Inked Magic (6 page)

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They’ll be lovers by morning
, Eamon thought, discovering he didn’t like the idea of his consort giving herself to Cathal first. Afterward, maybe, if he still found the idea of sharing her with another man arousing and the magic required it.

He decided to summon Rhys and arrange for an interruption directing Cathal’s attention elsewhere. But before he could call his second to him, Etaín’s hand went to her pocket and emerged with a phone. Her expression and body language changed abruptly. Heated desire and flirtation disappearing so completely Eamon felt certain there would be no need to find a means of separating her from Cathal.

I
’ve got to take this,” Etaín said, dread making her stomach roil in anticipation of the nausea that would soon come. There was only one reason her brother called.

She put the phone to her ear without bothering with a greeting. Parker asked, “Where are you?”

“Aesirs.”

The answer derailed him—introducing a pause that if their relationship had been different might have led to a quick question about who she was with or how she came to be there. And then he plowed ahead. “I need your help. I’ll pick you up.”

“I’d rather take the bike.”

Another pause, this one followed by a brisk, “Suit yourself. I’m on my way to SF General now. I’ll meet you there.”

He ended the connection before she’d pulled the phone away from her ear.

“Trouble?” Cathal asked.

She shrugged, turning away from the tranquility of the koi in their endless circle of water. She’d need someone later tonight, with a vengeance, but she could hardly ask,
Can I come by for sex sometime before dawn?
She said instead, “Thanks for dinner and the offer to help the shelter. I need to head to an appointment.”

He leaned in, touching his lips to hers, one hand caressing her side while the other remained a hot brand at the base of her spine. “I want to see you again. I want more time with you.”

Etaín let the call, and the reality it represented, fade for just a moment, replaced by coiling heat and the desire to press all of her skin against Cathal’s. A dark current ran through him, something beneath his surface, mingling with the lust he didn’t bother to hide. When she touched him, she sensed it, and yet she couldn’t make herself care. “I’d like to see you, too.”

“Tonight?” His hand moved higher, stopping inches away from her breast and making it ache for his touch. “Come to Saoirse?”

“Does your earlier warning still apply? Step foot in your club and all bets are off?”

He kissed his way to her ear. “Wear a short skirt and you won’t make it past the first table before you find yourself sitting on the edge of it with me between your thighs.”

“Tempting.” But as much as she needed this exchange with him, to use later as a reminder life could be good, guilt would come if she lingered, playing when she should be elsewhere. “I need to go.”

Cathal stepped away so Etaín was no longer trapped against the decorative railing of the bridge. It was harder than it should have been to allow her to escape.

“I’ll walk you back to the shop,” he said, and they moved into the main seating area, retracing their earlier steps to the maître d’ stand and entrance. He saw no point in pretending he hadn’t heard her end of the conversation. “Should I be worried whoever you’re going to meet is competition?”
In addition to Eamon?

“No.” There was a brief hesitation. “That was my brother.”

He took the hint in her voice and didn’t ask her to elaborate, though he wondered if her brother was a cop, and the appointment to draw the face of a criminal. “What kind of bike?”

“A Harley.”

“Take me for a ride someday?”

She cut him a look, temptress and tease. “Can you really cede that much control to a woman?”

“For you, yes.”

The small, very feminine smile said she was pleased by the answer, and whatever images his question had created in her mind.

As they passed the tattoo shop, Etaín waved at her coworkers on the other side of the glass. The heavily tattooed and pierced man Cathal now knew was Bryce lifted his hand to the side of his face in a “call me” gesture.

“Maybe you should fix your friend Derrick up with Eamon,” Cathal said, the thought spoken without conscious intention.

Etaín turned her head to look at him. “Wishful thinking? Or did you pick up on a vibe I didn’t, because Eamon definitely didn’t register as someone who goes both ways to me.”

Jealousy stabbed through Cathal with the recognition he didn’t like her thinking about the other man, much less contemplating his sexuality. He let the subject drop.

She indicated a turn and they rounded the corner. A dark blue Harley was parked up ahead.

They reached it sooner than he wanted. He pulled his phone out. “Give me your number.”

She did, asking for his in return and keying it in before sliding the phone into her jacket pocket.

Unable to let her go with just a goodbye, he trapped her against the bike, this time holding her flush against the hard evidence of a desire that showed no sign of abating.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. Pressed her breasts to his chest and made a small sound of approval as his mouth
lowered.

He couldn’t shake the threat Eamon represented. “You don’t have to go elsewhere for this. Especially not to Aesirs.”
To
him
.

“I know,” she said, not
I won’t
, the answer tease and torment alike, frustration and challenge.

Jealousy seared him again, burning hotter when the touch of his lips to hers sent a jolt straight to his cock. Regardless of the reasons for introducing himself to her, he wanted her more than he could remember wanting any other woman.

A hard thrust and his tongue breached the seam of her lips. She shivered in his arms, tightening her own around his neck and grinding her pelvis to his, making him ache.

Desire coursed through his system like a drug, an addictive high that began and ended with her. In broad daylight there’d be no relief,
but that didn’t keep him from imagining it, from fantasizing about freeing his cock and forcing her hand to it, her mouth.

His tongue twined with hers. Tangled in sensual embrace as he gave in to temptation, need, tormenting them both by cupping her breast and rubbing his thumb over the taut nipple.

She moaned again, clung. And he liked that he could make her do both. Pressed for more by saying, “Come to the club tonight.”

“My brother needs me to do something for him. I doubt I’ll be finished before you close.”

Tension returned to her body, mental retreat and a silence that said
no trespassing
.

He hated it, and not just because he needed her open and willing to help his family. The impulse to tell her to call him, regardless of the hour, was strong. He suppressed it, refusing to lose control of the situation any more than he already had.

“Maybe tomorrow then,” he said, giving her a brief kiss before stepping back, affecting a casualness he didn’t feel, not with his body raging, not when there was a possibility his uncle would become impatient and act without regard for the consequences.

“Thanks for dinner and the offer to help with the fund-raiser.”

“Let me know what you want, a DJ or live music.”

She unlocked her helmet. “Will do.”

He told himself to turn and walk away from her. But couldn’t. There was something mesmerizing about watching her straddle the bike. Lithe power and feminine lines. Sensual control and inherent wildness. He could easily imagine her above him, guiding his cock to her opening and riding him.

The Harley roared to life. Throbbing thunder and purring beat to accompany the images cascading through his mind.

A glance in his direction, a four-fingered wave and she pulled into the street.

Cathal cursed at having lost his focus. He memorized the license plate number and speed-dialed Sean, glad he paid good money to get
a heads-up any time the Feds went fishing on the off chance he’d gotten involved in his father’s business.

The private investigator answered and Cathal rattled off the number along with a description of the bike.

“Got it,” Sean said. “Now who rides the Harley and what am I supposed to do with this information?”

“The woman’s name is Etaín. She works at Stylin’ Ink. I want to know everything about her. Where she goes. What she does. Whether she’s seeing anyone. Who her family is.” He hesitated, finally embellishing on the last because he didn’t want to alienate Sean. “She may be related to a cop.”

“Am I looking for dirt?”

Cathal felt a twist in his gut. “Leverage.”

Silence stretched between. Heavy. Considering.

Sean ended it by asking, “This have something to do with what happened to your cousin Brianna and her friend?”

Cathal’s fingers tightened on the phone. Too late he realized he should have waited a day before making the call. At their first meeting Sean had told him he liked to know who he was working for, and since then more than once Cathal had witnessed a hunch of Sean’s paying off.

It didn’t stop him from bluffing. “Why would you think that?”

A sigh followed. Soft enough not to get the testosterone pumping, but clear enough to convey,
Are you serious? Give me a break here.

“Two and two usually equals four,” Sean said. “And at the risk of putting myself in harm’s way to prove it, how’s this?

“A kid was buried today. Brianna’s friend, and the same one she was with when paramedics were called out to the scene of a drug overdose. I assume the other members of your family were also at the funeral, including your uncle. And now you’re trying to send me out on what sounds like personal business involving a woman who may have ties to the authorities, instead of the music business—knowing that despite parting company with the force, when it comes to the
Dunnes, you’re the only one I’ll work for. How am I doing so far? Am I closing in on four?”

Cathal was tempted to say,
Forget I called
. He could do without Sean’s help. But Sean was an ace in the hole, a card he could play if his father and uncle decided to send men to learn more about Etaín. “You’re closing in on four.”

“Okay. Straight-up, Cathal. No bullshit. No dodging. Truth, but only as much of it as I need to know to decide if I can take this job on. How does this involve Brianna?”

“She was drugged and gang-raped. So was her friend Caitlyn.”

“You’re positive about this? She wouldn’t be the first kid to experiment and get in over her head then claim she was an innocent victim when things went bad.”

“I’m positive. Or I wouldn’t be making this call.”

Sean exhaled loudly, hoping for a different answer and not getting one. Having to wrestle with his conscience just as Cathal had struggled with his. A fight he had a feeling was going to get worse the more time he spent with Etaín.

“You think this woman was somehow involved?”

“No. But I think she might be able to shed some light on the situation. I’d like to keep her as far away from my father and uncle as I can.”

Silence. Once again heavy and considering. Then finally, “I’ll see what I can find out about her. No promises you’ll get the leverage you’re looking for.”

Cathal mentally shrugged. Anything Sean found was a bonus now that he’d met Etaín. Getting her in bed had become the priority.

“That’s fine. You’ll bill me regardless.”

“Damn right. I’ll give you an update later tonight.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

E
taín pulled into the hospital parking lot. Parker was waiting for her, wearing casual clothes to disguise against being made as a Fed. With blond hair touching his shirt collar, he might have pulled it off except for the stranger standing next to him. Everything about him screamed FBI agent, and a cute one at that.

She parked and swung off the bike, freeing the sketch pad and box of pencils bungeed onto the back of the saddle for quick access. She wouldn’t need either, but they masked the truth of how she was able to produce images from a victim’s memory.

As she walked toward the men, she amused herself by imagining her gaydar would soon start pinging, and in the course of getting to whatever room they were going to, she’d discover her brother’s companion had a thing for tattoo artists given to spells of being in drag.

“You won’t need the drawing supplies,” Parker said by way of greeting, holding out his hand. “I’ll carry them for you.”

Uneasiness settled in Etaín. Her earlier years with her mother had been a lesson on remaining uninvolved in the lives of other people, of never staying in one place long enough to become comfortable, and therefore careless.

She’d rejected those lessons, but that didn’t mean she wanted knowledge of her gift to spread. Even Derrick and Jamaal and Bryce didn’t know about this aspect of it.

A cautioning glance at the second agent got her an introduction. “This is Trent. He’s with the Bureau. Both of us are on the same case. He knows how you work with victims.”

Her unease deepened, edging into familiar anger at Parker. Trent nodded but didn’t offer to shake her hand. Didn’t say, “Thanks for coming.” Instead he said, “She fits the profile.”