Damage Control

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “It won’t show up on drug tests,” Nick says as if that actually makes this any better. “And I have a man on scene who I’m heading to meet now, though I doubt we’ll know much tonight.”

  “I’m headed to Brody’s wife place,” Seth adds. “She’s going to be shaken and I’d prefer she take comfort from me, than the press or the police.”

  In other words, her silence is all that matters, not her loss, not the murder of her husband. “Murder” is the word that replays in my mind and I face them both. “I want Emily here, by my side, where I know her brother can’t somehow throw out a web and catch her, which I believe will give her the same ending as Brody. But I need to know if she’s safe here. Can you protect her?”

  “We can and will,” Seth assures me, his suit jacket now covered in white flakes. “And I agree. She needs to stay here, under our net, and with the people I trust to protect her. I trust me, and our people, to know if anything shifts with her brother, or the Geminis, that puts her in danger.”

  “We also have several safe houses we can move her to if necessary,” Nick adds, “but I do have to urge you to approve the raids. She’s not on Adrian’s radar right now, but that could change.”

  “Hire Ted,” I say. “I’ll have my CPA handle the money transfer.” I shift my attention between both men. “But I’m not sitting back and risking this failing. I’m going to go to Adrian right after the raid happens and convince him he has to get out.”

  “You do not want to open the door to that relationship,” Nick warns. “It will seal your fate with him.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “It will because I am in control of my destiny, not him. And I am going to ensure he sees the writing on the wall, which is me saving him from the jail cell my brother will ensure he ends up inside. I set that stage with him this morning.”

  Seth jumps on the warning bandwagon. “This is dangerous territory,” he says, and I don’t miss the edge to his voice that he rarely allows to surface. “The kind you hire me to tread for you.”

  “And you do so exceptionally well,” I tell him, true respect for him beneath those words. “But some things need to come from me. How soon can the raids happen?”

  Both of them look like they want to argue, the fall of snowflakes now as heavy as the seconds that tick by, before Seth replies. “We need a few days, logistically. I need to get Brody’s wife out of town, which means after the funeral and the processing of her money, which we need to do now, not later.”

  The poor fucking woman can’t even grieve for a man who shared part of her life without us shoving her into a hole. “I’ll expedite it in the morning.”

  A black sedan pulls up in front of us. “My car,” Nick says. “I’ll drive you both wherever you want to go.”

  “I’ll walk,” I say.

  “It’s snowing, man,” Seth argues, but I’m already moving, putting space between me and them, but not enough between me and my brother to suit me. I start for the apartment, where Emily calls to me, where she would be my escape, when I rarely need one. But I’m not so sure she isn’t the one who needs an escape, and not from her brother or the Geminis. I turn the corner, leaving the men who are supposed to be a layer between me and pretty much everything behind. I intend to walk off this clawing guilt that Brody’s death stirs in me but I make it a block, and my jacket is sticking to me thanks to the damp snow, my mind on Emily, who I suddenly justneed to know is in our apartment, safe and warm, when I am fucking cold to the bone.

  I cover the next few blocks quickly, cutting through the garage to avoid attention, and then I am on our floor, and then our door, in a matter of minutes. Opening the door, I see the apartment is dark. The idea that Emily might have gone out and somehow is now in danger is not a feeling I ever thought to feel or want to feel again. I start for the stairs, perhaps never before in my life needing to know another human being is safe in the way I do with Emily now.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHANE

  I cross the foyer, traveling the stairs two at a time, to reach the bedroom door, darkness beyond. Pausing in the doorway, relief washes over me hard and fast, with the instant awareness of Emily in the room, not by sight, but a feeling. That is how much I am in tune with this woman, how much I feel her, like I have never felt another human being in my life. There has only been family, and they have always been a mix of love and hate that was impossible to reconcile. That made me leave and put distance between us. Love from afar was somehow easier and better. But with Emily, I don’t want her from afar at all. I don’t want to lose her and for reasons I can’t explain, tonight I feel like I will. Like it’s destiny, bound to happen.

  “Shane.”

  The sound of her soft feminine voice cuts through the empty space between us, and I swear, I can finally breathe when I wasn’t a moment ago.

  I don’t immediately speak, my eyes adjusting to the room, shadows replacing darkness, allowing me to trace the outline of her silhouette where she sits in bed, allowing me to see her more clearly, when tonight, I’m questioning if I ever want her to see me the same way.

  “Shane?” she asks again, but I know she knows it’s me. I know that she feels me just as I do her.

  “I’m here,” I say, and there is a rough quality to my voice that I know speaks of things I do not want to exist, but I don’t seem to be able to escape tonight.

  “Why are you just standing there?” she asks, throwing the blankets off.

  Hearing the confusion in her voice, I close the space between us, reaching her as she twists around to face me on her side of the bed. Some small slip of gown I can barely make out is all that covers her. I don’t immediately reach for her, or her for me, and I was right about what I sensed in her. She is uncertain. But still I stand over her, and she seems to hold her breath, or maybe I hold mine, waiting for what comes next. For me, those seconds are about controlling that edge that is inside me. For her, I suspect it’s trying to understand what is happening with me, and us. What it is between us, yet isn’t about us. But guilt won’t stop clawing at me, and she is the only answer I know to silence it.

  I lean over her, my hand on her waist, my body pressing her into the mattress, my forehead finding hers. “My God, Shane. You’re soaking wet.”

  There’s concern in her voice, and it hits me that I don’t know what it’s like to have someone care about anything I do. It feels remarkably good, something I oddly did not think I needed, until it was her who cared. Her offering it. Giving it freely. “It’s snowing,” I say. “I walked home in the snow.”

  “You have to be freezing,” she says, her soft palm warm on my face. “You are freezing. Why did you walk?”

  “It’s a long story, but I was meeting someone about a corporate sponsorship a few miles from here and—”

  “Brody Matthews,” she says. “I heard you talk about him.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I waited a long time for him but he didn’t show up.”

  “That’s crazy. Why would he do that?”

  “He was in a car accident.”

  “Oh God. Oh no. Is he okay?”

  “No. He’s not.” The next words are lead on my tongue. “He’s dead.”

  She gasps. “Oh my God.” Her hand flattens on my chest, gently pushing me back as she tries to see my face through the darkness. “I’m beyond words. When. How?”

  “Beyond words is good,” I say, my palm sliding under her backside, finding her warm skin beneath her silk gown. “Because talking isn’t what I have on my mind.” My free hand frames her face and my mouth slants over hers; the rise of something dark and hungry inside me, dark and out of control, is hard and fast, a fire burning through me. That same something I didn’t want to feel, nor do I want her to taste. I tear my mouth from hers, and the sound of her panting breath is soft, and sexy, and my cock thickens, stretching my zipper.

  “I’m making you wet in all the wrong ways,” I say. “I need to go shower.” I try to move, and she grabs my jacket.

  “
Don’t go.”

  “I need to go shower,” I repeat, but what I need is to get my fucking control back or to be inside her, which won’t go hand in hand right now.

  She hesitates, holding on to me, as if she will refuse to let me go, but her fingers slowly slip away. I waste no time pushing away from her, putting space between us, and crossing to the bathroom. I flip on the light, shutting the door behind me, but I do not look in the mirror. I walk to the shower and turn on the water, then strip off my shoes and clothes before pressing my hands on the glass. I came here to save my family, but I haven’t saved them, and I damn sure didn’t save Brody. I played my brother’s games. I tried to save him when he is the one who doesn’t deserve to be saved. And because of that, I haven’t done enough, and others could die that might have lived.

  A tight knot forms in my gut and I walk to the mirror and I don’t know what happens. I take one look at myself, an emotion I cannot name explodes inside me, and I punch my reflection, glass splintering, but not shattering, and a line forming across my image.

  “Shane!”

  “Fuck,” I breathe out with the realization Emily has entered the room, that I’ve done this, and she has seen a side of me I barely recognize as who I am. I grab the sink, pain splintering through my hand, stickiness clinging to my skin. “I need you to get out until I get—”

  It’s too late. She’s already by my side, and the minute her hand comes down on my back, I have even less control than a moment before. I need her. To touch her. To taste her. To be inside her, and I grab her, pulling her in front of me, not giving her or me a chance to change our minds. My fingers tangle roughly in her hair, while my free hand cups her backside, and then the next moment, my mouth is on hers, my tongue licking into her mouth, and this time, I don’t hold back. I let her taste everything that was on my lips in the bedroom, and more. I let her taste my hunger. I let her taste the betrayal I feel from my brother, father, maybe even my fucking mother. I let her taste what I only realize now, in this moment: that Brody’s death was preventable, whereas my father’s is not. I can’t save either of them, and I have given up on saving my brother. They are lost, but she is here and I will not lose her. I will not let anyone hurt her.

  She moans into my mouth, and the sound is fire in my veins, my cock thickening where it now rests at her hip. Wanting, needing, skin against skin, I reach down, and grab the top of the silk gown she is wearing, yanking it, the material ripping down the front. She gasps, and my gaze rakes over her high, full breasts, her rosy pebbled nipples. And then I am kissing her again, my hand on her breast, fingers tugging at her nipple, nothing gentle in my kiss or my touch. There is just this deep need that has only one answer and that is her, and she is right there with me, as if she is as desperate for some unknown answer that we can only find with the unobtainable pleasure. Touching me, pressing against me, cupping my hand over her breasts.

  I lift her to the sink, spreading her legs and yanking away her panties. She grips my shoulders while I grip my cock, sliding it along the slick seam of her body. She pants, holding onto my shoulders. “Shane.” My name is a plea, and I need no further encouragement. I press inside her, cupping her backside and lifting her to pull her fully down my shaft, the fullness of her breasts pressing against my chest. I thrust, pulling her down against me, and the pulse of pleasure that follows leaves room for nothing else but Emily, and that is exactly what I need.

  “I have you,” I say, sliding my arms to her back. “Lean back.”

  She doesn’t hesitate to trust me, immediately letting her weight fall against my hands, the angle driving my cock deeper into her, and giving me a view of her gorgeous breasts bouncing with every thrust. And I do thrust. Harder. Faster. She pants, arching her back and letting her head fall back between her shoulders, her body stiffening a moment before her sex clenches around my shaft. Holy fuck, it’s good. So fucking good, and I grind her against me, pumping as I do, and then I am right there with her, my body shaking, my release coming with a deep ache that is there and gone too soon.

  She edges forward and sinks against my chest, and my legs are suddenly exhausted. I walk to the sink, now several feet away, and sit her on the top. In no hurry to pull out of her, I linger there, our foreheads pressed together, our breathing in unison, that edge I’d been fighting sliding away. It’s because of her, and I have no explainable reason for that, except that she is the light in the darkness that is everything about the name Brandon I’ve tried to reject.

  I cup her cheek. “Not exactly the way to make love to your woman.”

  She inches back to look at me. “Make love? You’ve never said that before.”

  “Right after I fucked you like there’s no tomorrow isn’t the right time to start,” I say, pretty sure I’ve just confessed something to both of us that I’m not ready to say. Not with my fucked-up family in control.

  “Fucking like there’s no tomorrow was pretty great.”

  Maybe she knows I want off the hook. Or maybe she just hits all the right buttons for me, because it’s the right answer for here and now. I reach up and stroke her cheek, and I grimace with the throb in my knuckle. She must notice, grabbing my hand to inspect it.

  “It’s bad, Shane,” she says, inspecting the swollen knuckle that has at least stopped bleeding. “Did you break it?”

  I flex my hand. “I can move it. It’s not broken.” I glance up and behind her. “The mirror didn’t fare so well though.” Disliking that I was capable of so little control, I grab a towel off the sink and pull out of her, pressing it between her legs. “I need to turn off the shower.” I turn away from her, doing as I’ve indicated, before snagging another towel, which I wrap around my waist. Her gown is ripped and dangling from her body, her knees pulled to her chest. The sight of blood on her leg sends me across the room again to inspect it, only to find it’s my blood on her. Not hers.

  “I’m okay,” she says, obviously reading my concern. “Are you?”

  “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

  “That’s not an answer,” she says, but rather than pushing for more, she makes a case for why I should offer it freely by adding, “And if I’m going to live with you, you can’t hide a part of yourself.”

  “That’s not a part of me. That is not something I do.”

  “I know that,” she says. “You have to trust me enough to know that. You have to trust me enough to talk to me, Shane. To believe I can see whatever is there, no matter how difficult, and that I can handle it.”

  “I don’t want you to handle it,” I say. “And you can argue all you want but you’re my woman, and I have a right to protect you.”

  “Your woman.”

  “Yes. My woman. And if you don’t like that title, I think it’s pretty important we talk about that right now.” My cell phone rings. “I have to take that and you need to think about your answer.” I push off the counter and grab my jacket, removing my cell phone and glancing at the caller ID that registers Seth. I punch the answer button and walk into the bedroom, crossing to the closet. “What’s the update?” I ask, flipping on the light and opening a drawer.

  “Everyone is at the accident scene, including my person of interest.” He means the wife, going on to add, “Nick has eyes on everything but there’s not much to tell. I’m going to head that way, and if you don’t hear from me again tonight, nothing has changed and all is well on all counts.”

  Again, he means the wife. “Understood.” We end the call and I stick my phone in the pocket of my pajama pants, entering the bedroom to find Emily standing just outside the closet, a short lavender robe covering her slender curves.

  I close the small space between us, my hands settling on her waist. “You look stunning in that color. I can’t even imagine you blond.”

  “Shane.” Her hand flattens on my chest. “About the clothes—”

  “Don’t tell me I can’t buy you clothes. I want to take care of you. Don’t tell me I can’t do that for you, the woman who is the
one good and right thing in my life.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes,” I say, backing her toward the bed. “You make me remember I need to be good and right in my choices.”

  “Do you ever question doing what is good and right?”

  “There have been times when I felt like my hand was forced.”

  “When you were a lawyer?”

  “No,” I say. “I manipulated the law, as does every attorney, but I never broke it. I’m talking about when I’m with my family.”

  “Did you go where they lead?”

  “Not so far.”

  “That sounds like you might.”

  “I don’t want to be them.”

  “You aren’t them. You don’t have to be them.”

  “I know that,” I say. “But you just keep telling me so I don’t forget.” Her legs hit the bed frame and she grips my arms.

  I lean into a kiss and she pulls back, her hand pressing on my chest. “Wait. Now it’s my turn to say talk to me. Are you okay?”

  “Death happened. The one thing I can’t control. It’s not the night to push me to stop protecting you. Not tonight. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. We can.”

  “We,” I repeat, “and that word sounds as good on my tongue as I know you’re going to taste. I’m going to make love to you properly. The way I plan to many times in our future.” I reach down and untie her robe, letting it fall open; my fingers slide underneath just far enough to tease her nipples. They pucker beneath my touch, and her lashes flutter, settling on her cheeks. “But when it’s over, I’m going to fuck you hard and fast again.”

  I tug gently on her nipples and she bites her lips. “Look at me,” I order gently.

  She opens her eyes, and there is desire in their depths, but there are shadows there too. I do not think she intends for me to see doubt or uncertainty that wasn’t there before. That I do not like or wish to know ever again. I want it gone. Now. Tomorrow. Forever. I reach up and rip the silk tie from her robe, wrapping it around my hand, before I reach up and caress the robe off her shoulder, letting it tumble to the ground.