“What the fu…!”
Lara felt a weight lift from about her waist and a dipping of the bed behind her before the springs—and she—leveled up again.
All reminders, if the delicious aches in her body weren’t enough, Malachi had spent the night in bed with her.
And what a night it had been.
As she had discovered the day before, Malachi gave making love the same intensity of focus he did everything else. The result being that he had woken her several times during the night and made love to her again and again.
In other words, losing her virginity had been magical, leaving her feeling cherished, loved, and deliciously debauched, all at the same time.
She rolled onto her back to turn and look at Malachi as he stood beside the bed, pulling on the black boxers he’d thrown on the bedroom floor, along with the rest of his clothes, the previous night. “What’s wrong?”
He picked up his suit trousers, saw how creased they were, and dropped them back onto the carpet. “Someone is pounding on the door to your apartment.” He picked up his cell phone and looked at the screen. “At a guess, and from the number of texts and voice messages left during the past couple of hours, it’s Darius or Casper. Or both.” He shrugged.
Lara kept the duvet pulled up over her naked breasts as she sat up slightly. “Are you going to answer the door like that?” There were definitely a couple of marks on Malachi’s shoulders that were recognizable as bite marks.
She felt the heat in her cheeks as the memory of when and why she had bitten Malachi. He had been so gentle when he pushed through the barrier of her virginity, entering her slowly, always ensuring she was comfortable before pushing his cock in further. He stilled once he was buried so deep he couldn’t go any further, giving Lara time to adjust to the feel of having someone else filling that part of her body. But once she was able to assure Malachi she was comfortable, that it no longer hurt, he had let loose the storm of desire and possession he had been keeping in check the past few days.
Lara lost count of how many times she climaxed, totally lost in the pleasure of Malachi’s mouth, hands, and cock on and in her body as he made love to her for hours until they both finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
He glanced down at the bite marks on his shoulders. “War wounds,” he stated proudly.
“Yes, but…” Lara winced. “What about Darius and Casper…?”
“They should be so lucky,” Malachi dismissed before striding from the bedroom.
Lara could stay here and pretend she didn’t have another one or two Kingston men in her apartment—again—or she could quickly wash and dress before joining them.
The temptation to continue bathing in the warm glow of bliss from having spent the night with Malachi was very appealing. But after the events of the past couple of days, Lara had a feeling she was going to have to get used to members of the Kingston family invading both her personal space and her relationship with Malachi. Her own family were all close, but the Kingston men and women didn’t seem to feel any of the normal barriers against invading one of their siblings’ privacy.
Which was why, five minutes later, she entered the sitting room showered and dressed. There hadn’t been time for her to wash her hair, but a clean body and fully clothed felt good enough to her as those three men all turned to looked at her with varying degrees of…
Of what?
“What’s happened?” she demanded to know.
* * *
Malachi knew that Lara’s sharply voiced question was perfectly valid. Hell, from the morose expression on the faces of both his brothers—Darius and Casper, as he had guessed it might be—it was more than valid.
Malachi had yet to decide how he felt about the news.
“Tell me, please,” Lara demanded tautly.
Malachi moved to her side to place his arm about her waist and anchor her to his side. Amazing how she stayed so slender after he’d seen her eat her own weight in bread sticks and pasta the evening before.
“Taylor was attacked in his home during the night.” Darius drew Malachi’s attention back to the subject at hand.
He felt Lara’s body tense against him, saw the color draining from her cheeks. “Is he dead?”
“Badly beaten, with a broken jaw and several broken ribs,” Casper supplied briskly. “Something you would both have already known about if Malachi had bothered to answer his phone or check his texts this morning.”
“You sent the first one at six o’clock,” he dismissed.
“A time when you’re usually awake and out of bed,” Casper reminded.
Nothing was usual about Malachi’s life now that he had Lara in it.
It was a little unnerving when his previous thirty-seven years of life had revolved around routine and patterns of behavior to ensure the calm and certainty necessary for Malachi to function normally. Well…as normal as he was capable of being.
So yes, this lack of his usual routine was unsettling, but at the same time, he couldn’t imagine his life now without Lara in it. If that meant disruption to those routines, then so be it.
“The police are currently investigating the attack,” Darius grated.
“I don’t— Was it one of you?” Lara’s voice quivered.
“No,” Casper confirmed.
She gave a shake of her head. “It wasn’t my brother.” Thom simply wasn’t capable of hurting anyone.
“No,” Darius accepted.
“Or anyone else in my family.”
“No,” Casper agreed.
Lara looked at the two men searchingly. “Why are you looking at the two of us like that…?”
“They aren’t looking at us, Lara,” Malachi drawled. “They’re looking at me.”
Her eyes widened. “You…? But why on earth…” She turned to glare at his brothers. “Malachi was here with me last night. All night,” she stated firmly.
The color was back in her cheeks, through anger this time rather than her previous discomfort, Malachi noted warmly.
“Were you awake for the whole of the night to be able to confirm that with absolutely certainty?” Casper queried.
The blush in her cheeks deepened. “Not all night, no. But I would have known if Malachi got out of bed after I fell asleep.”
“Would you?” Casper taunted.
Her jaw tensed. “Yes, I damn well would.”
“Even though he’d probably fucked you into a state of oblivion— Do not hit me, Mal,” Darius warned as Malachi took a threatening step forward. “I’m only asking the questions the police are going to ask later.”
“Ask them in a nicer way,” Malachi advised.
Darius gave shake of his head, his expression rueful. “Not sure there is a nicer way to suggest Lara might have fallen asleep in a pleasure stupor.”
“That’s a little better.” Malachi nodded. “And I really was here all night,” he assured. “But,” he added as Lara looked ready to release another blast of anger at his brothers, “I can see how, once they know about and learn the names of all the people Taylor was blackmailing, the police might come to the conclusion I could have attacked the man who did those things to the brother of the woman I love.”
* * *
“Well, I don’t see it at all.” Lara stepped forward, her hands on her hips. “Malachi is your brother. How can you stand there and accuse him of something he couldn’t have done?”
“I really like you,” Darius said. “But you have to listen with your good sense and not just your heart. We aren’t accusing Mal of any wrongdoing,” he assured her. “Although I really hope he made sure you know his intentions are completely honorable.”
“He did.”
“Okay, then.” Darius nodded. “Casper and I really are just playing devil’s advocate and asking the same questions the police will when they eventually look at the contents of Taylor’s safe and realize the two of you are both persons of interest in their enquiries.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Lara felt suitably rebuked. “Damn it, the police shouldn’t be looking for the person who attacked Gerard Taylor,” she muttered disgustedly. “They should be thanking him for doing their job for them and arresting Taylor for drugging, stripping, filming, and then blackmailing all those poor people.”
“Don’t worry, the police are now fully aware of those recordings he keeps in his safe,” Casper said.
“Because you made sure they were,” Lara realized with a relieved sigh.
“Of course.” Casper smiled. “I also ensured, having found and made a list of the other victims’ names myself, that the police know exactly who they are too. I thought about leaving Thom’s name off the list and wiping that specific recording, but if Taylor admits to drugging all those people, including Thom, which he’ll surely have to do when there’s such damning evidence against him, then it’s going to look odd that your brother’s is the only recording no longer there.”
“Very suspicious,” Darius put in.
“Thank you for thinking of it, at least,” Lara told Casper gratefully.
He nodded. “Of course.”
She straightened. “So, what happened? Who found Taylor? And how did someone attack him when Kingston Security is guarding him twenty-four-seven?”
* * *
Malachi wanted to know the answer to that last question too. He already knew the answers to the others, having spoken with his brothers for several minutes before Lara joined them.
Taylor had been out to a club the previous evening, something he did two or three evenings a week. Those were the nights Malachi chose not to accompany their client. The whole concept of going to a place filled with women barely wearing any clothing, the majority of the men the same, all of them talking too loudly and drinking too much, was complete anathema to him and messed with his need for order.
Jason had been on duty again last night and had gone to the club with their client. According to the verbal report Jason had given Sinclair, Taylor had picked up a man during the evening. The two of them danced together and shared a few drinks. At one o’clock in the morning, the two men had taken a cab back to Taylor’s house.
This was when things became interesting.
According to Jason, the man had left Taylor’s house half an hour later, and no one else had entered the house during the night. The man Taylor had taken home with him couldn’t have beaten him up before he left because the police report stated the doctor who attended Taylor believed, from the state of his injuries, the attack to have taken place sometime between three and four o’clock this morning.
Jason only became aware there was a problem when a police car and ambulance both arrived at four thirty this morning outside Taylor’s house. Apparently, the other man had been unconscious after the beating, but when he woke up, he’d managed to use his cell phone to dial emergency services and ask for the police and an ambulance.
“So, if no one went into the house or came out again after the other man left a couple of hours earlier, who attacked Taylor?” Lara frowned. “Was there someone already in the house waiting for him when he came home?”
“Jason checked the house thoroughly before allowing Taylor and his guest to enter,” Casper dismissed.
She gave a puzzled shake of her head. “Then who got in there to attack him, and how?”
“Someone who obviously knew how to get in and out of the house without being seen by the man on guard outside,” Darius said.
Malachi knew that if he hadn’t spent the night with Lara, he would be the obvious choice of someone who was more than capable of doing exactly that. It was his team, and as such, he was responsible for determining when Jason was required to leave his SUV parked on the street outside to patrol the perimeter of Taylor’s house. The time between those half-hourly patrols left the back and sides of the house unguarded.
“It wasn’t Malachi,” Lara insisted firmly. “And it certainly wasn’t me.”
“We believe you. Both of you,” Casper placated.
“Half of me wishes it had been me.” Her eyes glittered. “A good beating is the least that disgusting man deserves.”
Darius nodded. “We agree.”
Lara’s eyes widened as a thought obviously occurred to her. “Which hospital is Taylor in?”
“She’s bright,” Darius appreciated. “Very bright.”
“Well?” she demanded.
“He’s in a private room on the orthopaedic ward at the same hospital where you work in A&E,” Casper said.
“Oh God.” Lara sank into one of the armchairs. “I suppose that’s better than him being at the hospital where Thom works. But not much.” She grimaced. “I’m really tempted to go and pay him a visit once I’m back on duty.”
“Not a good idea,” Darius advised.
“Not happening,” Malachi stated decisively as he moved to sit on the arm of the chair where Lara was sitting. “You have to stand back and let the police unravel this in their own time,” he explained at her mutinous expression. “Casper can help them along a little by revealing the information stored on Taylor’s laptop and on the memory stick inside his safe. Kingston Security can become involved because we’re employed by the man. But you have to stay well away from Taylor and this whole situation.”
Malachi could see that Lara was far from pleased at that suggestion.
Except it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a necessity. The motive for Lara attacking Taylor would become obvious, and they both needed to be able to deny opportunity.
“What are the two of you doing today?” Casper asked.
“It’s my last day off until next week, so I’m due to have lunch at my parents’ house,” Lara supplied distractedly. “My brother and sister are going to be there too.”
“Malachi?” Darius prompted.
“Maybe he can go have lunch with Lara’s family too?” Casper put in. “Over a meal is the ideal time for a man to meet the family of the woman he loves. Or so I believe,” he added dryly.
Meet Lara’s family?
Yes, she was, without a doubt, the woman Malachi loved.
Yes, he intended spending the rest of his life with her, if she’d let him.
But meet the rest of her family? Her parents?
That was something Malachi hadn’t given a moment’s thought to doing.
In truth, he had hoped to spend a little more time persuading Lara into falling deeply and irrevocably in love with him before he came up against what were sure to be her parents’ objections to their eldest daughter wanting to be with a man with his social inadequacies.