Mark (The Mallick Brothers #3)

by Jessica Gadziala

  And as whacked as it might have been to think it so soon, nothing had ever felt more right.

  It was just my luck I was falling for a known flight risk.

  Falling for?

  My immediate, knee-jerk reaction was to shrink away from that, to deny it, to call it insane.

  And maybe it was insane, but it was also true.

  There was no denying it. Why the fuck else would I have kept stopping what I was doing during work hours to check my phone which I had already set to alert me with news regarding a certain big box store? Why else would I have jumped up from dinner with Shane and Lea to get in my truck and haul ass out of town while calling everyone I knew in the criminal underbelly about possible hideouts in that area of New York state? Why else would I demand she change the entire course she had set for her life? Why else would I feel a bone-deep need to be raw inside her? To fill her with my come? To claim her in a way I had never wanted before?

  There was only one answer to all of those, regardless of how too-soon it might have been.

  I was falling.

  And, all things said and done, it wasn't that soon.

  Shane knew Lea was important almost immediately.

  Hunt knew Fee was something special.

  Ryan knew he needed Dusty after one night where she was too freaked out with a panic attack to even have a fully normal interaction with.

  It was how it happened with my parents too.

  Maybe it had something to do with all of us being ladies men before. We had gotten enough of a taste of what wasn't right to know the taste of what was.

  Maybe we were all just lucky.

  We didn't have to spend weeks or months sitting across from someone in restaurants before we realized they were right. We didn't need to make pro and con lists. We didn't need to weigh the options.

  We just knew.

  I just knew about Scotti.

  It was as simple as that.

  Was the situation maybe less than ideal? Well, she was a fucking armed robber hellbent on leaving the country, so... yeah.

  But what man didn't like a challenge?

  Nothing good in life ever comes easy.

  If Scotti was maybe my chance to get a taste of what Hunter, Shane, Ryan, and my parents had, then, yeah, I was willing to put in the work.

  Which included keeping her strong enough to talk to her brothers. So we needed to get out of the tub and into clothes before they showed up. Otherwise, I'd likely be getting nothing but death glares though they all damn well knew their sister was no starry-eyed virgin that I deflowered. I guess brothers had to be that way with their little sisters.

  "Come on, baby," I said, dropping my hips to slide out of her.

  "My legs are Jell-O," she grumbled as I stepped out and started drying off.

  "Alrighty then," I said, tying a towel around my waist, and reaching down to haul her up. "You hold onto me, and I'll dry you off," I offered, already reaching up to scrub the towel into her dripping hair.

  "What? No. I can..."

  "Let me take care of my woman? You sure can do that. So quit your bitching," I said with a smile that she returned as I slowly moved to towel her off, noticing her skin getting flushed as I moved slowly over her. When I chanced a look at her face, her eyes were heavy-lidded again. This woman could wear me the fuck out. I didn't even think that was possible. I also decided that this needed to be a form of foreplay at some point in the future. But not right then. Right then we needed to get dressed before we were invaded. "How are they feeling now?"

  "How are what feeling now?" she asked, voice doing that sexy far-away thing that it did when she got turned on.

  "You're killing me, woman. Look away or something. My stomach needs some fuel before my cock gets near you again."

  She laughed at that, moving to take the towel from me and stand. "Well, I guess I can feed you then," she declared, moving away from me and toward the bedroom. She slipped into jeans and a black tee, leaving her feet bare, and moved off toward the kitchen. "Oh, crap. Literally."

  "What?" I asked, walking back out, still shrugging into my shirt.

  "The damn chick. We forgot all about him and... well... he is not house trained. Ugh. Gross. You little shithead," she said in a crooning mama-bird voice, picking him up, and moving to hand him to me. "Go give that back to his mother while I clean up. Oh, and grab some spinach from the garden. I can make omelets. Oh, yeah and here, take this basket and get the eggs."

  "Well, I a-reckon I can fetch you some eggs for a-breakin'-the-fast, little lady."

  "Ha ha," she mocked my stupidity, but was genuinely smiling. "Get moving while I chop potatoes."

  So then I got moving, a chirping chick in the basket, happy as can be. It really was a nice place. Especially after a life of living in places like the shack she had been staying in for so long. The land was sprawling, making my two acres that, in my area, was practically an obnoxious amount of land, seem like an itty bitty backyard in a major city. The air was clean. There were no car sounds or neighbors.

  I could see why she found a little peace here.

  It was a place to breathe, to clear your head, to reevaluate.

  And that was exactly what I hoped she and her brothers would do that very morning. Because I knew I was right. I was so right, damnit. They didn't have to leave. In fact, amongst trolling the news for new robberies, I went ahead and researched all the old ones. She was right when she said they disguised themselves. Not one single report was the same. Sometimes there were redheads, brunettes. Sometimes there were blue eyes, green, gray. Sometimes she and her brothers were thin, buff, fat. Sometimes they spoke in fucking accents or other languages that no one else understood, which I figured for made up. They covered their tracks. A trained bloodhound wouldn't be able to sniff them out. There hadn't even been any suspicion about there being five of them.

  They could start again with their real names, get real jobs, make real lives. And, quite frankly, maybe the best place in the world for them to do that was Navesink Bank. It was so jam-packed with crime that the cops wouldn't even think to suspect them of anything. And even if they did, the right contacts in the NBPD and DA's office and they were guaranteed to get off scot-free.

  It was the ideal solution.

  And I wasn't just saying that because I wanted to take her ass back to my bed for a month straight, I wanted to see her in my kitchen cooking for me, tending a garden, calling me on my bullshit, meeting my family.

  I was saying it because it was the damn truth.

  They could make it work.

  Now it was just up to Scotti to convince them.

  I wondered how much of a fight her brothers would put up.

  TWELVE

  Scotti

  "Stop right there," Rush cut me off as I finally forced the words out of my mouth after they all came clamoring in right when I finished the eggs, the toast popping up as if to announce it was time to eat. They had all exchanged words with Mark and with me about Mark.

  But eventually, their stomachs shut them up and got them around the table where I laid out the idea that Mark had given me the night before. You know, before the amazing sex, then cuddling and sleep, the mind-blowing session in the tub.

  I had never had a man inside me without protection before. First, because, well, STDs. Second, not all birth control is fool-proof, and I did not want some fool's baby; I figured my chances were below zero using condoms and the Ring. Third, that just seemed like a level of intimacy meant to be saved for someone special.

  I had never had someone special before.

  Mark was special.

  What other man would track you down, argue with you, give you amazing orgasms, create alternate plans for you, and give you hope?

  "What?" I asked, feeling my stomach tightening, knowing I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up with them.

  "I said stop right there. I don't need to know anymore," Rush said, reaching for the orange juice. "I'm in. Navesink Bank was the shit."

&nb
sp; I was pretty sure I was hearing things. You know, like what I wanted to hear.

  "I mean that shack is not a fucking option," Atlas went on.

  "And we need to find some jobs. I mean we have the stash from the jobs we've been doing for a decade, but cut five ways, it won't last any of us long." That was Nixon.

  And I was pretty sure at this point that there was a gas leak in the cabin and I was hallucinating before I dropped dead.

  Wouldn't be a terrible way to go- my brothers all agreeing with me, Mark beside me, hand on my thigh, giving me a reassuring squeeze.

  Pretty nice.

  "Sounds like it's unanimous, kid," Kingston added, drawing my attention.

  "What?" I asked, feeling completely blindsided by their reaction.

  "Looks like after we crash here for a while, we can head back to Navesink Bank and see about settling down."

  "I mean, we'll need to look over our shoulders for a while, but maybe it will work," Nixon said.

  "I didn't want to go to fucking Russia anyway," Rush added. "It gets cold as fuck there."

  Completely thrown-off, I turned to Mark, my brows drawn together. "Are they all agreeing?"

  "This would be my 'told you so' moment, right?" he asked, smile going devilish. "I fucking told you so, babe."

  "You know," Nixon said, pointing a corner of toast at Mark, "maybe he's not so bad. I think he could fit in here."

  "And thanks to you fucks," Mark said, perfectly at-ease calling my brothers fucks already, "she is gonna have no problem dishing it out to my brothers."

  "The loansharks," Atlas said. If I wasn't mistaken, he did so with interest. I would have to have a talk with him later, alone. We were not trading one illegal business in for another. If we were going to do this, we were going straight. Case closed. I didn't care if that meant they had to pump gas or sling diner burgers for a living.

  "Enforcers. But we do a lot more business shit now than we do enforcing."

  And then there was about an hour spent discussing the various "business shit" the Mallick men were involved in. Some connections were made. Some ideas were punted around.

  All this happened while I cleared the table and washed dishes. Because, apparently, it was 'man-talk' time. I couldn't get a word in edgewise. And, quite frankly, I was too happy to see them all getting along with Mark to ruin it.

  So once I was done cleaning, I quietly exited out the back door and set to the garden. "I'm not talking to you, Nugget. That was a disgusting mess this morning. I am going to figure out how you keep escaping and then you are going to need to spend your time with your birdie mama."

  He clearly did not take heed of that as I spent the next hour weeding the kale and spinach patches with him clucking and dancing all around me.

  "I think he's yours now, baby," Mark said, making me jump, not used to being interrupted while I was weeding. Mainly because my brothers were afraid I would put them to work if they bothered me.

  "I don't know the first thing about chickens," I objected, looking over at the little fluffy idiot, pretending my heart didn't go all melty as he pecked at the bottom of my shoe.

  "Navesink Bank has a great library. I'm sure Reese can find a book about chicken-rearing or something."

  "I have nowhere to keep him," I said, hearing maybe a slight bit of sadness in my voice. What can I say? I had never had a pet. The idea was perhaps a bit more appealing than I ever realized before. I was learning a lot about myself now that my focus wasn't fully on robbing stores and avenging my mother. I seemed to want a lot of things I never imagined I would want before.

  "Couple pieces of wood and some chicken wire, honey, and you have a coop."

  "Yes, but I have nowhere to put said coop. At least not yet. If I left him, he would probably bond with his chicken friends and forget about me. It's not meant to be."

  There was a pause, one that was long enough to make me look up. "Alright," he said, shrugging. "King wanted me to come tell you that he has the, and I quote, 'plant shit' that you asked for."

  "Oh good," I said, looking around, trying to figure out which plant I wanted to take clippings from. When Mark just kept standing there, looking almost uncomfortable, I slowly stood. "Are you, ah, heading out?" I asked, trying to pretend that didn't make my belly wobble. Of course he would need to leave eventually. He left in a mad rush. He probably left a ton of work undone and the lights all on or something.

  "Left in a hurry. I don't think I even locked the fucking door," he said with a grin.

  "Oh, um, alright. Well... ah... I guess I'll see you..."

  "On the walk back to the house? Then inside the house while you pack a bag? Then again in my car on the drive back to Navesink Bank? Yes, I believe you will see me all during that. I mean, you can't seem to take your eyes off me."

  He wanted me to go back with him? Right then?

  Dumbly, all I could manage was an idiotic, "What?"

  "Don't worry, I already cleared it with your gatekeepers. They're cool with it so long as I make sure there is no law breathing down your neck. They said they were gonna hang here and sort some shit out, do some research, look for places to stay."

  "But I need to do all that too and..."

  "And I have this nifty little thing called a wireless router at my house. You can sit your pretty ass in my bed, preferably naked, and search until your heart is content. Taking only short breaks to eat and let me fuck you silly."

  A big, goofy, ridiculous smile pulled at my lips for a minute, making his eyes warm all the more, before I worked my mouth into a straight line, going for pretend-serious. "Well, I suppose that could work."

  "Good, then hop to," he demanded, slapping me hard enough on the ass to send me forward a foot.

  "Ow," I grumbled, small-eyeing him over my shoulder as I started to walk away.

  "You loved it," he shot back with a devilish grin.

  And, damn it, I did.

  I totally did.

  "Alright," I said with a huff as I dropped down into the passenger seat of his truck an hour later. I had just had to have a talk with my brothers about weeding the garden and feeding the chickens and letting them roam, but only until dusk. You'd swear I was trying to explain quantum mechanics to them they looked so wide-eyed.

  Poor Kingston would be the one saddled with the job in my absence.

  But, I reminded myself before the guilt could take a foothold, that was only until they all found their own places and ways in life. He would be free to do as he pleased soon enough.

  I just really, really wanted the long weekend with Mark.

  And King, the saint of a man he was, was not going to get in the way of that.

  So my stuff was stashed in the back, and we were ready to go.

  "Wait what is that..." I started to ask at a strange scratching noise in the small backseat.

  "Nugget was having separation anxiety," Mark explained, casual as could be, as he reached behind him to get the small cardboard box and hand it to me. "He told me that since I'm a big, buff, sexy owner of a contracting business, I could sure as shit build him a coop."

  I smiled at that, charmed more than I knew was possible. "And I'm sure those were his exact words."

  "Absolutely," Mark agreed, backing out of the driveway. "He was very adamant about the 'big, buff, sexy' part. Kinda weird, but hey, to each his own. The chicks have always liked me," he added with a wink as we started on slowly down the back road.

  The drive back to Navesink Bank took the better part of nine hours, and by the time we pulled up, we were both sore, hungry, cranky, and tired.

  Mark handed me a take-away menu for some place called Famiglia, then took Nugget upstairs to give him a temporary home in the bathtub with some of the feed he was smart enough to steal from the cabin.

  We ate, climbed into bed, and, too tired to even think of sex, fell into an exhausted sleep cuddled together like it was something we had been doing for ages instead of just a couple days.

  I wasn't sure what actually wo
ke me the following morning.

  All I knew was one minute I was blissfully unconscious. The next, I was shooting up in bed, fully awake, finding myself alone.

  As if answering my unasked question, Mark walked in wearing only a pair of black and white plaid pajama pants slung indecently low on his hips, and holding a cup of steaming coffee.

  "We're being invaded," he informed me, making my heart shoot up into my throat.

  "What!" I shrieked, immediately assuming he meant by the cops, though why he was so damn calm about it was completely beyond me.

  "Not the cops," he said, reading the situation immediately as he moved to sit down beside my legs, putting the coffee on the nightstand. "My family," he clarified, not really succeeding in calming me down one bit. His family? Meaning... his whole family? He gave me a sheepish look, likely picking up on my dread. I didn't even pack anything 'meet the familyish' at all. "My dumb ass answered the phone this morning and mentioned to Eli that you were here. And, as it always seems to happen with my family, it went from there to another of the brothers who now all have women. Then it goes from the women to my parents. And, long story short, we are being invaded. Yes, by all of them. And... right now."

  As if to prove his point, there was a knocking one floor below us and, if you listened closely, the distinct sound of a rather large group of people.

  "Ah, nope," I said, shaking my head a little frantically, knowing I looked like a crazy person with my huge eyes and bed-hair, and not particularly caring. "No. I can't do that today. Tell them I left. That I got sick of you already," I added, not smiling when he did because it wasn't funny to me. "Please," I asked, shoulders slumping down.

  "Never did a meet-the-family thing huh?" he asked, reaching down to stroke a hand down my bare thigh, bare because I slept in only his tee and my panties. "I know it seems like it is, but it's not a big deal. They are all kind of loud and crazy, but they're chill as fuck. They aren't going to grill you or anything like that."

  "Mark, you and I are barely..."

  "You let me fuck you with nothing between us. For me, that isn't 'barely' anything, and I'm pretty sure it isn't 'barely' to you either. So take your cup of coffee, drink it up, take a shower, get yourself together. When you're done and ready, bring your pretty ass down and meet my crazy ass family, okay?"