes. “To move in with you?”
Cam breathed a sigh of relief, a sigh of pure joy. “There’s no place I’d rather you be.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sitting midway down the first baseline at AT&T Park, Nic stared out over the field, past the giant mitt and Coke bottle slide to the tankers and sailboats crowding the rippling waters of the Bay. Indian summer was still going strong—bright sun, warm temps, a good breeze. Not much had changed during his time in Boston, or during the week since returning.
But it’d been more than enough time for Nic’s whole world to change. Mostly for the better, which scared him far more than the leftover bad parts. He had so much to lose now—a new home, a family of trusted friends, a lover he didn’t want to hide from. The mess with his father and Vaughn could steal all that good away at any second, which was why he was here today. That and the killer craving for caramel corn that always struck him this time of year, right before the season ended, as if his taste buds knew the sticky sweetness was about to disappear again for six months.
“That shit will rot your teeth out.”
Nic glanced right, down the empty club level row—a day game the last week of a losing season didn’t draw a crowd—and saw Aidan shuffling toward him, tie gone and already half out of his suit coat.
Grinning, Nic bent the opposite direction and came back up with another box of freshly popped, gooey-tossed goodness. “So you don’t want the one I got for you?”
Aidan smirked as he tossed his coat over Nic’s on the seat backs in front of them. “I didn’t say that.” He dropped into the seat beside Nic, rolled up his sleeves, and claimed his prize. “Nice seats,” he mumbled around a bite.
“Perks of being a shiny new vendor.”
“Gravity brews at the Park?”
Nic nodded. “Just signed the contracts for next season.”
“You won’t be able to tear Cam away from here.”
He waved a hand in the air. “I’m hoping it’ll mellow the BoSox of it all.”
“No chance.”
Nic hid his groan behind another mouthful, and Aidan laughed, until a grand slam on the field drew their attention momentarily away, both of them standing to cheer on their hometown team.
“You settled in at the house?” Aidan asked, once they were seated again.
“Yeah, all good.”
Aidan bumped his shoulder. “I’m happy for you two. Jamie is too.”
“That’s good. I know how important he is to Cam.”
“And he knows the same about you. And you’ve saved his best friend at least four times now by my count.”
Nic angled toward him and lowered his voice. The likelihood of being overheard was minimal, but caution dictated. “But what if I’m the one who gets him killed? Or any of the rest of you?” Stomach revolting at the notion, he set the caramel corn aside and wiped off his hands, wringing the napkin so hard he shredded it. “I couldn’t live with myself if—”
Aidan clasped his arm, cutting him off. “We’re going to nail Vaughn. You’re going to get your happy ending too, Dominic.”
But not every story had a happy ending, and until recently, the chapters of Nic’s life had not ended on high notes. He hated to be a pessimist, especially when almost everything else seemed to be going right for a change, but he was a lawyer. And a soldier. Evaluating risks, expecting the worst, was what he’d been trained to do.
Just like the players on the field, he had to cover all the bases. Not let a line drive or fly ball slip through, because now, improbably, he found himself on a team. He couldn’t leave the game, or his team, to chance when it was more than just his life on the line.
He reached forward to the seat backs in front of them, to where they’d tossed their jackets, and pulled his out from under Aidan’s. From the inside pocket, he withdrew a sheet of folded paper. “In case I don’t,” he said, handing it to Aidan.
Aidan tossed his empty box aside, cleaned off his hands, and took the paper. His warm brown eyes scanned the sheet, brow furrowing. “This is an insurance certificate for the house.” His eyes continued down, then grew wide when they reached the bottom. “For double the value.”
“The report came back on the apartment fire. Arson.”
“Shit.” Aidan fell back in his seat like he’d been punched in the gut. Nic could commiserate. “You think it was a warning?”
Nic nodded. “I can’t be sure what’s going to happen, and I can’t risk your house. I know what it meant to you. What it still means to you, even if you don’t live there anymore.”
“This is too much, Dominic,” Aidan said, trying to hand the paper back to him.
Nic refused to take it. “Peace of mind.”
Their stare-off lasted one crack of the bat before Aidan conceded with a huff, leaning forward and slipping the paper inside his jacket.
“I also need you to do me another favor,” Nic said.
“Whatever it is, you know I will.”
“You’ve said before you used to help with your family’s estate docs.”
“That’s right.”
“I need mine updated.”
Aidan’s brows snapped together and he shot forward in his seat. “Dominic—”
He held up a hand. “I should have done it years ago, once Gravity was up and running, but now I have even more to protect.”
“I agree they should be updated, but for this reason, Nic? Why are you so sure things are going to take a turn?”
Insides twisting, he turned his face away, staring back out at the field. Remembering how his dad had first bought season tickets as a means of distracting him. How he’d taken delight in sneaking off with Garrett to games at the old stadium. What’d it felt like to lose him, to lose it all. Like the imagined sensation of the tree branches on his back twisting, knotting and breaking. “I was happy once and I lost it all, with two words and a fist.”
“Your father,” Aidan surmised, pity and fury wrapped together in his rumbling Irish burr.
“I don’t trust it won’t happen again, by either his or Vaughn’s hand, and I need to protect what’s mine, better than I did then.”
Aidan grasped his shoulder. “You were eighteen.”
“And I’m forty-six next week. With combat training, a legal degree, and a hefty bank balance, thanks to the brewery and a military pension I invested well. I have the means to provide and protect.” He covered Aidan’s hand with his. “Help me do that, please.”
Aidan squeezed his shoulder, then slid back in his seat. “What are you thinking?”
“I want the brewery insulat
ed, and for it to go to Eddie, free and clear.”
Aidan nodded, and Nic snagged another paper out of his coat and handed it to Aidan.
On it, he’d written two account numbers.
“Offshore?” Aidan asked.
“Offshore,” Nic confirmed. “If something should happen, there’s enough in the first one to pay off Vaughn. If that’s unnecessary, then I want it to go to Mary Del Selva.” True to her word, Mel had “stolen Mary away” to work a couple days a week for her and Danny, as Mary wound down to her full-time retirement. Nic wanted to make sure that retirement was secure.
“Okay,” Aidan said, “and the second account?”
The second account was twice the size of the first one. His retirement nest egg, which he contributed to monthly. “For Cam,” he said, blood heating and chilling at the same time. He never thought he’d have someone in his life like this again. That he had to provide for that person in the event of his death, sooner or later, was both heart-lifting and heart-wrenching. “That and everything else I have,” he added.
“I figured as much.”
“You’d do the same for Jamie.”
One corner of Aidan’s mouth hitched up. “I have.”
Nic absently rubbed a hand over his left hip, thinking of the ink he’d started to pine for there. He knew exactly what he wanted it to be, a version of the label he’d already sketched, and he hoped like hell it would be inked in celebration, memorializing a victory. Not a tragedy. But in case there was one, and in case he was on the losing end of it, Nic didn’t want Cam to regret the decision he’d made, to leave the rest of his family behind and tough it out in San Francisco. For him.
“I don’t want him to want for anything, ever again.”
“I understand, and I’ll do this for you, of course.” Aidan folded the paper into quarters, all the accounts and figures hidden, and tucked it into his dress shirt pocket. He sat back, arms folded, glaring intently. Knowingly. Like the best friend he’d improbably become. “But I think what Cam wants most is for you to stay alive.”
Nic glanced out at the field again, hoping things went differently this time. Praying for the happy ending he wanted. That Cam deserved. “I’m going to try my damnedest.”
But if it came down to it, he’d always save the man he loved. Even if it meant a fist to his jaw. Or a bullet to his heart.
* * * * *
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Keep reading for an excerpt from Tequila Sunrise by Layla Reyne, now available at all participating e-retailers.
Now available from Carina Press and Layla Reyne
True love perseveres in this action-packed holiday novella, featuring former FBI Agent Melissa Cruz and Talley Enterprises CEO Daniel Talley, as they race against the clock to save their family and their future.
Read on for a preview of Tequila Sunrise, a spin-off from author Layla Reyne’s Agents Irish and Whiskey series
Chapter One
Christmas Eve, Present
Fifteen minutes, not five.
That’s how long it took any Jetway to reach its intended plane at SFO. While other first-class passengers rose around her, hauling luggage out of overhead bins and calling for rides, Mel remained seated. She stretched a long leg out in front of her, toeing over her rock-studded heels and slipping them on. Like her fellow travelers, she was in a hurry too—already a day late and less than two hours to showtime—but she knew the drill here at her home airport.
So too did the flight attendants on this daily hop from London. Her favorite steward, Jeremy, shuffled down the aisle at a leisurely pace, smiling. “Anything else, Agent Cruz?” he asked in his lilting accent. As was their routine, he handed over her folded suit jacket, the load noticeably lighter without her gun case tucked underneath.
“Just Ms. Cruz now,” she said with as warm a smile as she could muster after flying all day.
“Old habits.”
“Tell me about it.” She was barely used to it herself, and she’d been out of the Bureau eight months now. If she had to change it a third time, she’d shoot someone for sure.
Standing, she shrugged into her coat while Jeremy pulled her go-bag and briefcase down from the bin. “See you next month?” he asked.
She bit back a truer grin as Jeremy adjusted his Santa’s hat. “Home for a bit,” she managed.
On cue, her cell vibrated in her pocket. Expecting what was on it, she thought better not to pull it out in front of Jeremy. Thankfully, another passenger across the aisle signaled for his help.
“Duty calls,” he said, extending a hand.
“Always a pleasure,” she said, shaking it. “Have a happy holiday, Jeremy.”
“Same to you, Ag—Ms. Cruz,” he corrected before moving on.
Mel laid her bags in the empty window seat beside her and methodically went through the rest of her deplaning checks—swipe a hand through the seat back pocket, double-check around her seat, pat herself down to make sure she had everything, ignore the momentary flash of panic at the missing badge and gun. Personal effects all accounted for, she turned her back to the aisle and withdrew her phone.
You get here early enough, you can have part one of your Xmas presents before the party.
Below the text was a picture of her dark-haired, dark-eyed lover, looking like the sinful devil he was in a state of semi-undress. Tuxedo pants hung low on his slim hips, an unbuttoned dress shirt showed off his long, lean torso, and a red-and-green bowtie dangled loose around his neck.
Oh so tempting. Danny knew what she liked to do with dangling pieces of fabric. At least it was around his neck in this shot. The picture he’d sent eleven hours ago, as she’d sat in the boarding area at Heathrow, involved much less clothing, what looked like that same damn bowtie looped around his wrists, and the message Wouldn’t you rather be on my plane?
His fucking plane had been what started all this.
Sixteen Months Ago
It was the middle of the night when Mel charged into the private hangar, flashed her badge at the flight crew preparing the Talley jet, and marched up the portable stairs, banging down the airplane door until Danny answered.
As the boss and best friend of his brother Aidan, Mel had been around Danny almost half her life. But the youngest Talley son was thirteen years her junior and always had a model on his arm or a phone to his ear, constantly on the go as Talley Enterprises’ public face and COO. And he somehow managed to do all that with a perma-grin that charmed everyone and irritated Mel to no end. That irritation had kept her from appreciating the annoying frat boy who’d grown into a handsome, flirtatious, successful businessman.
But the Danny in front of her now, dressed only in a pair of low-slung sweats, she appreciated. Tall like the rest of the Talleys, his torso stretched for miles, and every one of them was delicious. Wide shoulders and a carved collarbone, a broad chest smattered with dark curls, lightly ribbed abs and the most well-defined hip bones she’d ever seen on a man. Not to mention the trail of dark curls leading below his waistband.
“See something you like?”
Gaze snapping up, she met that charming-bordering-on-shit-eating grin and grabbed hold of her remembered irritation. She shouldered him aside and barreled into the jet’s main cabin. “I’m going with you. The first commercial flight out to Houston isn’t until six and I need to get to your brother sooner.”
Danny scratched absently at his chest, leering when her goddamn betraying eyes strayed there. “Yeah, Mom called. Something about an incident this morning in Galveston. Good thing I was already going down there.”
She tossed her bag onto the leather couch and put her hands on her hips. “And why was that?”
He crossed his arms, squaring off. And flexing
. The devil. “Aidan asked me to gather some information. Shipping manifests and the like.” He jutted his chin at a stack of folders on the table between two swiveling chairs. “He needs it in a hurry, and I have the connections to get it, without all those pesky law-enforcement restrictions you’re saddled with.”
That pride, however well deserved, was irritating too. A fucking hotshot civilian in the middle of a case that was bigger—and possibly more deadly—than any of them realized. “You couldn’t just email those to him?”
“It seemed easier this way.”
“To fly the company jet there, in the middle of the night? That’s not the real reason. Out with it, Daniel.”
He startled a little and an attractive blush slashed across his high cheekbones. He didn’t try to hide it, grinning wider. “I’m on a mission of my own. To check out this new partner of his.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She dropped her arms and turned on her heel to keep from strangling him.
A second later, heat hit her back and his warm breath blanketed her ear. “Don’t worry, chica. I’m not interested for myself. Just being a good brother, checking out this Jamie fellow.”
She held up a commanding hand. “Don’t say anything else.”
“My lips are sealed, unless you want to do something about that.”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t contain her laughter, surprised at the tiny bit of weight that floated off her chest with it. She glanced over her shoulder, nose to nose with the handsome devil. “You gonna give me a lift or what?”
“You gonna give me a date when we get back?”
“We’ll see.” She didn’t think before she spoke—a rarity—and the spontaneity seemed to surprise Danny as much as her.
His dark eyes grew wide, his smile even wider. “I can work with that.”
Present
Yes, she’d rather have flown in on Danny’s jet, but after spending the past week apart, being without him there too, surrounded by all those memories, would have been as frustrating as flying commercial.
And it would have given away the unscheduled stop she’d made in Dublin for his Christmas present. She eyed her go-bag in the seat, hoping like hell she hadn’t overstepped.