The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2) (10 page)

So far they were batting a thousand.

Next up, Charles Pope.

Her phone rang and she was so pathetically grateful for the distraction, she answered without checking the ID. “Hello?”

“Were you waiting by the phone for me to call?”

James
.

She huffed out a breath, though something in her chest gave a warm lurch. “You again?”

“Don’t act like you don’t want to hear from me.” He laughed, low and intimate. “Unless you don’t, in which case I can go…”

“No!” The word was out before she had a chance to take it back. “Even talking to you is better than what I was just doing.” Husband shopping. Her stomach twisted in on itself. This was what her life had come to.

“How can I refuse a woman in need?”

“You can’t.” Except the one time she’d actually needed rescuing,
he’d
been the one to put her in that position. Desperate to think about something else—
anything
else—she said, “What are you wearing?”

A pause, as if she’d shocked him. “You’re hitting on me.”

“Are you complaining?” She twisted around in her chair and stared into the mirror on the wall across from her. When he didn’t immediately respond, she kept going. The only alternative was to back down, and Carrigan was so goddamn tired of backing down. The only reason she kept taking James’s calls was because of the distraction he offered her. If he wasn’t going to play, there was no reason for her to stay on the phone.

She really wanted him to stay on the phone. “Shy? That’s okay, I’ll go first. I’m wearing a thin white tank top and a pair of black panties.” She was a liar, but it would take all of five seconds to make it the truth.

“Lovely, you’re testing me.” His voice gained an edge.

Good. At least someone was feeling as out of control as she was. “I suppose you’d like photographic proof.” She stood and shimmied out of her long skirt, and then pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder while she unhooked her bra and took it off. “Hold, please.”

Ignoring his cursing, she adjusted her angle so he would have to be blind to miss the faint outline of her nipples against the fabric of her tank top, and snapped a picture. She knew she was playing with fire. Good lord, of course she knew. But she wasn’t about to stop. She grinned as she sent the picture.

Carrigan put the phone back to her ear in time to hear his sharp inhale. “Your turn.” She held her breath, waiting to see if he’d actually do it. Receiving pictures was one thing. Putting them out in the world was entirely another. Really, she shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place. There was no telling what he would do with them—they might show up on the Internet. Then who would want to marry her?

Funny, but the idea of countless men checking out her rack didn’t bother her nearly as much if it meant she dodged the marriage bullet. The shame on her family might be enough that her father would send her away permanently. She’d like to spend some time in New York or LA or even New Orleans. Maybe Rome or Paris or Tokyo. The world was so damn big and she’d only seen a little slice of it.

Her phone beeped, pulling her out of her thoughts. She glanced at the picture he’d sent and started to shake.
Oh my God
. James was shirtless, wearing only those goddamn jeans she couldn’t seem to get enough of. And they were unbuttoned—a clear invitation if she ever saw one. An invitation she desperately wanted to accept. “Damn, James. Somebody taught you how to selfie.”

“Maybe I’m a natural.” His voice was little more than a growl. “You started this, lovely. Tell me what’s next.”

The strange mix of command and handing her the reins got her head back in the game. She walked over to her bed and climbed onto it, trying to ignore the trembling in her legs. She could be in charge. She
wanted
to be. “I’m lying on my bed.”

“What color are the sheets?”

The question seemed to carry far more import than it should. “White.”

“They don’t suit you. Red is your color. Go on.” He sounded so damn imperial, as if he actually knew her. He didn’t. No one did, really. She wore so many masks, sometimes she worried she’d forget the woman at the center of them all.

But this time he was right. She would have chosen red for herself.

Carrigan put the thought away and focused on the now. “You talk too much.”

“My mistake.” He didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
Good
. She wasn’t, either. “How do you want it, lovely? Rough, I’d bet. You’re not fucking breakable, and I think you love to be reminded of that fact.” Something rustled on his end of the line. “Close your eyes.”

She obeyed without thinking, and then instantly snapped them open. “I thought I was in charge.”

“You let me know if I get something wrong.” His laugh told her how unlikely he found the possibility. “Close your eyes.”

“Fine. Fine.” Shutting out the sight of her room narrowed her world down to his voice in her ear, and it was all too easy to imagine him here with her, a single breath away from touching her. Any second now he’d reach out and haul her against him.

“I’d drag you to the edge of that bed and spread those sweet thighs. Spread your thighs, lovely.” Once again, she obeyed without thought. James hissed out a breath. “I like the picture you’d make, those amazing breasts straining against that pathetic excuse of a tank top, and those tiny panties. I want to rip the fucking things off. But not yet.”

She was picturing it, too. Picturing him standing over her, with
that
look in his blue eyes—the look that made her feel possessed…owned. Like he’d never get enough of her and he never wanted to. He’d looked at her the same way on that night four months ago, when he’d been buried inside her. She shivered at the thought, her breath catching in her throat, her nipples pebbling.

“Yeah, I thought you’d like that. But a pussy like yours…it’s meant to be worshipped. You’d take me to my knees, ready to do damn near anything to hear that sweet little whimper you make when you come. Touch yourself, lovely. Slowly. Trace a single finger over that goddamn lace. Are you wet for me?”

Her panties were soaked. Carrigan moaned as she traced her clit through the wet fabric. “James, God, I’m so wet.” She hesitated, desire dragging words from her mouth she had no intention of letting free. “For you. I’m wet for you.”

“And needy. I hear it in your voice.” It was in his voice, too.

They were poised on the edge of something she had the sudden fear she couldn’t take back. It was silly—they were miles away from each other, connected only by a phone call. She had control. And if she could feel it slipping through her fingers…well, James never had to know. “Are you touching yourself?”

“Lovely, I’m so hard, it won’t take much to get me there.”

She slipped her hand into her panties, stroking herself. “I’m close, James.” Every time she said his name, he made a sound that was almost pained. She liked it. She liked it a lot. “Come with me.”

“Circle your clit, just how you like it.” He cursed long and hard, but she heard a zipper being dragged down.

She obeyed, moaning, the sounds of his desire only stroking hers higher. “You’re close.”

Another curse. “Come for me, lovely. I want to hear that whimper.”

She pressed down on her clit as her body spasmed, that horribly weak and needy sound coming out of her mouth despite her best effort to keep it inside. She stroked herself twice more, unable to resist the delicious aftershocks of pleasure, and then dragged her hand out of her panties. “Shit.”

James laughed, the sound free of the darkness he seemed to carry around inside himself. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

She opened her eyes and stared at her ceiling, reality crashing over her. Whatever came next, she didn’t want it. James wasn’t on the list. He was so off-limits, it wasn’t even funny. He was the only man she could be found with that might make her father actually hurt her.

And she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted a man before.

“I have to go.”

“Wait—”

She hung up before he could finish the sentence, before he could say something that would give her the excuse she desperately wanted to curl up around her phone and cling to the lifeline of his rough voice. She couldn’t afford the weakness and, even more, she couldn’t afford for him to realize he
was
a weakness. Though if he didn’t know that after this conversation, he was an idiot.

James Halloran might be many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

Damn it
.

*  *  *

James stepped into the shower, his mind whirling. He didn’t make a habit of having phone sex—why go for a substitute when you could have the real thing?—but…fuck. With Carrigan that had been hot as hell. His nerve endings were still snapping with the strength of that orgasm, and he wanted more.

Now.

He ducked his head under the spray and scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d known she wanted him, but knowing in theory was one thing—hearing her coming as a result of what he was saying was totally another. Their having sex again had moved from the “if” category to the “when.”

She was spooked. He got that. He was feeling pretty goddamn spooked himself. So he’d give them both time. She had to come to him now. That was the only way this thing would play out with both of them satisfied. James washed his hair, pointedly ignoring the little voice inside him that muttered that he’d never be satisfied with a piece of Carrigan as a replacement for
all
of her. “All of her” wasn’t on the table. Even if it was, there were their families to consider.

The thought of his family was enough to wash away the last of the feel-good he had going. He needed to deal with Ricky, sooner rather than later. Right now his brother was cooling his heels in the room in the basement designed to hold people the Hallorans didn’t want walking off the property without permission.

Really, both Callista and Carrigan should have been in that room when they were here. It would have stopped their escape before it started. And one of them—if not both—would have died. Had he known as soon as he hauled Carrigan up to his room that she’d find a way to escape? What if he hadn’t given her the chance? What if he’d gone with the normal protocol?

He shook his head. It was pointless to focus on the past and play the what-if game. He had plenty of problems in the here and now to focus on. So he forced himself to close out the part of his mind that wanted to revel in the recent conversation with Carrigan. That lighthearted feeling that he hadn’t been sure he was still capable of had no place here. Not now.

Ten minutes later, he was toweled off and dressed and heading downstairs. Michael met him at the landing on the main floor. “He’s asking for you, boss.” He made a face. “Demanding, more like.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Michael didn’t immediately move out of the way. “With all due respect, I’m going with you.” He hesitated, and then charged on. “That kid is a rabid dog. He’ll go for your throat without a thought and deal with the consequences later.”

James wanted to argue, to say he was wrong, that he and Ricky were family. But family wasn’t the loving and cozy heartwarming made-for-TV movie that so many people believed. It was the poison in his veins that he could never bleed out, and the weight around his neck, dragging him into the deep.

So he nodded and let Michael follow him into the basement. It felt darker here, danker, as if it really was a dungeon. It used to be his old man’s favorite part of the house before his arthritis made navigating the basement stairs impossible. After that, rather than admit weakness, he just burrowed into his office and, for all intents and purposes, never came back out again.

I wonder if he’s warm enough in prison
.

James set the thought aside. If Victor hadn’t gone off the goddamn deep end and decided to declare war on the O’Malleys
and
Sheridans over a stupid insult, he wouldn’t be behind bars right now. Discretion was the name of the game. Staying below the FBI’s notice. He snorted. Those bastards had too much time on their hands. They noticed everything. But up until four months ago, they hadn’t bothered to swat the fly that was the Halloran family. Victor was the reason that had all changed.

Now Ricky had taken it into his fool head to follow in their old man’s footsteps. James stopped outside the door and took a breath, steeling himself for what came next. He could scream to the moon that he didn’t want this—didn’t want to have to take these steps—but it changed nothing. Ricky was a threat—worse, he was a stupid threat.

That
was unforgivable.

James walked into the room, aware of Michael following him, and waited for the door to shut behind them. Ricky was zip-tied to a chair bolted down in the middle of the room. The boys had done a good job, and he didn’t have any bruises visible. He turned his head and spit on the ground at James’s feet. “Bastard.”

“You directly disobeyed an order.”