Burning For Claire (The O'Connell Family Book 2) (13 page)

“Ah, yeaaahhhh…” she moaned.

I pumped into her while the water ran against my back. We stared into each other’s eyes and I whispered, “I Love you, Claire.”

She came from my words and cried out, “I love you too, Travis.”

I only gave her two more strokes before I flooded her pussy with my seed. I pulled back and set her down before I started washing myself again. I didn’t look at her again because I’d pin her back on the wall and go for another round. After sex Claire was a sexy sight. Her face was flushed and had a dewy glow, her lips were swollen and her breath was harsh, which caused her breasts to rise and fall.

“Wash up, babe. I ‘m going to go get dressed before I take your sexy ass again,” I groaned out while I stepped out of the shower, managing not to look at her.

“Please go. I want to be able to walk downstairs,” she ordered before tossing a washcloth at me. I let the cool air hit me as I slowly dried off. It had the effect I’d hoped for. My cock calmed down, and I was able to walk to the bedroom to get dressed.

Claire came out of the shower like a bat out of hell. “What’s the matter?” I asked nervously.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she whispered with a blush and her heart pounding.

“Babe, you practically ran out of there. Did you see a spider or something?”

“No…I scared myself.”

“What?!”

“I gave myself the heebie jeebies,” she woefully admitted.

“What?” I asked as I tried to bite my lip from laughing.

“Stupid scary movies. I closed the medicine cabinet and creeped myself out by a shadow of a towel.”

“It’s okay, I’ll protect you. Should I check the closet too?” I said with a straight face, but the offended look on her face was too much. I started laughing hysterically.

She took the towel off her head, tossed it at me and huffed her way to the closet. “All clear, jackass!” she shouted as she entered the walk-in.

I crept up to her and lightly brushed her shoulders. She jumped up and dropped her clothes and towel.

“Asshole!” she shouted as she started smacking me. I caught her hands and pulled her to me.

“I’m sorry, baby. I couldn’t resist. I’ll behave,” I said in contrition. 

“Don’t do that again.” She pouted and decided to tease me too—in a whole different way. She slowly bent over provocatively and placed one leg on the vanity seat as she dried off. She gave me a view of her curves and her slender waist.  Then she looked at me through the mirror with a suggestively naughty gaze.

I was about to go after her when she popped up and rushed back into the bathroom, locked the door and got dressed in there.

“That was not fair,” I shouted through the door.

“Who’s laughing now?”

“Fucking tease,” I grumbled at the bathroom door.

“Love you too,” she sung through the door.

I waited for another ten minutes for my pixie. As a stylist, she was thankfully fast when it came to getting ready. This time she came out with an apologetic smile.

I looked at her and summoned her to me. “Come here, baby.”

“You still love me?” she said as she stood in front of me.

“Always, but you’re still a damn tease, even when you don’t mean to be.” I kissed her hard and rubbed her ass before walking out the bedroom door. I heard her grumble, “Tease,” before she joined me in the hall.

They were not back yet when we finally made our way downstairs. Mrs. O’Connell was sitting on the sofa looking at napkin choices with monogram options. Claire ran up to her mother and showed her mom the ring. They both did the girly jump up and squeal thing as I watched and laughed.

The guys and Sam walked in at that moment. “I’m glad someone’s got a reason to smile. Do you ladies want to share?” her father asked curiously. Claire showed him the ring and he gave her a big bear hug. “Before we have dinner, Travis come into my study for a minute.”

I followed him in and of course Ethan followed too, but that’s fine because I had something to tell that little boy.

“First, I want to say congratulations on getting an amazing woman. We love her and you’ve proven you do too, so welcome to the family.” He actually gave me a hug. I was shocked but hugged my father-in-law anyways.

“What no love from you, Ethan?” I teased as I held my arms open.

“No, you’re not the Williams I want to hug,” Ethan remarked.

“Yeah, and that’s something we need to talk about. My father already told me about it this morning,” I snarled.

“What’s there to talk about?” Ethan acted like there was nothing going on.

“You’re right we don’t need to talk. You need to just listen. You need to stay away from my sister unless you plan to put a rock on her finger.”

“What if I just want to get to know her? You don’t have to marry a woman just because you screw them.” His cavalier attitude was pissing me off.

“You are not screwing my sister,” I hissed.

“No, I’m not screwing your sister—yet. I just want to get to know her. She’s cute and there is something about her I like, but I’m not you or Rick. I’m not ready to ask a woman who I just met to marry me.”

“She a good girl who just had her heart broken last year. I don’t want to see her go through that again. She was a real mess.”

“Someone broke her heart?” Ethan growled.

I wanted to laugh because for someone who said he wasn’t interested seemed a little pissed about her pain.

“Just don’t do anything to hurt her or else,” I threatened him, and he got the message.

“I know, and I won’t. She’s going to be a part of Claire’s family, so I won’t even make a move unless I want a real relationship with her. But as of right now, I don’t even know her.”

I relented. “Fine, I can give you that.”

“Now, boys enough with the fight over sisters. Let’s go eat some dinner because I’m starving.” Her father opened the door and walked out. We complied, but we still glared at each other on and off throughout the night.

The next morning I headed into the office to deal with the paperwork and other bullshit before going to Chicago. Anderson, Eli and Kline were waiting me to talk to Kennedy.

“Officer McKnight and Reynolds are waiting for us. You don’t have jurisdiction in this matter, and you’re actually a victim in the case, but I was able to pull some strings. They’re willing to let you watch the interrogation,” Eli informed me.

Being unreasonable, I demanded, “I want to question them myself.”

“No can do, and you know damn well why. You could compromise the case if you get involved. We shouldn’t have even let you search the property with us.”

“I know, but I want to knock the bastard out and choke those broads.”

We gathered up more evidence at the station and drove into the city to have a chat with the suspects. I had everything I needed as far as I was concerned to nail their asses, but I wanted more. I wanted a confession. None of them were going to get away with trying to kill my woman. I wouldn’t be able to question them, but Eli could. Since he was family I knew he would get the confession. He wouldn’t let them slip out of his grasp.

I looked through the mirror and saw the first up for questioning—Jane King. I wanted to knock that smug look off her face. Kline stayed in the room with me since he was still learning. We didn’t want any mistakes made.

Eli started the questioning while Anderson leaned against the wall. “Miss King, do you know why we’ve brought you in here?”

“No,” she responded with a bitchy tone.

“You were an employee of Miss O’Connell, were you not?” Anderson asked.

“Yeah, so what’s your point?” Her attitude wasn’t looking to be cooperative and was extremely telling.

“So you know that the salon was burnt to the ground then, don’t you?” Anderson continued.

“Yeah, so?” Her callousness pissed me off. My fists were clenched so hard my knuckles were white, and my fingers dug into my palms.

“Don’t you care that you’re out of a job or that your boss and supposed friend had almost died?”

“Well, she didn’t die...did she?”               She crossed her arms and sat back against the chair.

“Did you have anything to do with embezzling over forty thousand dollars from the salon?” Eli asked.

She huffed and uncrossed and crossed her arms again. Jane gave them a shrug and said, “I’m not saying anything until you get me a lawyer.”

“Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it, I’m sure one of the others will to turn on you.”

“Those bitches better keep their mouths closed.” I smiled as I heard her slip and say that they actually had something to hide, whatever it was.

“Well, you just sit tight while we get an attorney for you. And just so you know we have all the evidence we need to nail you for the fire. I was just giving you a chance to save your ass.” Eli said with a smile as he walked out of the room. He walked back around to us behind the glass.

“Way to go, she looks worried as fuck right now,” I said as they came back into the room.

“She should be. We really don’t need a confession; it just would be nice to have one,” Eli replied confidently.

Looking at the video screen, I could see Rita sitting straight up with her leg shaking. I’d bet she’d be the one to crack. “Well, are you going to go for Rita next?”

Eli nodded and added, “Yes, I’m sure she’ll be the weak link. The other one is so strung out that even if we got a confession from him it would probably be thrown out or a just detriment to the case.” We all looked at the screen again, and it was clear she was nervously shaking.

“Excuse me, I think she’s had enough time to dwell on it. Let me start the questioning.”

Anderson and Eli left us to watch the monitor and walked into the other interrogation room. Eli walked in like a hard ass and got right in her face.

“Miss Lowry, I’m going to get straight to the point. I know you and your two buddies embezzled over forty thousand dollars from Miss O’Connell and blew up the salon. I’m going to make sure you three get the max sentence possible. You see, there was a federal agent in the building at the time. He could have been killed if it wasn’t for his quick thinking. That’s some really heavy charges: attempted murder and arson to cover up embezzlement. You’ll be going away for about twenty-five to life. So…is there anything you want to tell me?”

“Um…I...” Rita played with her fingers as the reality of her situation hit home.

Eli got up to make like he was going to leave, but just as he reached the door handle he turned and gave her a warning. “You know the first one to turn gets the deal. The rest get the max. It’s your choice,” Eli said with a blasé tone.

“We did it!” she cried out. Her tears poured as she started to confess. “We met Everett when he started dating Claire. He was really hot and that made Jane jealous. She wanted him from the start, but he didn’t want her. He wanted Claire, well Claire’s money and connections. After Claire dumped him she still gave him money, but when she refused to come back to him, he became angry. He came to Jane with a plan to rob the salon. She was all for it because he gave her what she wanted—him. She pulled me in when we were doing the books. I wanted to make some easy cash. Claire’s wealthy she didn’t really need it, anyway.”

I nearly lost my mind when I realized that strung out bastard was an ex of my fiancé. The people in the room knew that I was dating Claire, and they were looking at me with pity.