A Perfect Love (21 page)

Hand in hand, we went back to our office space. Once inside, Liam locked the door behind him and his lips made contact with mine. With our lips gliding against the other’s, heat unfurled in my tummy and pushed to my sex. It was only the previous night when Liam managed to make me scream more than once. Apparently, his hot gift had reawakened my own desires, which had lain dormant for the last few weeks.

Breaking away, I unbuttoned his shirt, my hands roaming over his cut muscles and ink. Fingers wrapped around two of his belt loops, I tugged him toward the meeting room which held a leather sofa. When we were in front of it, I kissed his chest, hoping my lips seared heat across his skin like I knew his did to mine, while all the time I worked at unbuttoning his jeans. As soon as I was able, I shrugged down his jeans and instructed him to sit. My stomach, while growing nicely, was not too huge to ensure I could sit on his lap facing him. It also meant my sensitive breasts could see some action. They ached for his touch and his mouth.

Shucking his jeans off completely, he stood in his naked glory, his penis bobbing in hello. I stroked his length gently before he sat and I proceeded to strip. I wasn’t offering a strip show. For one, my agility was long damn gone, and for another, I just wanted to get my bloody clothes off, as I had an itch, which needed to be scratched. Being sexy, which on the rare occasion I brought into the bedroom, was not a priority. I went for heat and passion any day rather than looking like an idiot feigning sexy.

With eagerness, Liam helped me onto his lap. In an impressive level of swiftness, I managed to hook my legs around his thighs and impale myself over his hard length. A content sigh escaped our lips in sync and we both grinned at each other, passion and love reflected in our eyes. Rising and lowering my hips steadily, it didn’t take long before I was whimpering on the precipice of exploding and falling over the edge with a scream caught in my throat.

Ignoring the office phone and both our mobiles, Liam grunted in release a short moment after my own. I was thankful he was able to hold off. Liam had moments, like most men I was sure, of coming before I reached my own orgasm. In such cases, he always apologised around a cheeky smirk, blaming my hotness as his inability to hold back. But that time, my va-jay-jay was content and pulsating happily around him.

Kissing him once more before I detangled myself and went searching for tissues, Liam’s phone rang once more. I sighed. “Okay, no more ignoring the phone I suppose.” With strong hands, Liam assisted me off his lap. He then reached to his jeans and pulled out his phone.

“Mace?” he answered.

I swiped some tissues off the side unit in the room, wiped myself down and dressed. Heading to the bathroom, I disposed of the tissue before making my way back to Liam.

Liam was dressed and standing feet apart, one arm folded against his chest, the other raised with his phone to his ear. I watched him closely.

“You’re kidding?” His eyes flicked to mine. “Damn, so what shall we do?”

I walked toward him and stood by Liam’s side. His hand reached out to me and settled on my back, where he rubbed small circles. His movement was soft and reassuring, immediately putting me on alert. It was clear he was needing the comfort himself. I expected him to explode in expletives at any moment unless he absorbed the comfort he needed. With that in mind, I leaned against him, snuggling against his chest. One of my arms pressed against his back, my fingers latching on to his shirt.

“Okay,” he continued. He nodded, despite being on the phone. “Yeah. We’ll actually head home.” There were a few beats as he listened intently to Mace. “Sure thing… Okay, that makes sense… Will do. I’ll talk to you in a few.”

Switching off the phone, I waited for him to speak. Immediately, thoughts of David popped into my head. Maybe the police had found him. Heart racing at the thought, I tilted my head to look at Liam. Glancing down at me, a small smile lifted his lips. His warmth was genuine; the smile was not.

“Come on. We’re out of here.”

I stilled, my body grounding itself in defiance. While Liam thought he could play Captain Caveman with me, this was not one of those times. I’d be threatening him with those damn nipple clamps again if I had to. It was rare I made an idle threat; he knew this.

He sighed, no doubt feeling my body turn tense. “I promise, as soon as we’re in the car, I’ll tell you what Mace said. Okay?”

I harrumphed. “Fine. But no edited version, okay?

He kissed me lightly on the lips and nodded in agreement. “Fine. Get what you need.”

“What do you mean? You drove.”

“I mean any work you may need to do over the next couple of days. Anything you can’t access online.”

Squinting my eyes at him, he returned his own unwavering stare.

“Fine, but as soon as we’re in the bloody car, you talk. Got it?”

“Got it.” He smiled.

Chapter Sixteen

Liam

McKenny
.
My ego had stood in my goddamn way. I’d pretty much ignored him and had not seen him for the threat he was. My arrogance at how good Jo and I were meant he’d remained under my radar. While a competitor of sorts, I admittedly hadn’t really seen him as that. He was well established, and catered to a different clientele than us. Jo and I never had any grand schemes to poach his clients, and had actually refused to work with a couple because of their previous work with him. This wasn’t due to some sort of honour code either, admittedly. Simply, what the client was after wasn’t what we could provide. As such, this
thing
to do with
McKenny
, while it left me somewhat dumbfounded since we simply didn’t understand his animosity, didn’t truly concern me.

That was until I reached out to Mace.

Once Jo was strapped in the car and we headed home, I felt her gaze on mine. Eyes on the road, I began to explain what Mace had shared. “Mace immediately knew who
McKenny
was.”

“What? This is to do with him?” I heard the confusion behind her words.

“Yep. Mace was pissed I’d never mentioned anything before about him. Apparently, he’s into some dodgy shit.”

“What dodgy shit?” Jo interrupted, always impatient.

“Meth, apparently.”

“You’re shitting me? Seriously,
McKenny
Butt-Monkey is a meth-head?”

I shook my head. “No. A dealer, or supplier, or something. I’m still not sure.” The whole thing was beyond bizarre. I didn’t know the full story yet, but Mace’s concern was enough for me to be worried and take him seriously.

“Frick me!” She took a breath, indicating she was about to say more. “So what’s with his business? Is it a front, or whatever they call it? Why hasn’t he been arrested? I don’t understand why any of this matters to us. Surely, Mace can call it in or something. He still has friends in the force, right?”

Her questions were valid. The thing was I had no answers. I didn’t have a goddamn clue what any of this meant or what it had to do with us. On a shrug, I spoke, “No idea what any of it means yet, baby. Mace is doing some digging. He’ll call as soon as he knows anything. In the meantime, he wants us to stick close together and work from home.” The thought alone left dread in my gut. The fact Mace would give such an order, and that was definitely what it was, sent warning bells ringing. I knew without taking my eyes off the road Jo would come to the same conclusion.

It was funny. I half-expected my spitfire to come back in fits of rage and threats, but she’d changed in more ways than one with her pregnancy, as had I. Instead, she remained stoically quiet and still. I risked a glance to look at her face before allowing my gaze to drift back to the road. She was worrying her lip, something I rarely witnessed. Jo was a badass in her own right. I hated she was worried, but there was nothing I could offer in way of reassurance until I spoke to Mace.

Once home, we headed indoors and I consciously locked the door behind me. I had no idea what I was expecting exactly, but I had enough experience in this world to recognise there were a whole heap of scumbags around, and some of them were dangerous.

Unnaturally quiet, Jo was stressing out. While she wasn’t pacing or ranting, her stillness and silence were what concerned me. “I’ll run you a bath, babe. Let’s not panic ‘til we know what’s going on, right?” She was standing at the sink filling the kettle. I came up behind her, circling my arms around her waist, my hands settling on her stomach. I kissed her shoulder and then smirked when I felt our baby move behind my hands.

I never got enough of the feeling. Every wriggle, jump and kick was amazing. Leaning into Jo, she sighed before turning. “A bath would be great.” She shooed me along, prompting me to get her bath started. “And I’m not stressing.”

I blew a laugh out through my nose in disbelief. She knew exactly what I’d been thinking. Immediately a tea towel landed on my head. “Hey!” I laughed, pulling it off and facing her.

“I’m
not
stressing,” she repeated. “I’m just mulling over all the different sorts of ways I can kick McKenny’s arse is all. What a cocksucker! Bloody arsehole dragging us into whatever crap he has going on. I’ll deck the git.”

I headed back toward her. “Okay, babe. While I know you can kick arse, perhaps it’s best not to go causing trouble with the local drug dealer or whatever he is.”

She scoffed. “He needs an arse-whooping. As soon as I pop this bubba out, woe betide the douche if he gets within pummelling distance of me.” She headed back to the counter to finish making a drink.

“Listen, Rocky, Mace is on it now, all right? So there’s no need organising a post-baby Fight Club or anything just yet.” This woman of mine was as terrifying as she was hilarious. At times, pretty much like these, it took all my powers of persuasion to talk her down. While most would think she was joking, I knew for absolute certainty she was not.

I could only imagine what she was like as a teenager, when her hormones had first kicked in. I’d heard the stories, knew she’d been in more than a couple of forays. What was bizarre was neither Preston nor her parents had this crazy streak in them. Obviously, her parents had a bit of the loopy gene, but they had the hippy-mellow kind of crazy, rather than the piss-me-off-and-I’ll-hand-you-your-arse type of crazy.

“Fine,” she grumbled.

Not quite convinced, I brushed my mouth against her eyebrow and spoke softly. “Make sure that ‘fine’ is an honest one, Jo. No playing silly buggers. You understand?”

She nodded and turned her head to accept my kiss.

“Good. Now, finish making your tea and I’ll sort the bath.” I headed to the bathroom and drew her bath, running her sweet-smelling oils under the hot water. I was eager to call Mace to get an update, but I knew there was no point. Mace would be true to his word. As soon as he had anything to report, he’d let me know.

Once Jo relaxed into the bath, I switched on my Mac in the office. Checking my emails, I answered a couple and then went to work on drawing up some papers from my recent client meeting. A knock on the front door startled me out of my work.

Opening the door to Mace, I took a step back and let him in. He looked exhausted. The beginnings of dark circles formed under his eyes from lack of sleep, and he was sporting some pretty heavy facial growth. “Need a beer?”

He nodded. “Yeah, please.”

Grabbing two beers, we headed outside on the back veranda. It was early evening. Jo had long since finished her bath, and I could hear her voice as she spoke on the phone—to Ella, by the sound of their conversation.

“You okay? You look knackered.”

He rubbed a hand over his weary face. “It’s just been a rough couple of days. Your call was the goddamn cherry.”

“Why? What else is going on?”

Taking a pull of his beer, he released a content sigh as the beer hit the spot. “Just a whole bunch of shit. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Mace took in my raised brows. He knew I was on the cusp of pushing for more.

“Seriously, it’s nothing important, which pisses me off even more that stupid shit is eating up my time.” He yawned.

“So you know McKenny? From our call, you indicated you did.”

“You could say that. When I was in the force, I had a couple of run-ins with him. I paid him a visit after we spoke earlier.”

Unease settled in my gut. I pushed it away, knowing if Mace was now involved, I had nothing to worry about. Forever the protector, Mace had joined the police force a little before I started uni. He knew he had a lot of good to give back. After Jo’s rape, while it disillusioned him and cut him in so many ways, there was a whirlwind of crap, which finally pushed him over the edge enough for him to quit. While he had some good friends who were still cops, he ran with a much tougher group now. There was nothing illegal they did, or that I was aware of, but the group of guys he knew had reputations for being mean bastards. Unsurprisingly, Mace fit right in with them.

“So, what happened?”

He shook his head, brows creased in frustration. “I’m still digging. It seemed like he was expecting me, though, which pissed me off. All I know at this point is that whatever crap he’s pulling with our business has to do with me.”