“TALK TO ME.”
“Hmm?” she asked, eyes closed as she counted the beats of his heart beneath her head.
Satisfied didn’t cover it when talking about their sex life. Sated and boneless, it was a wonder she remembered how to breathe.
His fingers tangled in her hair then combed themselves loose. “Your mind’s racing.”
How did he know that? She could ask, but it didn’t matter. Why shouldn’t her lover read her thoughts?
“Strat asked if I need therapy. Steeple brought it up too.”
“Do you?”
Her smile touched his chest. In bed in the dark, in his loft, she’d been spoiled with his presence that day.
“There are things I haven’t… said.”
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t know…” And he just let the silence hang. “Sometimes the suggestion offends me… But when I’m alone, it’s like… My mind gets busy and I feel like I’m losing my grip.”
“I’ve got you.”
“I trust in that.” She didn’t need a handle on things because Conn would always steady the wheel. “I think about it sometimes, for no reason… that word I struggle to say.”
“Attack,” he said without hesitation. He’d been the one to point out her hesitancy first. “You think about the attack.”
“I asked Lach not to bring it up at Stag because it was a raw nerve and here I am—”
“Nothing’s off-limits between us. Talk to me.”
With that permission, the words just started coming. “It’s cold, you know? This lingering thing that just—for no reason, I get a shot of, the memory and… I feel exposed, vulnerable, I suppose you could call it.” She exhaled. “I replay that night and I… I’m not usually that oblivious, so unaware of…”
“Keep going.
“The way I reacted when I lost Stag. I’d never been so adrift; I honestly didn’t know what to do. I guess that’s why I just mindlessly walked away. I wasn’t thinking about traffic or people; I sank like I’d been sucker punched. Never again was a long time. The thought of never seeing you again… We’d been so amazing, to have that snatched away from me…” The alcohol and hormones combined to loosen her lips and she just kept going. “He picked me up, the first one, his hand closed over my mouth—I didn’t know what was happening until my head hit concrete.” His grip bunched in her hair. She smoothed a hand down his torso and eased away to rest her head on her own pillow. “It was instinct. I didn’t think, I just acted. Smart or not.”
“It’s adrenaline.” Sliding down, he lay with her, his face just a few inches away. “No one knows how they’ll handle these situations until they’re in them.”
“I was mad. Madder than I’ve ever been. My heart was going so fast, I… I tried to hurt them, to fight. I resented them for—and then I resented myself for being so weak and useless.”
“You’re neither.”
“How do you do it? Live with violence like that hanging over you every day? Are you ever scared?”
“Yes,” he said. Despite asking, she hadn’t expected such a direct answer. “When I found out it was you.” Another surprise. “My life has always been this. I’m aware it could end any time and made my peace with that long ago. But you…”
A man without vulnerability let her in and presented a weak spot to the world. Rather, she had presented it when she marched on into the precinct to free him.
“When did you know? That this wasn’t… that I wasn’t a slut on speed dial?”
“From the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Had she been so blind?
“And the blackmail was…?”
“Never meant to play out the way it did.”
Because she was a valuable asset. Or she could’ve been. Instead they got lost in their attraction.
“Stag has always felt safe. I don’t know why I—” She squeezed her eyes shut. What was she doing talking about this shit with Ire McDade? “Sorry, I’m—must be too much liquor.”
As she tried to roll away, he caught her face, pulling her back, bringing them closer. “Talk to me.”
“You don’t want to hear me ramble. I’ll figure out my—”
“Our. What’s in your head belongs to me. All of you belongs to me.”
And what peace that gave her. “You need a woman strong enough to handle her own shit.”
“I need a woman willing to open all of herself to me. Hold back and you’re just another extra, not worth my time.”
“I give all of myself to you. I’m also aware you deal with real stakes, life and death shit. I want your focus on avoiding prison so I don’t wake up lonely every day for the rest of my life.” His eyelid twitched, just a fraction, but the question was clear. “Yes, your hands will be the last my skin ever feels, prison or not.”
“Life on the lam?”
“The sex is incredible and you can cook. I’m locked in. No going back now.”
“You’re all in.”
Just like he said before, which got her to thinking.
“You want me to share everything, to open all of myself to you.” Her statement required no response. “I want to know you like no one else does. I’ll take Ire McDade, I want Ire McDade, I need him. He’s a part of who you are and I’m crazy about him. But he’s not all of you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure. Ire McDade didn’t cook for me. He’s not the man swearing to take care of me and washing my hair. Ire McDade didn’t ask if he had to be careful downstairs or come kiss me in front of my family. I want Connel too.” Without a word, he stared into her. “Will you take me one day?”
“Take you where?”
“The island.”
“I haven’t been back for years.”
“It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, just… someday.”
“After you take care of our unfinished business.” Which was? They had unfinished business? “But what?” She didn’t get it. “McLeod said nothing in the car, but… what?”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“Your story, the night you met Vex. You started and didn’t finish. Your brother always said you could call no matter what, and he said nothing in the car, but…”
Glimmers of a past conversation tickled the edge of her consciousness. “Oh my God, you…” Shock stunned her. They’d had that discussion two months ago. “How do you remember that?”
“Because when I ask questions, people answer them.”
And she hadn’t. “I… can’t even remember what I was going to say.”
“Your brother picked you up from the club. Start there.”
“Lach always told me I could call and he wouldn’t get angry. We rode the whole way back in silence, but I knew he was disappointed. He didn’t have to say it; I’d disappointed him.”
Something she’d done again when he learned about her current relationship, of where her heart lay.
Scooping his fingers between hers, he put them on his body. “Now who do you call if you’re in trouble?”
“Strat,” she teased and laughed when he grabbed her hip to jerk her against him. “You. I’ll call you. Except…” She frowned. “What will we do if we find the murderer first?”
“What do you want to do?”
Were they deciding together, or did he expect her to know the right answer?
“I don’t know.” He gave her time to think. “If it’s Silvio related, there are rules, right?”
“Aye, I can’t hit him, but I doubt he was the triggerman.”
“Was it the triggerman’s fault if he was following orders?”
“How’d that work out for Pietro?”
Another good point. “Losing my grandfather is difficult. Losing you would be a whole different kind of hurt.”
“Why would you lose me?”
“Because if we find him first and take care of the problem, everyone else will still be looking. What will be the point of us pursuing an assailant we know is already dead? Except when we give up the investigation or lose interest in it, we’ll draw attention from the others in our task force, and I don’t want that.”
“Unless we’re kissing in public.”
“Well, yeah, that’s a different—wait, are you saying you don’t want—if you don’t want physical contact or for us to acknowledge each other in public, we won’t. Shit, I didn’t think much about how outing us affects your credibility. I’m sorry.”
He jerked her against him again, pressing her down into the mattress when their bodies met, his grip tightening.
“You’ll do a helluva lot more than acknowledge me.” He’d said the battle was one she fought only with herself. “If I am your kingdom, you better be ready to stake a claim. There are no limits, no boundaries between us, Cushla Machree.”
“Strat’s scared I’ll spiral without an anchor. I told him, in my own way, I didn’t value my life. I have been… crazy recently, taken risks and pushed limits. Being without you, lost and alone, maybe I wanted to hurt myself…” She sighed. “Or maybe I wanted your attention, to prove to you I can be strong and worthy of standing at your side.”
“Cushla Machree.” He kissed her. “You are a warrior and my queen.”