THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (29 page)

Killian

My shoulder was still sore, stiff so much of the time, but it was healing. There was no more bleeding and no sign of infection. Ian promised to take out the stitches in a few days.

I hated that I wasn’t one hundred percent on my wedding night. But when I saw Stacy come out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a simple white bustier and panties, I forgot all about the wound. I stood and held out my hand to her, touched by the blush that still appeared on her cheeks even though we’d slept together every night for a month now.

“Mrs. Callahan,” I said softly.

She pressed her hand to my chest, her eyes moving over the tattoos and the scars, the things she’d not asked about but had to know were reflections of the violent life I’d lived these last five years. Her hand moved over my bare pecs, moving slowly up to my throat. I took her hand, her touch driving me mad.

“Can I ask you something?”

She looked up at me, a touch of fear in her eyes. “Anything.”

I shouldn’t ask. I knew now wasn’t the time. But I needed to know.

“You were a virgin.”

Amusement turned up the corners of her lips. “Is that your question?”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I guess I never found anyone I wanted as much as I wanted you.”

“But Davis—?”

She touched my lips. “I don’t want to bring darkness into this night, Killian. Please.”

I nodded. How could I argue with that? But there was something about it that bothered me. They were engaged, less than twenty-four hours from their wedding, yet…

She kissed me, and my thoughts began to stray. I drew her closer, my hands slipping over the back of that bustier, looking for a way to get it off of her. I wanted her the way she’d presented herself to me that first time. I wanted her bare body under mine. I wanted her bare for all the exploration I could hope to conduct.

She seemed to read my mind. She tugged me to the bed, climbing up on the mattress and beckoning me with a single finger. I followed, crawling into her arms as she lay back, her hands sliding down my back, her fingertips slipping under the waistband of my pants. We moved together, our bodies automatically falling into a rhythm they knew well.

And then she pushed me off of her, trapping me against the mattress as she took charge, catching my hands and locking them above my head. She began to work her way down my body, kissing my neck and my chest, running her tongue over tattoos with dates and names of people and things that were never meant to be a part of this sort of moment. And then she was unbuckling my pants, tugging them away. It took every ounce of strength I had not to grab her and throw her to the mattress, not to make her mine in the only way that was left to do.

I’d never been undressed by a woman. In all my experience, I was always the one who was constantly in control. It was outside my comfort zone to give up control. But when her hands wrapped themselves around my cock and her lips made a promise that she had yet to fulfill, I found myself learning to enjoy the lack of control.

She made love to my body with her hands and her lips, dropping kisses along my thighs as she stroked my cock, her thumb running over my head, making me arch my back and hiss with the intensity of it all. And then…she kissed my shaft, the softness of her lips against me threatening to drive me insane.

I was already gone when she finally took me into her mouth. For a woman who’d had little experience up until now, she knew how to manipulate me, how to give pleasure like nothing I’d ever felt before. I wanted to touch her, but I was afraid if I did, I would lose all control. But then I did when she let me go, the cool air touching the wetness and turning it cold, then her warm body as she climbed on top of me and pulled me deep inside of her.

How was a man supposed to handle that? How was I supposed to keep from going completely insane?

I wasn’t.

I sat up, wrapped my body around her and watched as she pleasured herself against me. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

I rolled her over and trapped her beneath my body and made love to her until neither of us could remember where we were or why we were there. And then we lay tangled in each other for hours, coming back to reality a little bit at a time.

It was a lovely journey.

***

“Do we have any idea who would have wanted him dead?”

Ian shrugged. “You have to ask Pops. He had him investigated, but he wanted to talk to you about it directly.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know what happened to you,” Pops said as he walked into the room.

We were in my den at the back of the farmhouse. Everyone was supposed to head back to Boston later in the afternoon, but most of us had slept late this morning. Cassidy was in the kitchen making pancakes, Brianna at her side where she seemed to always be, except when she was at work. A lawyer, one would assume she’d be a fairly independent woman, but I guess the kidnapping messed her up a little.

Stacy wasn’t happy they were here. She hadn’t said anything, but I could see the expression in her eyes every time she was confronted by one of them. She still hadn’t forgiven Pops for marrying again.

Pops was watching me, waiting.

“I told Ian, I was walking to the deli and this guy comes out of nowhere when I turn a corner at the alley. We fought, the gun went off, and I caught one in the shoulder.”

“And the guy got away.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see his face?”

I nodded, dragging my fingers through my hair as I wondered if I would ever forget his face.

“Tall, dark hair, dark eyes. Italian, maybe. Or some sort of Indian. Thin, my age or slightly older. Well dressed.”

“Did he act like a common mugger?”

“No. He was pretty clearly a pro.”

Pops sat on the edge of the couch and shot a look at Ian.

“What?”

“Why would a pro go after a college professor?”

“That was the same question I’d asked myself. But it was the same guy. I’m pretty sure.”

“Why?” Pops asked again.

“Davis wasn’t who he said he was.”

Pops nodded. “When I met him, I didn’t like his attitude. He was almost hostile toward me. At first, I thought it was because he knew that Stacy was angry with me and he was supporting her on that. But then I realized there was something more to it, something almost vicious.”

“We had him checked out,” Ian said. “Turns out that Davis Grant didn’t exist until three months before he met Stacy.”

Fuck!

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.” Pops leaned forward. “We don’t know for sure who he was, but it’s pretty clear he sought out Stacy on purpose. And his death probably had something to do with that.”

“You can’t tell Stacy. Not until we know more.” I looked from Pops to Ian. “Seriously. It’ll break her.”

They both nodded.

“We go home, and we let this whole thing drop. She doesn’t need to know any of this.”

They nodded again.

Ian came over to me and laid his hand on my good shoulder. “Let’s go have some pancakes. Cassidy is a hell of a cook.”

I caught Stacy’s eye as we came out of the den. She was curious what we’d been discussing, but I smiled my brightest smile in an attempt to calm her nerves. I don’t know if it worked, but she didn’t ask.

Stacy

It was weird being back in Boston. I hadn’t been to Boston since I was eighteen and I packed the last of my things for college. I was grateful we didn’t have to go back to Pops’ house to live. Killian had a lovely brick house about five blocks from the house where we grew up, still in the same gated community, but far enough away that we didn’t have to see Pops or his new wife unless we wanted to.

It was weird having the tables turned, too. Killian got up every morning and headed out to work while I slept in, watched a little reality television, and washed his underwear. I’d never really wanted to be a housewife, but I had to admit it was kind of nice not having any deadlines to meet or meetings to attend.

Killian suggested I go back to school as I’d planned before Davis. It wasn’t a bad idea, I just…I wasn’t sure my heart was in it anymore.

Maybe I’d get a job in a few weeks when things settled down into something like normal.

When it stopped feeling so good to sleep until noon.

We were married two weeks when, one morning, I was just thinking about climbing out of bed when I heard a commotion downstairs. I got up and wandered to the head of the stairs.

“Fucking Italians,” Ian said as he crossed the foyer. “Jack’s going to burst a blood vessel if this happens again.”

“We don’t know that the Italians had anything to do with it.”

“It had them written all over it.”

Killian glanced up at me, pausing in the foyer as our eyes met.

“Hey, babe,” he said softly.

Ian came back out of the living room and looked up. “Sis.” He hesitated less than a second, then took the steps three at a time, lifting me over his shoulder as he reached me on the landing.

“Ian!”

He spun around, laughing as I screamed. Then he dumped me quite unceremoniously on the long, velvet couch sitting at the back of the landing.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, slapping his shoulder as I laughed at him. He was still chuckling as he dropped a kiss on my forehead.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am you’re back here.”

“Yeah?”

“You put a new bounce in his step, you know? It’s a good thing, kid.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a mighty hug.

“Should I be jealous?”

Ian turned and eyed Killian for a second. “Maybe. She is a beauty.”

I slapped his shoulder again.

Killian scooped me up onto his lap and held me close. “What are we going to do with him?”

I eyed Ian closely. “We’ll have to lock him up in the basement.”

“I don’t like the dark. You know that.”

“What a better place to punish you, then?”

He just shook his head, the playfulness going out of his eyes as he backed up and crossed his arms over his chest. I could feel the tension coming into Killian’s body, too, as he watched him.

“One of Jack’s shipments was hit last night,” he told me.

“Killian!”

“She’s my wife. She knows everything anyway.”

Ian studied me a second. “Pops won’t like it.”

“Pops is from a different generation where it was okay to lie to everyone. Stacy and I do things differently. We don’t keep secrets from one another.”

As he said it, I felt the weight of my secret falling on my shoulders like a ton of bricks. I curled tighter against him as if his support could keep me from collapsing under the weight.

How could I tell him that I’d hired some guy to kill him? Or that that guy swore he was paid twice as much by someone else to keep the contract alive when I changed my mind?

There hadn’t been another attempt on Killian’s life. I was hoping that meant that the guy was lying to me.

“Does Pops still think someone’s informing on you guys?”

Ian shook his head. “That seemed to stop for a while. But last night it just seemed like we were back to where we’d been, as if the mole came back.”

“Is that possible?”

He shrugged. “I suppose anything’s possible.”

“Is it someone in Jack’s organization?”

Ian and Killian looked at each other as if they’d talked about that already.

“Jack is the kind of guy who inspires loyalty,” Ian said. “For it to be someone in his organization, it has to be someone with a death wish.”

“But it can’t be anyone in the family.”

Killian shook his head. “I’m pretty sure Pops doesn’t give details to Cassidy or Brianna. Everyone else, we’ve all worked together since Mom died. If it was one of us, we’d have run into this problem before.”

“It can’t be one of us,” Ian said. “If it was, it would have to be Sean or Kevin. But I really don’t think that’s possible. Do you?”

I couldn’t. Kevin adored Pops and Killian and Ian. He wouldn’t do anything that could get them in trouble. And Sean was in law school until two years ago. He wasn’t even a part of the organization, really. Not until recently.

“How’s Sean doing, helping out on the shipments?”

Ian and Killian exchanged a look again. Ian was clearly unhappy that Killian had told me that, too.

“He likes it. A little too much if you ask me,” Killian said.

“He’s good with a gun,” Ian added.

“He’s a lawyer. You guys took a lawyer and taught him how to be a criminal.”

“Not us.” Ian headed for the stairs. “You explain it to her.”

Killian tugged me closer to his chest, as the sound of Ian slamming the door downstairs reverberated through the house.

“Am I supposed to look past that?”

He kissed my neck. “You’re supposed to understand that this is the family job, babe.”

“But Sean…”

“Sean’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

“Just like you? Fighting some assassin in an alley?”

He groaned as he nuzzled my neck. “I love you,” he said softly.

“I want to know what’s happening. I don’t want to lay here at night, wondering where the hell you are. I want to know that you’re going to come home to me again.”

“I will always come home to you.”

“No secrets?”

There was a touch of guilt in his eyes, but he nodded. “No secrets.”

I had to trust him. What else could I do?