Chapter 9

 

 

IAN MADE spaghetti with meat sauce, and as Eli looked at it, he realized the same thing I did the first time I ate it: “sauce” was a loose term, and it had a kick to it.

“Isn’t this supposed to pour?” Eli asked as he stood next to the soup pot with a ladle of sauce in his hand that would not come out of the spoon onto his plate.

“You have to really kinda fling it,” Ian suggested, taking a gulp of his beer from one of the frosted glasses I’d started keeping in the freezer.

“It’s more like a stew than a sauce,” I acknowledged. “But it’s really good. You just tasted it. You know it’s great.”

“Yeah, but sauce can be ladled.”

He had a point. It was probably the sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, and capers Ian put into sauce already thick with ground beef that rendered it unpourable.

“You shouldn’t need a knife with spaghetti.”

Ian glowered at us. “You guys need to get off my ass on the whole cooking thing because I didn’t hear either of you volunteering.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” I said sincerely because, really, it was very thoughtful and a gorgeous meal, complete with a tossed salad with the grape tomatoes I liked, crusty garlic bread, and wine for me and Eli. “Thank you, baby.”

I leaned sideways, bumping him with my shoulder, and kissed him. I meant it to be a quick peck, but he bit down on my bottom lip, holding me there. When he let go, he slid his tongue over the bite and then went back to eating. My whole body thrummed as I stared at him, unable to look away as arousal buzzed through me.

“You know, Mrs. Svoboda says that your name is wrong,” Ian said, making conversation even as he slipped his hand around my thigh under the table.

“My what now?” I asked, squirming a bit, feeling my cock thicken in my dress pants.

“Your name,” he said with a grin that should have been illegal. It was seductive, like a cool pond on a hot summer day. “She’s originally from the Czech Republic. She used to live just outside of Prague, and she says that the shortened version of Miroslav is not Miro, but Mirek.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Eli said, clearly enjoying his food by the way he was shoveling it in. “I should start calling him that.”

“Or not,” I said, willing him to eat even faster, shifting in my seat at the table, needing to relieve the pressure.

“I think Mirek sounds badass.”

“I need more wine,” I said, getting up and walking to the pantry and the rack full of bottles inside it.

“You want a whole other bottle?” Ian called.

I stood in the pantry, hands flat on the wall, trying to calm down. It was the day, I knew it was. I’d been scared of losing him, and having everything as it should be, plus his closeness, was doing insane things to my libido. I needed Eli gone because I wanted Ian all over me.

“Wait, what?” Ian said suddenly from the doorway to the pantry, clearly talking to Eli and not me.

“I’ll be right back. I’m just looking for the bottle I want,” I lied, trying to will my erection back down. There was no way Eli would miss it, and then he’d feel like he had to leave, and that wasn’t what I wanted.

Well. I did want that, but not because he’d be embarrassed or feel like he was a third wheel or something. That wasn’t my intent. It was all Ian’s fault.

“What’re you doing?” Ian asked, leaning into the pantry and looking at me.

I put my cheek on the cold plaster wall, staring at him, at his broad shoulders and wide chest, noting his long muscular legs and the veins in his arms. He was simply mouthwatering, and I was aching for him. “Go away. Talk to Eli.”

He scowled but then saw me adjust myself, and the wicked grin made his eyes gleam with the same dangerous intent.

“Get out,” I ordered.

“You hard?”

I ignored him, pressing my forehead to the chilled surface. I felt like I had a fever.

His chuckle was simply decadent.

Turning my head, I growled at him. “I hate you right now.” He took a step toward me. “Okay, I’m outta here.”

“No,” Ian ordered, turning to walk back out to the table.

Moving slowly, I made it to the doorway and then bent over the counter so my cock—trying to escape through my zipper—was hidden. Ian stood beside the refrigerator, arms crossed, leaning against it as he talked to Eli.

“You don’t have sex with strangers anymore. You’re thirty-two years old, man, that’s ridiculous. You need to be dating, not fuckin’ around.”

“You sound like my mother,” Eli griped.

“For fuck’s sake, Eli, you don’t even know this girl.”

“That’s the point. I will get to know her in the biblical sense.”

Ian shook his head.

“Listen, just because you can get laid at home doesn’t mean the rest of us can,” Eli protested, then gulped his wine.

“Having sex with women you meet on an app on your phone is not safe.”

“Everybody uses it,” he explained, standing up, cupping his hand over his face and doing the breath test. “Awww man, how much garlic is on that bread?”

“It’s called garlic bread, you ass, and there’s some in the spaghetti too.”

“Tell me you have toothbrushes for overnight guests.”

“In that bathroom right there,” Ian said, shaking his head.

“Don’t judge me. Did you actually look at the girl?” Eli asked, walking toward the bathroom, pausing to pet Chickie, who was passed out on the couch. “I know you can appreciate a beautiful woman.”

“Yeah, she’s hot, but c’mon, Eli, you’re not gonna date her.”

As I listened to them, I could feel my body start to cool down. It was the banter, the normalcy of them that did it.

“No, man, I’m gonna fuck her,” Eli clarified. “I need to get laid.”

“You should start being more serious about who you’re dating.”

“Have you lost your— Where are the tooth—”

“On the left-hand side,” Ian directed, levering off the refrigerator and walking over to me.

I really needed him to stay on the other side of the room. He was too much of a temptation, and I was like dry brush at the moment. The tiniest spark and I would combust. “Ian, I—”

He grabbed me roughly, twisted my right arm behind my back, took firm hold of my left shoulder, and shoved me back inside the pantry.

He pinned me face-first to the wall and held my head there, my cheek ground into the smooth, cool plaster as he used his left hand to get into my pants.

“What’re you—doing?” I gasped, jolting against him, pressing my ass back into him. “Eli’s still in the… the… the place where we are now.”

He rumbled in my ear, biting the lobe, breathing down the side of my neck as he worked my belt open, the button of my dress pants and then the zipper. His hand brushed over my hip before he wrapped it around my length and tugged.

I moaned his name.

His chuckle was sinister as he let go of my head, only to wrap that hand around my throat and tip my head so it fell back on his shoulder.

“Ian, I will have a debate about fucking versus dating with you tomorrow,” Eli cackled as he moved through the house, away from the kitchen. “In the meantime, I’ll call you later and let you know I’m not dead.”

“Good,” Ian yelled back.

“See ya later, Mirek,” Eli continued, and then I heard the door open and slam shut. Clearly he was in a hurry.

“The hell are you thinking?” I shuddered, reaching for him behind me.

“Stop moving,” he ordered, passing me a bottle of lube. “Hold this.”

“Where was this?”

“Under the sink,” he told me, shoving my pants to my knees.

“You’re always prepared,” I teased.

“I was an Army Ranger, and I’m a deputy US marshal,” he reminded me, bumping me as he got into his jeans, pushing them to his thighs before snatching the lube out of my hand and opening it with a click. “I’m ready for anything.”

“Ian,” I mewled, “please.”

He slid his slick fingers between my cheeks and then inside of me, ruthlessly, relentlessly, without pause, nothing slow or tentative about him at all.

“Ian!”

He was withdrawing, leaving me shivering and empty, but then I felt the head of his cock at my entrance. With the same inexorable push forward, he pressed inside me.

“Jesus Christ, Miro—every fuckin’ time, this feels amazing.”

The stretch, the way he opened me up, it hurt because there had been no prep, but he was stroking my cock, tugging, touching me roughly, fast and dirty like we were in a back alley, not our home, my skin catching on the hard calluses, making me buck into his fist, wanting more even as I ground back on his cock, driving him deeper.

“Fuck,” he growled, thrusting fast, the angle off because he had to pump up into me. He pulled out only to haul me to the floor, to my hands and knees.

One hand on the small of my back, he guided his cock back into my hole with the other and picked up his rhythm quickly, in and out, the brutal pace bringing me close to orgasm even without his hand on my dick.

“This is the second-best part of bein’ married,” he groaned loudly, decadently, pounding into me with abandon, holding on to my hips, using me just the way I wanted.

“And the best?” I managed to get out before my back bowed and I yelled his name, my orgasm rushing over me, drenching me in heat as my muscles clamped down around the length of him, holding tight.

He stayed still for only a moment.

“God, your ass,” he roared, hands on my shoulders, jerking me back into him as he rammed forward, shoving in deep and hard, leaving me no time to breathe between strokes.

It was an endless loop of pleasure so sharp, radiating through me, that I was left shuddering with the feel of him lodged inside.

I choked on his name, letting my head drop as he found his release, filling my ass with his thick, hot spill, collapsing on top of me, looping his arms under mine and around my shoulders so we were plastered together, his body molded to mine, chest to back.

We panted together, slick with sweat, and I closed my eyes, letting myself feel his skin on mine, bask in the moment, loving his weight draped over me.

Neither of us moved.

“You have my cum dripping out of your ass, even though my dick is there too.”

I grunted, smugly happy that my body pleased him.

“And just so you’re clear, your ass is amazing, tight and round and just fuckin’ edible, but the best part of bein’ married is that you love me, so you don’t do this with anybody else, and I trust that like I never thought I would or could.”

I took a breath so I wouldn’t do something stupid to ruin the moment. Like cry.

“You’re my husband, and I didn’t think that would ever be something I would want, and now it’s the only thing I do.”

I nodded, and he laughed softly against my back.

“All that goes ditto for you, huh, tough guy?”

“Hold me tighter, ’kay?”

And so he did.

 

 

WE FINALLY got up, wiped ourselves down, nuked the spaghetti because it had gotten cold, ate some more, showered, took Chickie for his nightly walk, and then came home and lay on the couch, tangled together.

“I wanna hear,” I yawned, “all about your day.”

“And I wanna hear about yours.”

“You go first,” I insisted because I could imagine him being all bossy, and it sounded pretty hot.

“Why don’t you just put your head down while I watch a little TV and let my brain rest.”

“But I’m really interested in you.”

“I know, and I’m happy you are, but right this second, I kinda just want to… be.”

“Oh,” I sighed. “Well, that sounds pretty good too.”

“I thought it would,” he said, brushing my hair back and kissing my forehead as I snuggled up against his shoulder.

The knock on the door was a surprise.

“Who’re you expecting?” Ian asked as Chickie got up from where he was curled at Ian’s feet and padded over to the front door.

We both watched as he stood there, head cocked, listening, tail wagging slowly like an afterthought. Whoever was out there, he knew.

“Shit,” Ian grumbled because that was worse. A stranger he could turn away. Extracting himself from me, he got up and walked to the front door and looked out the peephole. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Hurling the door open, he stepped sideways so Cabot and Drake, Josue and another kid could walk through the door.

I scrambled to my feet the second I saw that Cabot had a bloody nose and lip. Drake looked worse and Josue only a bit better. I was pretty sure I knew who the fourth kid was, but I’d wait a second to see.

“The hell happened to you guys?” I yelled as they all bolted across the floor to reach me.

It was a wall of sound, all of them talking at once, over each other, and of course I couldn’t understand a word beyond “party” and “drugs” and “the DEA.”

Of course it was the fuckin’ DEA.

“Who’re you,” Ian asked to the new kid, “and why’re you in my house?”

He too had gotten hit in the face. The pale skin was marred by red splotches that would become very colorful bruises, I knew from experience. He was pretty with his black hair and dark blue eyes, and I understood why Josue, who was stunning himself, had looked twice at him.

“I’m Marcello McKenna.”

“Who?” Ian was confused.

“Josue’s boyfriend,” I explained.

“Okay,” Ian said, squinting at Josue. “So what happened?”

“They tried to grab him,” Josue wailed, face crumpling, eyes overflowing with tears he’d barely held in check, shivering with cold, I was sure, and fright.

Marcello put his arm around Josue and drew him close before wrapping him up tight and notching his head under his chin. They were very cute together, and when I looked at Ian, I found him glaring.

“What?”

“Don’t go all warm and gooey over there. This kid could be a criminal that your kid is mixed up with.”

“No, we vetted him when he and Josue first started dating, don’t you remember?”

“Clearly not,” Ian said, sounding very bored.

“You checked him out?” Josue asked.

“Of course. We had to.”

“I told you they would,” Drake chimed in. “The only reason Cabot and I didn’t have to be checked out was that we came in together.”

“That’s right,” I informed Josue. “Anyone personally involved with you gets run through our system.”

“And nothing bad came back on me, right?” Marcello asked.

“Nothing that sent up any red flags, but there must be something or the DEA wouldn’t have you in their system.”

“It was a long time ago,” Marcello confessed with a sigh. “I used to run packages for Tadgh Murphy back in the day, but seriously, it’s been years. I don’t know how this guy even knew about me. And old man Murphy knows I’ve been out since his son died.”

“You were only a runner, not a dealer?” Ian barked.

“No, never, I swear to God.”

Ian nodded and looked over at Drake. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well, we were at a party Marcello was having, and then this guy came in to buy drugs, and Marcello says he was never a dealer and basically said everything he just told you, but then Cabot looked at the guy and says he knows him, and I was all ‘Where do you know him from?’ and then,” Drake said as he looked at Ian, “Cabot says that he’s your brother.”

Both Ian and I turned to Cabot, who was standing there, bleeding from his lip.

“It’s your turn,” Ian prodded.

“Well, last Thanksgiving when we were here, your stepmother, she showed me a picture of your stepbrother on her phone, and I was surprised because he kinda looks like you.”

I myself had never seen any similarity between Ian and Lorcan Doyle. Ian was all chiseled perfection with his sharp-angled bone structure, while Lorcan was softer, blunt-featured, without any of Ian’s innate beauty.

“So when I saw him tonight, I said to Josue, I think that’s Ian’s brother,” Cabot said.

“And was it?” I asked.

Cabot nodded. “When I interrupted and said that I knew him, he kinda freaked out.”

“No, no, no, that was not kinda,” Drake assured him. “He attacked you.”

Cabot nodded, leaning into Drake, clunking his head on his chest. “Thank you for saving me, as usual.”

“Always.” Drake smiled, even with his own split lip.

Ian groaned. “So then what happened?”

“Then all hell broke loose, and suddenly there were DEA agents everywhere and… it was a mess,” Cabot said shakily.

“How did you guys get outta there?”

“I dunno,” Drake answered, looking at me like maybe he needed a hug too.

“Okay, everybody into the kitchen so we can wash faces and make sure nothing’s broken.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say—they were all over twenty-one, men, not boys—but they still moved fast, even Marcello.

When I tried to go after them, Ian grabbed hold of my bicep and turned me to face him, hands on my sides, possessive but gentle in a way that spoke volumes. No one had ever held me the way Ian did, like I was precious and his at the same time. It was a rush that he did it instinctively because I belonged to him. “You clean ’em up. I’m calling the office to make sure we already know everything we need to know about McKenna,” Ian grumbled, clearly not pleased at having his relaxing evening broken up.

“I know that we totally vetted him when they started dating. We just never see him, which is why neither of us can remember what the hell he looks like.”

“Well, I’ll remember now that he’s in trouble,” Ian finished, still holding on to me.

“Ian?”

He was thinking, and his gaze met mine.

“I gotta check on the boys.”

His grunt was cute as I leaned in to kiss him, and took a nibble of his bottom lip. His soft moan made me smile against his mouth.

“I just wanted you to fall asleep next to me.”

The simple things that made him happy were a revelation to me. “Still doable,” I promised. “Lemme check on the boys.”

They were all banged up—apparently the DEA guys got rough in the thick of things when more people than just the four guys in my kitchen tried to get away—but nothing was broken. Once I had cuts closed with the wide array of bandages under our bathroom sink, Drake was just standing there, and I eased him close and hugged him. He had been big when he was just eighteen and had added muscle over the years. Now when he hugged me, we were close to the same size, and to have his weight, to feel him lean, was nice. It showed trust, and as I glanced over at Ian and saw him shake his head and roll his eyes, I understood that he got it. Whether he wanted to call it what it was or not, we were foster parents, and we had three boys—maybe four now—who looked to us for guidance, safety, and love.

Ian nuked the spaghetti again, and even though Josue and Marcello were concerned about the sauce—“Is it supposed to stick to the spoon like that?” Josue asked—they all started scarfing it down along with more garlic bread, faster than I had ever seen people eat in my life. No one was interested in salad.

Chickie let out a loud booming bark while the boys were having chocolate mousse I had bought a few days before and forgotten about. The pounding on the door a second later was not a surprise.

Ian went to the door, ID in hand, opened it, and yelled in that thunderous way he had. I looked out the front window. Interesting. A SWAT team was parked on our street, and regular CPD officers and DEA agents lined our sidewalk. The best part, though, was the guy standing on my tiny postage stamp of a porch at the top of the stoop, and I moved up behind Ian so I could smile at him.

“Agent Stafford,” I greeted cheerfully. “How long’s it been?”

His head did a slow tip sideways as he lowered his gun, straightened up, and holstered it.

Ian’s grin was downright evil. “You know you never do well when you cross the marshals’ office, Agent Stafford. Look what happened the last time.”

Two years ago we had taken a witness right out from under him because protocol was not the DEA’s best friend. We had a system we followed each and every time. And maybe other districts didn’t work like ours, but because we worked for Sam Kage, by the book was the way we did things.

“We want Marcello McKenna,” he announced, but there was not a lot of bite to his words. SWAT was already loading back up, and the uniformed CPD officers were walking back to the street. “Where the hell are you going?” he yelled at the retreating lawmen.

“Federal marshals, Corb,” one of Stafford’s team members said, gesturing at Ian. “The fuck are we gonna do?”

“Why do you want McKenna?” Ian asked, standing casually in the doorway like it hadn’t been a big deal moments ago. He casually passed me his ID.

“We have a CI that says that McKenna is a dealer for the Murphy crime family, and of course we’re looking for him to make a deal.”

“Marcello McKenna is involved with a witness of ours, and as such has been fully vetted,” Ian told him. I knew that was the truth because he’d been on the phone with whoever was riding the desk at the moment, and they confirmed everything we thought we knew. A stint as a runner for Tadgh Murphy when he was still a juvenile would not, and could not, be held against Marcello now. “He is not a drug dealer. Your intel is faulty.”

He stared holes through Ian. “Your own brother gave him up, Doyle.”

“Stepbrother,” Ian made clear, crossing his arms, in his battle stance. “And did it ever occur to you that Lorcan is probably working from bad information himself?”

“The hell you say.”

“Oh, c’mon, Stafford,” Ian said, patronizing and judgmental, “you know he’s not a dealer. This offense was his one and only, and then you come dangling a get-out-of-jail free card, and so he remembers some shit he heard or someone told him, and you guys mobilize like you’re taking down El Chapo without checking anybody out? The fuck are you doing over there?” He took a breath, glancing around at the rest of Stafford’s team. “Or maybe it’s just you, huh? Maybe the rest of these guys are okay. I have a friend who’s worked with the DEA out in San Francisco, and he says they’re pretty great.”

“I—”

“Maybe you’re the only fucktard over there at the moment.”

“Shut the fuck up, Doyle,” he roared, moving up so he was right in Ian’s face. “You don’t want to give us McKenna, fine. We’ll just grab him when he leaves here or tomorrow or the next day or—”

“No,” Ian insisted, moving so he and Stafford were basically nose to nose. “He’s in our system as attached to a high-profile witness. You try and do anything with him, I mean fuckin’ anything, and the system will kick him back out. And if you try and do anything to him off the record and I find out, your boss is talking to mine, and I’ll give you one guess how that turns out since my boss is the fuckin’ chief deputy,” Ian said with a smugness in his tone that had gotten him hit on a number of occasions. “Think about what happened the last time you went in there and demanded something from him.”

Stafford took a step back. “I have your brother, and he’s the one who’s gonna answer for all this shit.”

Ian would have said something back, and things would have escalated, I was sure, but the guy behind Stafford gave a quick shake of his head with his brows furrowed, and we knew right then that Stafford was talking out of his ass.

“You do what you think is right,” Ian told him with a shrug. “But a malicious prosecution charge is gonna look like ass in your jacket, I’m just sayin’.”

“Doyle—”

“Stay clear of our boys, and that includes McKenna, or I will personally fuck you up.”

“You don’t have the—”

“I’m the new deputy director of the Northern District of Illinois,” Ian advised him in that hard, biting, high-handed way he had when he was really pissed off. “And if you screw with anyone who has any connection to me—you’re fucked.”

It wasn’t a threat; Ian never made those. He was a promises kind of guy. But I knew Stafford could not slink off the porch either. It wasn’t in him.

“It’s not worth your time anyway,” I advised Stafford, which turned his attention to me. “This is all small shit, man. What’re you doing even running this down?”

He was glaring at me, but I saw him breathe through his nose, take in some air, and maybe calm just a fraction. “We were on Vaughn, you know the commander out at the fourth, but when he was busted for those murders, we got pulled off.”

“That’s bullshit,” Ian growled. “But I can get you in touch with Vaughn now, and with his intel, you could go after O’Brien.”

It was working, Stafford was deflating, and no, Ian didn’t have to, but he was the deputy director now, and he was supposed to be about building bridges, not slamming doors.

“Chris O’Brien had a lot of friends too, I bet,” Ian continued. “You got young guys who can go undercover?”

And of course he did.

“Call me tomorrow,” Ian offered, arms uncrossed, hand on the doorjamb as Stafford pulled his phone to put in the direct line he was given. “And I’ll get you to Vaughn.”

When Stafford met Ian’s gaze, he nodded and then turned, his men behind him all glancing at Ian before they thumped down the steps of our stoop.

“Lookit you being all professional and shit,” I teased Ian.

“Yeah, well,” he sighed, closing the door, rounding on me. “I guess I actually need to be a diplomat now, right?”

“Yes.”

“And I get you and Custodial.”

“How’s that?” I asked, feigning confusion.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, you knew that before you married me, so—who’s the idiot now?”

“Kage was right.”

“Oh?”

“You’re a caretaker, and you’re the best fit for Custodial,” he said, gesturing at the boys crossing the room to us. “You already do it.”

“I know.”

“And if you get hurt—which you will.”

“Which I will, agreed.”

“Then I’ll be here to take care of you,” he finished, stepping into me, my space, and wrapping his arms around my neck to kiss me and throttle me all at once.

Just as Drake cared for Cabot, and Marcello protected Josue, Ian would shelter me. It was how it went when you loved someone.

“You signed on for this,” I reminded Ian as I closed my eyes and leaned on him.

“Yes, I did,” he agreed. “I most certainly did.”