Seeking Vengeance: Callaghan Brothers, Book 4 (17 page)

“Keep looking at him like that and I’m going to get jealous,” Sean warned seductively in her ear, reminding her of exactly who was going to be fucking her very soon by pressing his iron-like manhood against her hip.

Nicki broke free of her fascination.  “Nice to meet you, Shane,” she said, feeling slightly embarrassed.

Shane smiled easily.  Under different circumstances, Nicki could see herself liking him.  “You, too, Nicki.”  He shot Sean a knowing glance.  “Go on, I got this.”

“Thanks, bro,” Sean said, already tugging Nicki toward the door.

T
he minute Sean had her over the threshold he slammed the door shut and pressed her up against it.  Within seconds he was on his knees and she was naked from the waist down, hands tangled in his black, silky hair.  He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and devoured her, burying his face in her sex.  His hands explored, caressed, pinched and massaged.

Nicki felt like she was caught in a maelstrom – dizzy and weightless and completely at the mercy of a true force of nature.  There was no fighting it; she held onto him and let herself get swept away.  Sean brought her to climax twice before he relented, scooping Nicki up and carrying her limp form to the bedroom.

The bed was so soft; it felt heavenly beneath her sensitized body.  Worn out from the two powerful, successive orgasms, she melted into the mattress and the coolness of the smooth cotton sheets. 

Through slitted eyes, she saw Sean grinning smugly as he methodically removed the rest of her clothing.  She offered no resistance whatsoever when that skilled, talented mouth played with the parts he exposed.

He moved away only long enough to remove his own clothing, then straddled her hips.  The hairs on his corded, muscular thighs tickled and teased her bare skin; the heavy weight of his erection pulsed against her lower belly while he pinched and plumped her breasts to attention.  Nicki closed her eyes again, reveling in all of it.

At least until she felt the silk wrapping around her wrists.  Instantly alert, Nicki’s eyes flew open.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, her post-orgasmic lassitude evaporating quickly as she struggled.  Sean moved quickly and efficiently, thwarting every one of her attempts to free herself.  Apparently he’d had some training, too.

“I’m going to fuck you, Nicki,” he told her huskily.  The pure heat in his glowing blue eyes made her squirm.  No man had ever looked at her like that before – like he worshipped her.  “I’ve made you come once by my hand and twice by my mouth.  Guess how many times I’m going to make you come with my cock, baby?”

“Three?”  She tried to sound sarcastic, but her voice came out far too needy to be believable.

“That’s right, baby.  A fucking trifecta.  And then, if you’re a good girl, I might let you rest a little before I do it all over again.”

Sean was nothing if not true to his word.  He was an insatiable, tireless lover.  For as demanding as he was, he was also a very considerate lover.  Even with all of the passion, he never once hurt her, and for every release he allowed himself, he gave her three.

Only hours later, when she convinced him that he could not possibly wring another orgasm out of her without rest and food, did Sean finally curl himself around her, and tuck her tightly up against his body and close his eyes, allowing her to sleep.

––––––––

“W
here do you think you’re going?” Sean asked sleepily, reaching out and pulling her back to him without bothering to open an eye.

“To the bathroom,” she said, yawning for effect.  She was really tired, but this might be her best chance to slip away quietly. 

“Fine.  I’ll give you five minutes.  And don’t even think about trying to sneak out.  I’ve got the doors and windows wired.”

Son of a bitch
, Nicki thought a few minutes later.  He really did have every possible exit wired.  She set herself gingerly down on the commode with her head in her hands and sighed.

It looked like she wouldn’t be leaving just yet.  In a way, it was a relief.  She was too damn tired and too well sated to put any significant effort into anything besides crawling back into the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in and snuggling up to the only man to whom she had willingly surrendered. 

It wouldn’t last, of course.  She could never allow that.  But for right now, she simply couldn’t summon the energy or the will to do anything about it.

“I missed you,” Sean murmured quietly when she slipped back into bed.  His arm wrapped around her as she nestled her back against his front.  Her only response was a soft, contented sigh.

* * *

“W
hat the hell are you doing here?” Nick demanded when he finally emerged from his bedroom nearly eight hours later and looking like someone cleaned a public restroom with his face.  “Where’s my sister?”

Shane looked calmly over the screen of his laptop and sipped his coffee.  He’d seen Nick Milligan before, but doubted he would have recognized him in this condition.

“Nicki’s fine.  You, however, are a different story.  Grab a shower – you
reek
, man - and take a cup of coffee with you.  Then we’ll talk.”

Nick narrowed his eyes, or at least tried to.  They were barely more than slits, so the attempt had little effect.  “She at your place?”

“She’s back at the apartment over the garage,” Shane said carefully, knowing that Nick thought he was speaking to Sean.

“She’s safe there?”  Nick asked.

“No place safer,” Shane said truthfully.  He’d seen the look in his twin’s eyes, and knew that nothing would ever hurt Nicki as long as Sean drew breath.  At least as long as she didn’t do something stupid, as all the Callaghan mates seemed prone to do at this stage.

Nick nodded, satisfied, and poured himself a cup of coffee before heading toward the bathroom.

Nick was still moving slowly when he re-emerged, but looked a damn sight better than he had earlier.  Showered and shaved, with a clean pair of jeans and a concert T.  Shane was waiting for him in the little kitchenette. 

“Feeling better?”

“I’ve been worse,” Nick answered, pouring another cup of coffee and grabbing one of the donuts from the box on the counter.  “I just wish Nicki hadn’t had to see that.  Fuck, I hate the look she gets in her eyes, like someone cut out her heart or something.”

“She loves you.”

“Yeah,” Nick snorted.  “She always has.  You’d think she would have wised up by now.  She’s too soft.  I keep telling her that, you know, but she doesn’t listen.” 

At Shane’s raised eyebrow, he added, “Oh, I know she comes off all hard-ass and shit, but she’s not.  No matter how many times I mess up, she’s always there for me.”  He exhaled, the look on his face one of pain.  “I can’t say the same.”

“Why weren’t you there?” Shane asked in that quiet way he had.  “At the funeral?  Why’d you make her go through that alone?” Shane, like all of Sean’s other brothers who’d been at the Pub earlier, knew about what had happened.  And because Sean claimed her as his, she automatically became part of the family as well.

Nick’s expression hardened, then dissolved.  “I wanted to be.  I really did.  But – shit – I don’t know.  I just couldn’t bring myself to pretend like I’m sorry the old whore is dead, and I knew that would hurt her.”

“She was your mother,” Shane said, a trace of anger in his voice, unable to completely hide the shock of a son speaking of his mother that way. 

“Don’t kid yourself,” Nick spat with a snarl.  “She gave birth to us, but she was no mother.  What kind of mother beats her children?  Forces them to steal?  Sells them, for Christ’s sake?”

“She tried to
sell
you?”

“Not tried to. 
Did
.  And not me.  I brought in too much money.  She needed me to feed her drug habit.”

Nick was watching him closely, gauging his reaction, and Shane couldn’t completely hide his revulsion that little bombshell elicited.

“Ah, Nicki didn’t tell you that, huh?  Guess I’m not surprised.  She doesn’t like to talk about it, not even with me.”

“How old was she?”

There was a brief but brilliant flash of anger through Nick’s expression before it drained away.  “Fourteen.”

“Jesus Christ.”  Ian’s research had her disappearing at sixteen.  She’d been someone’s property for two years?

Nick laughed bitterly.  “Yeah, he was no help.”

Since Nick seemed to be in a talkative mood, Shane thought he might be willing to discuss other things, too.  “Tell me about Brian.”

Nick tensed.  “She told you about Brian?”  Shane neither confirmed nor denied it, just continued to look at Nick with expectant eyes.  “Yeah, guess she must have,” Nick mumbled more to himself than Shane.  “How else would you know...”

“Tell me,” Shane prompted when another minute passed and Nick still said nothing.

Nick dropped heavily down into a chair.  “Brian was different from the rest of them.  He liked Nicki – I mean really liked her.  Brian was a runner, like me, and for that reason alone, she wouldn’t have anything to do with him.  But he was persistent.  Couldn’t stand what Benny was doing to her.”

“Benny?”  Shane interrupted. 

Nick’s face twisted in disgust.  “Benny Marscone.  The pimp drug dealer our dear mother sold Nicki to in exchange for drugs and a nicer list of clients.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar; Shane knew he had heard it before.  He tucked it away for later reflection.  “Go on.”

“Brian came up with a plan to escape, to get her away from Benny.  They started meeting together in secret.  The day Nicki turned sixteen, they snuck off and got married.  Brian thought if he could get her over the state line, they’d be alright.”

Shane’s brows drew together.  “Wouldn’t they need parental consent forms?”

“Nicki did.  Brian was already eighteen by then.  But hell, man, getting around something like that is child’s play for those of us in the system long enough.”

Shane nodded, indicating that Nick should continue.  “Well, Benny had already begun to suspect she was doing something behind his back, so he had them followed.  Anyway, Benny’s guy called it in, and when they got back to Brian’s place, Benny was waiting.”  Nick’s voice grew quiet.  “Nicki never told me exactly what happened, but I heard about it on the streets.  It was brutal.” 

Shane didn’t ask him to elaborate.  Ian already uncovered the fact that Brian had been shot execution-style, and Nicki had been taken away in an ambulance.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more detail than that.

“The rest is kind of sketchy.  Like I said, Nicki doesn’t like to talk about it, and I don’t push.  Nicki disappeared that night, but two of Benny’s men showed up dead, and he was found barely alive in a gutter somewhere.  I guess not even Hell wanted that rat bastard.”

“What happened to Nicki?”

Nick shook his head.  “I don’t know, man.  Benny said he’d killed her, but other than a shitload of blood at the scene, there was no evidence.  She just disappeared.  That was it for me, man.  With Nicki gone, I had no reason to stick around.  I blew town.  It was another couple of years before I even knew she was still alive.”

Holy shit, Shane thought, glad that he was hearing this first instead of Sean.  He was going to have to call all of his brothers in on this one, because Sean was going to go ballistic when he found out.

“So where’s she been all this time?”

“How the hell do I know?”

Shane leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.  “You expect me to believe you haven’t been in contact with her all this time,” he said, shaking his head.  “Yank someone else’s chain, Nick.  I’m a twin myself.”

“Yeah, I heard that,” Nick said, narrowing his eyes, looking at Shane more closely.  Shane kept his expression neutral.  It was almost impossible for anyone outside of the immediate family to tell them apart if they didn’t want them to.

“And I didn’t say we weren’t in touch.  I said I don’t know where’s she’s been.”

“She didn’t tell you when she contacted you?”

Nick shook his head.  “No.  She refused to.  But I used to get these calls, you know, with no one on the other end?  And sometimes I’d get these texts with an ICE (in case of emergency) number, the id blocked, but I knew it was her.  I was just so happy she was alive I didn’t question it.”  A sad smile ghosted about his lips.  “And she always sent me something on our birthday.”

They sat in silence while Nick finished off another donut and cup of coffee.  Shane excused himself for a few minutes.  When he came back, he was tucking a small phone back into his pocket.  “Come on, Nick.  We have to get over to Sean’s.”

Nick blinked.  “Sean’s?”

“Yeah,” Shane said with a smile.  “My brother’s.”

“R
esistance is futile,” Sean drawled in amusement as Nicki prowled around the apartment, looking for a quick and easy exit.  Sean wasn’t kidding when he said he had everything wired; the man took his security seriously.

It had become a bit of a game, really.  She’d already been mildly electrocuted by the wires along the windowsill and brought to her knees by a high-pitched alarm that threatened to shatter her eardrums.  Nicki wouldn’t have believed he could have a system that she couldn’t bypass easily, but nothing about Sean’s set-up was vanilla, out-of-the-box technology.  Every last piece had been customized so that any attempts to disarm it in the traditional way would be immediately (and somewhat painfully) thwarted.

One thing was becoming increasingly obvious:  Sean Callaghan was more than a simple garage mechanic.

“Who are you?” she asked, sliding onto one of the stools at the counter.  Sean smiled, placing a plate of fluffy pancakes and fresh fruit in front of her.  Her stomach growled loudly.  As far as incarcerations went, this place was pretty sweet.  Mind-blowing sex, simple but luxurious comfort, and – the small bite of pancake melted into her mouth – great food.  But being a captive was still being a captive.  As tempting as it was to stick around and play house, she had things to do.

“I could ask the same of you,” Sean answered smoothly.