I pressed my forehead against the glass and was lost in thought when he said, “I’m not surprised he likes you.”

I turned around, narrowing my eyes at the brother who appeared wide awake now. Had he faked sleeping?

“Why aren’t you surprised?” I asked him, feeling incredibly distrustful of him.

Jamie stared about my face, and his lips curved up. “He likes broken things.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer. Just kept staring at me with an intensity that was unnerving. Then when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching, he shut his eyes and parted his lips and pretended to be asleep again. Just like I thought.

He was a snake.

A very intriguing one.

Ben threw a thin blanket over his asshole brother’s body. I thought about telling him the shady bastard was awake, but for some reason I didn’t. Ben took my hand and led me into the kitchen. I turned my head back before we disappeared just in time to see Jamie’s lips forming a cheeky, closed lip smile.

*****

The next morning I made sure to be appropriately dressed for breakfast. I had bagels with cream cheese while Ben cooked up bacon for himself. Jamie joined us after the food was done (conveniently good timing) and grabbed himself a plate.

I watched him take a seat across from me, loading his plate up with the bacon Ben had left in the centre of the island.

“How are we this morning?” Ben asked with a hard voice. “Sober, I hope?”

Jamie looked like a mess, his hair even shaggier and all over the place than Ben’s. His white plain tee was ruffled, and I spotted some heavily tattooed arms now that he wasn’t wearing his jacket.

But regardless of his messy state, he smiled apologetically and said, “I am, and I sincerely apologize for my ill conduct to you and your girlfriend, Benjamin.”

Bloody hell, these Costigan boys sure had manners. Their mother may have raised them well, but that didn’t stop me from looking at Jamie suspiciously. He could be genuine, or he could be laughing at us too. It was hard to tell with this one.

“And may I formally introduce myself.” His hand reached out over the table. “I’m James Costigan – Jamie for short.”

I glanced at Ben’s equally wary face before shaking his hand. “Claire.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Claire.”

“You too.” I guess.

“How long have you two been seeing each other?” he then asked curiously.

“A few months,” I answered.

“That’s very nice,” he remarked, eyeing Ben carefully.

For a minute they just looked at each other, some kind of unspoken communication going on. I felt like I was interrupting something, and was about to sneak off when a cell phone erupted from the kitchen counter.

Ben stood up and retrieved his phone. He briefly glanced at the number on the screen before picking up with a snippy, “What?”

He listened for a few moments, his brows knitting together. “Got it.”

He got off and slammed the phone down on the counter heatedly and gripped the counter with one hand so hard his knuckles whitened.

“Is everything alright?” I asked him.

His head dropped, and he looked at the tile floor for a moment. “I um… have some business to get around to. I’m going to need to fly out tomorrow morning.”

I didn’t reply because I knew this had something to do with what he wanted me to be oblivious about. He infrequently went away. Sometimes it was for a night. Sometimes it was two. But never had I seen him so bothered by it until now.

“Is everything alright?” Jamie tentatively asked. It was said in a different manner to mine, sparking an equally different reaction this time.

“I don’t like the people I’m dealing with at the moment,” Ben answered, before he glanced at me and stopped himself from saying more.

I took this as my cue to go. Whatever was going on, Jamie was well aware of it. So I took a last bite out of my bagel and said, “I’m going to have a shower.”

They didn’t acknowledge me as I stepped out, but as I climbed the stairs I could hear them having a heated conversation.

Chapter Seventeen

Unimaginably

Sitting on the edge of the bed later that night, I watched him pack a small suitcase of clothes. He was going away for a week. We’d never been away from each other for that long, and I was bummed out to say the least.

“I’m leaving you my apartment key,” he told me as he zipped up his suitcase.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Because in case anything ever happens, I want you to know you have another roof you can sleep under.”

“What could possibly happen?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, avoiding eye contact as he said, “Claire, the truth is I’m giving you the key because I want our relationship to take that extra step.”

I stilled. “Oh.” Sometimes I could be so dense. “I didn’t even consider you were thinking along those lines.”

His jaw clenched as he turned away from me and sorted through his closet endlessly. Having not pulled a single thing out, he seemed to be doing this as a distraction.

“We’ve been inseparable,” he muttered thoughtfully. “You’re imprinted in my mind. How could I not be thinking along those lines? Have I not been doing this right?”

I frowned. “Doing what right?”

Exhaling, he finally turned, casting me a lost look. “I don’t know the first thing when it comes to relationships. I’m just as lost as you.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of my life,” he said, hesitating. “The travel and the…”

“But you haven’t been traveling much at all.”

He chuckled disdainfully. “That’s because I didn’t want to be away from you, and it’s caused some problems lately. I’m overdue on taking care of issues I should have dealt with ages ago.”

He looked at me again. “If I’m not doing right in vocalising how I feel then…”

“Then what?” I eagerly asked.

“Then let me know and I’ll try to do a better job.”

I smiled. “So try better and tell me how you feel.”

God, sometimes he could look at me so intensely it gave me the same reaction to him touching me. This was one of those moments, and it made my heart thump faster.

He said softly, “I feel like I’m dreaming. I feel like you’re too good to be true. Like any second someone’s going to shake me awake and I’ll have been in a coma these last few months.”

I swallowed a lump, and I was sure my eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“I feel like that too,” I replied.

He smiled softly and approached me. He knelt down in front of me and rubbed his thumb along my cheek sweetly.

“You’re special to me,” he said.

“What makes me special to you?”

“You’re different.”

“And what’s so great about that?”

As he roamed his finger over my scars, he answered, “I love different.”

He kissed me softly then and his hand slowly descended, gripping me possessively, hunger in his touch.

“We have time, you know,” he whispered against my lips.

“For more yogurt tasting, you mean?”

He chuckled. “Especially yogurt tasting.”

“You’re sick.”

“And you love it.”

Oh yes, I admitted to myself as he pushed my back against the mattress.

I fucking loved it.

“And do you know what else you love even more?” he huskily asked as he stripped me of my shorts and pressed his body against mine.

“What?” I let out, closing my eyes to the feel of his hands roaming me.

“Me.”

I stilled and opened my eyes. We both paused for a long moment.

“Yeah,” I finally admitted, swallowing hard again. “I do.”

“Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Unequivocally?”

“Unimaginably.”

He stroked my hair away from my face and nodded. “I love you too, Claire Landon,” he declared with conviction. “Beyond the depths of my soul, I truly do.”

“Really?”

“Have I ever lied?”

“No.”

“Then there you go.”

I felt warm everywhere. This was by far the best moment of my life.

He captured my lips with his and kissed me softly and slowly. No tongue action, no hastiness for more. Just light brushing of the lips, feeling them move and press against my own. I sighed contentedly against him, before he moved away and dropped down next to me. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me over top of him.

Those long hands roved up and down my back, his finger in particular inching over my spine. It tingled under his touch. Oh, I liked this intimacy. This slow, no worded dance of the lips and hands. I rested my breasts against his chest and they ached at the contact.

He flicked his tongue against my mouth, and my body heated immediately. Something about his tongue drove me wild. It made our kiss transition immediately into something more. His eagerness bellowed out of him, until it was teeth and tongue and licks.

“Put my cock inside you,” he demanded.

I sat up and gripped his length in my hand. I pumped him twice before I situated myself over him. I slowly took his tip to me and sank down. We both moaned at the same time as I took him all the way inside. I was all feeling now, my eyes glazed over, my body moving slowly with no particular rhythm. He gripped my hip tightly with one hand and helped me along. Thrusting in, thrusting out. He breathed hard, trying not to take over as his other hand drifted up my body, traveling to my breast, my collarbone, my neck and back down again.

Just like always, he looked at me. Not my body. But into my eyes. Panting heavily in his pool of pleasure, his eyes remained solidly locked to mine.

And it didn’t ever feel like an invasion. It felt good and right. I stared back into the warmth of his beautiful grey irises and moved at my own pace, quietly breathing and quietly groaning.

“Perfect,” he whispered as he drove himself into me, losing every ounce of control as we neared the end. “Take me all the way in.”

I savoured the times we made love. He never went too hard, and I never raced to have my needs met selfishly. This was real sex. This was a real connection. This wasn’t banshee screaming, over-the-top fucking.

Everything about this was real.

Chapter Eighteen

Because this concerns your life

It was mid-morning when Ben left to the airport. I offered to drop him off, but he adamantly refused, insisting on taking a random taxi. I always wondered why, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

I thought about it a lot on the way home, but I kept drawing blanks. Just like the damn phone thing. I’d tried cornering him about it once, saying if there was an emergency, I needed a phone to contact him on. He ended up giving me a number, but it was to his home phone.

Who the hell still used home phones these days?

But it was a small victory, so I couldn’t really be that upset. Plus I was still on cloud nine since he’d told me he loved me. Nothing seemed to matter as much as that. Someone loved me, and he wasn’t just anyone, he was my dream man. It was surreal.

Just as I neared the main road that connected to my residential street, sirens erupted. I looked at my rear view, shocked to find a police car right at my bumper signalling for me to pull over. What the hell?            

I parked on the emergency lane and turned the car off. The police officer stepped out of his car and walked over. He tapped on the window and I wound it down.

“Have I done something wrong?” I asked cautiously.

“Do you know how fast you were going over the speed limit, Miss?” he sternly replied.

My brows came together. “I wasn’t speeding, officer.”

“You were speeding,” he adamantly stressed. “Ten kilometres over the limit.”

Bullshit! “Seriously, sir, I was not speeding –”

“Licence and registration, Miss.”

Dickhead.

I took out my licence and registration form and passed them to him. I tried my hardest not to give him a stink eye and run him over five times. This was bullshit. Was he drunk? Or was he in the mood to abuse his power today?

He turned around and ambled back to his car. I waited for some time before he came back over and said, “Miss Landon, I’m going to ask that you step out of the car and come with me, please.”

I gaped at him. “What?”

As though I was mentally inept, he said it slower. “Step out of the car and come with me, Miss Landon.”

“May I ask why?”

“The police want to have a word with you.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to find out.”

Feeling slightly panicked, I stepped out of the car. “You’re not going to cuff me or anything, are you?” I asked him.

He looked irritably at me. “Just come with me.”

I followed him to the car and sat in the back like a damn criminal. If anyone was around, I’d have been humiliated.

“What about my car?” I said as he drove past it.

“It’ll be there when you’re done,” he replied.

Yeah, but would it be in one piece? The amount of times I’d seen cars on the side of the road that were graffiti-ridden with windows smashed gave me more than enough cause for concern.