Leaving Lando Read online

  Smartass. I ought to turn her over my knee right here in front of everyone, but there’s no way that would end in anything but sex.

  Really hot sex.

  Fuck.

  Now I can’t stop thinking about her bare ass turning pink under my hand. My cock is so hard it could drill all the way to China. Normally, a woman propositioning me so blatantly would be a massive turnoff, but the normal rules don’t apply when it comes to Brianna Callahan.

  I would have been better off with her asking to tag along on the job. Since it’s difficult to think with all my blood rushing south, I fall back on, “We can’t, Bree, and I shouldn’t have to explain all the reasons why.”

  Sierra arrives with our food. Bree automatically takes a slice of her pizza and puts it on my plate as I drop a handful of my fries in her pan. We’ve gotten into the habit of sharing our food.

  Instead of diving in, she leans forward, intent. “If Jade and Rome hadn’t gotten together, we would have done the dirty months ago. I just don’t see why that should stop us. We’re both adults; we know the score.”

  I’m almost amused by this. Yes, Bree is technically an adult, and she’s no goody two shoes, but neither is she a femme fatale. She’s nowhere near as worldly as I am, and my added years aren’t the only reason.

  She sticks a fry in her mouth, biting it in half slowly. I look away and scan the restaurant, seeking anything that will dislodge the sudden picture of her lips wrapped around my cock.

  I find it in the big corner booth, where four of my cousins and their wives — the ones who used to work here — are all eating together. As soon as Rico sees me looking, he jerks his head in invitation.

  My family is great. Nosy as hell, but there for you when you need them. It only takes me a moment to weigh a potential inquisition about my relationship with Bree against having a conversational buffer. Even Brianna Callahan, as forthright as she is, wouldn’t discuss our potential sex life in front of people she doesn’t know.

  Probably.

  “Come on,” I say to her, . “Let’s go sit with my cousins.” Standing, I grab some bills from my wallet and drop them on the table to cover our check, then pick up my plate and beer.

  As we approach, Rico gets up to let us in, and everyone scoots closer together. I wait for Brianna to slide into the booth before I follow. She shoots me a look that tells me she knows exactly what I’m up to, but doesn’t say anything. Relieved that my gamble has paid off, I sit down next to her and make the introductions.

  “Everyone, meet Brianna Callahan, Romero’s fiancee’s younger sister. Bree, meet my cousin Antonio and his wife Caitlin; my cousin Kosta and his wife Erin; my cousin Carlo and his wife Gina; and last but not least, my cousin Rico, his wife Mickey, and their boys, Gino and Luca.”

  Brianna says hello to all the grownups, then ignores them to zero in on the twins, who are in high chairs at the end of the booth. Their parents are next to them on either end of the long, U-shaped bench. “How old are they?” Bree asks.

  “Ten months,” Mickey says with a smile, and hands Luca a sippy cup, which he bangs on his tray with great vigor and enthusiasm.

  Bree beams at him as if he’s done something remarkable. My cousins’ wives wear similar expressions. “So who else is pregnant?” I say. “You guys can’t be letting Rico and Mickey run away with the baby sweepstakes uncontested.”

  The men all grin. “Not us,” Erin says, with a fond glance at Kosta. “I still have law school to finish.”

  “Not us either,” Cait adds, snuggling close to Tonio.

  Everyone turns to Gina and Carlo. They look at each other a long moment, having one of those wordless conversations, and then Gina smiles and raises her hand. The rest of us start cheering and applauding. Gina blushes; Carlo looks like he just won every lottery in the world; the kids flap their arms and let out weird baby screeches.

  As the hubbub dies down, my work phone vibrates in my pocket.

  3

  Adamo Men

  Lando pulls out his work phone, which I know by sight. “Adamo,” he says. As he listens, his eyes sharpen. “Yeah, that does sound like my guy. Thanks, Miller.”

  He disconnects and says, “Another detective got a tip on a case I’m working. Gotta go check it out. Can one of you give Brianna a lift?”

  “Sure,” Carlo says. “You still at Carlotta’s?”

  “Yeah, still there.” When our farmhouse burned, Jade went to stay with Romero, and other Adamo family members gave Quinn and me shelter. Carlotta is one of the nonnas, the Adamo matriarchs.

  There are lots of Adamo grannies because there are lots of Adamos. They’re a huge Italian clan who dominate this town, and the whole damn state for that matter. And they refuse to let us pay them back for everything they’ve done.

  Carlotta lays a guilt trip on me whenever I mention moving out on my own. I don’t want to be a burden, that’s all; I’m used to taking care of myself. But I think she likes having me there.

  “See you,” Lando says to me, and I make an effort to hide my frustration. I certainly don’t fault his dedication to his job. But is it really so urgent that he couldn’t drop me off on the way?

  More likely, it’s a ploy to avoid talking about sex, just like joining his cousins in the first place. I should have waited till we were at his house and jumped him. It would have been a lot harder — pun intended — for him to say no then.

  But the last thing I’m going to do is act like a bitchy girlfriend when I have no right to do so — especially in front of his family. On the other hand, I can’t let him leave without giving him stick, or he’ll know something’s bothering me.

  “This is a drug bust, isn’t it?” I say, arching my eyebrows dramatically.

  The corner of his mouth twitches. “No. Just a potential lead. Later, Red.”

  Rico lets him out of the booth. I watch Lando leave, because I can’t help ogling him whenever I have the chance. When I turn back to the group, ten pairs of eyes are fixed on me.

  “We’re just friends,” I say in answer to the unspoken question, and get eight knowing smiles from all the adults. “Really.”

  Cait smirks. She’s a curvy brunette with big dark eyes, and her husband Antonio is equally dark, if much larger. Looking around the table, there’s no doubt that Adamo genes, at least as far as the men are concerned, only run to two sizes: large, and jumbo.

  That doesn’t account for what they’re packing in their boxer briefs, of course, but I have a strong suspicion that the same thing holds true there.

  “You don’t believe me?” I ask her, but not in a combative way. I want to know what she’s thinking.

  “Oh, I believe you. But if I were a betting woman, I’d lay odds neither one of you wants it that way.”

  “From seeing us together for less than five minutes?”

  “That’s all it takes,” Gina says. She’s sitting next to me, and she leans in and says in a stage whisper, “I jumped Carlo within five minutes of meeting him.”

  Everyone else grins again. I feel my eyes get big. “You did not.”

  “Right here in this very restaurant.”

  “We were there,” Erin says. “As soon as they were introduced Gina basically ran away, but Carlo followed her and escorted her into the office for a little chat. That was all within the first ninety seconds or so.”

  I send Carlo an appraising glance. “You work fast.”

  He gives his wife a look so tender, but so heated, that a vicious pang of longing hits me. Will any man ever look at me that way? “Something about her,” he says, his voice a soft, deep rumble. “She got under my skin that fast.”

  Gina laces her fingers with his. Suddenly, I can’t wait to be away from here, from all these happy, loving couples. Being near them is getting under my skin, making me dissatisfied in a way I’ve never been before.

  “Thanks for the ride offer,” I tell Carlo, “but I think I’ll walk. It was nice to meet you all.”

  I turn to Rico. He doesn’t bu
dge. “Cold out there,” he says mildly.

  “I’m wearing a jacket,” I point out in my politest voice, with a smile for good measure.

  “You got a cap? Scarf? Gloves?”

  I throw my hands up. “What is it with you Adamo men?”

  “Lando ask you that too?” Something dangerously like amusement glimmers in his eyes. Since he could probably snap me in half with one hand, I don’t call him on it, even though I’d love to give him some of my patented sarcasm.

  “Yes, he did,” I retort, trying to keep my temper under control. “And last I checked, neither one of you is my father.”

  “Adamo men,” Caitlin says delicately, “are protective.”

  “Well, that’s great. But like I said, Lando and I are just friends. I’m not his to protect.” I leave unspoken the obvious implication that if Lando doesn’t have the right to dictate my behavior, Rico sure as hell can’t stop me.

  The men exchange glances for a long moment. It makes me even madder that they’re silently debating whether to allow me, a grown-ass woman, to do as I damn well please. The women look simultaneously sympathetic, and like they’re trying not to smile.

  “Okay,” Rico says at last, and slides out of the booth.

  “Thank you,” I say a bit too acerbically, and give everyone a parting smile. “Have a good evening.”

  The waitress arrives just then, carrying a tray laden down with plates. “Do you want your pizza?” she asks. “I can box it up for you.”

  I love pizza, but my appetite’s gone for once. “That’s okay. Please help yourselves,” I tell the group, and wave at the twins, who have twisted around to stare at me with big brown eyes. “Bye,” I tell them, wiggling my fingers.

  “It was good to meet you, too, Brianna,” Gina says, and everyone’s goodbyes follow me across the room, to the door and out. The wind slaps me in the face with vicious force. Shivering, I hastily zip up my jacket.

  I’m going to freeze my ass off by the time I get to Carlotta’s house. My ears might fall off, too. Too bad. I asserted myself, and the consequences are mine to bear.

  Trudging across the parking lot, I reach the sidewalk and turn right. I’m already regretting my decision; it feels about forty degrees colder than it was earlier, when I walked to the police station. Stubborn pride won’t let me go back to the restaurant, but I’ll call Jade and see if she can come and pick me up.

  I fish my phone out, my fingers already stiff with cold, and pull my sister up in my contacts. To my relief, she answers right away. “Hey Bree, what’s up?”

  She sounds a little breathless, and my imagination fills in the blank: hanky-panky with Romero, no doubt. The quick flash of jealousy shocks me. I’ve been nothing but thrilled for her since she and Rome got together.

  “Hey, sis. Sorry to interrupt whatever you’re doing, but could I bum a ride?”

  “Where’s Lando?” she says immediately.

  I cast my eyes skyward in a silent plea for patience. “Working a case.”

  “And he just left you?” She sounds indignant. Both my sisters know that Lando and I have a routine, that he always drops me off after my cop-shop deliveries.

  “Jade, it’s cold out here. Could we please skip the twenty questions?”

  Her response is drowned out by the squeal of tires. Lando’s truck jerks to a stop at the curb, and the next instant Lando’s out of the truck and around it to me. I stare at his furious expression.

  “Get in the fucking truck,” he growls.

  “I’m talking to Jade, she’s going to come—”

  He plucks the phone from my hand and ends the call. “Get. In. The fucking truck.”

  All my frustration—with Lando, with my unwilling celibacy, with the bossiness of Adamo men generally—boils over. “Stop telling me what to do!”

  Wrenching the passenger door open, he picks me up, bending me almost double so he can lift me into the truck without banging my head, and sets me firmly on the seat. The door slams, and then the locks beep.

  Disbelieving, I try the door. I didn’t imagine it; I’m trapped. The driver’s side door will open, of course, but I don’t have time to go that route before he’s in the truck with me.

  His anger fills the cab like a living thing. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You!” I shout. “You are what’s wrong with me. You and your domineering cousins!”

  “You’re goddamn lucky they called me. The fuck were you thinking, walking around in this cold?”

  “I was calling Jade!” I yell.

  “It’d take her at least fifteen minutes to reach you, which is fifteen minutes too long. Why the fuck didn’t you just wait there and catch a ride with Carlo?”

  I cannot possibly explain to him the painful need his cousins and their wives have somehow stirred in me. He wouldn’t understand it, and even if he did, he’s already made clear that he’s going to deny me the solution. So I go on the offensive.

  “None of your business.” I drag at the door handle, to no avail. “Unlock the fucking truck!”

  Lando hauls me around to face him. My arms lash out without any conscious intention on my part, and one of my flailing fists strikes a glancing blow off his chin.

  His eyes go hot. Then he yanks me into his arms and his mouth crashes down on mine.

  I shove at him, or try to. As soon as my hands spread across his broad chest, they grab his shirt, pulling him closer, then slide around to his back, and under the fabric, until I’m touching his bare skin.

  It’s smooth and warm, the muscle beneath it tantalizing. My nails dig in; Lando growls, and my nipples go hard. I’m dizzy, ravenous, kissing him back like the starving woman I am, desperate for more.

  One of his hands cradles the back of my neck, his fingers in my hair, against my scalp. You could map my nervous system by all the tingles running from my head to my nipples, to my clit, the tips of my fingers and toes, and back again.

  His other hand dives under my shirt to cup one breast. He palms it, then tweaks the nipple. I gasp, then moan, and that fast my panties are soaked.

  Lando deepens the kiss, his tongue thrusting into my mouth in a rhythm that drives me mad. I want to take his hand and move it, but then he does it without prompting, as if reading my desire through my heated skin.

  One more pluck at my nipple, and then he presses me back against the bench seat, still kissing me, and his hand skims my belly until his fingers are under the waistband of my jeans, and then his hand is inside my panties and he’s cupping me. Parting my slick folds, he pushes a finger inside me, his thumb circling my clit.

  I make frantic noises deep in my throat, my body as taut as a bowstring. Lando works another finger inside me, pumping them in and out, driving me to the edge. His thumb presses my clit, rolls, and presses again, and I shatter.

  He swallows my cries. His hand is driving me up again when his phone rings.

  4

  Negotiations

  “Fuck,” I snarl. The fact that I’d much rather ignore my hot lead in favor of finishing what Bree and I just started sets off all sorts of alarm bells.

  Her eyes are glazed, her lips swollen from our kiss, her pussy still clenching around my fingers. I leave my hand there, inside her, because I can’t bring myself to stop touching her yet, and snag my phone with my other hand. “Adamo.”

  “I thought you were coming over to talk to this guy.”

  Miller sounds irate, and I don’t blame her. “I got held up. Be there soon.”

  Brianna tugs at my wrist. Instead of pulling my hand away, I flick my thumb over her clit. She gasps, her head going back.

  “What was that?” Miller says. “Where are you?”

  I hit the mute button on my phone, to stop any sound transmitting from my end. My thumb goes to town on Bree’s hard little button as my fingers start fucking her again. Three seconds later, she convulses, her hips jerking, and I seal my mouth over hers while she comes like a rocket.

  She doesn’t know my phone is
muted. The fact that she’s coming for me, like this, while we’re parked on the side of the road downtown, is so fucking hot I’m about to blow my load right here. It takes a supreme effort of will to hold the phone to my ear again.

  I manage it just in time to hear Miller say, “He’s gonna rabbit if you don’t show soon. I got no way to keep him here.”

  “Threaten him with anything you can think of, but don’t let him leave. I’ll be there.”

  Ending the call, I touch my forehead to Bree’s. “I gotta go do this thing.”

  “Lan …” she whispers. I can see the unspoken question in her eyes, the wordless plea. Hunger rages through me.

  “I don’t have time to drop you at my place. I’ll have to bring you with me.” Her face brightens and I lean close. “You are not going to participate.”

  “I’ll be good,” she says immediately.

  Slowly, reluctantly, I pull my fingers free of her. When I lick them clean, she shivers. “You’re killing me, Lan. I want your cock in my mouth.”

  Fuck; that almost finishes me. “Save that thought; I promise we’ll come back to it.”

  As I start the truck, my gaze goes across the Revved parking lot. The corner booth where my cousins are sitting has a clear view of where we’re parked, and they’re not even pretending not to watch. Good thing there were no lights on in the cab.

  Putting the truck in gear, I haul ass to a shabby little diner in one of the bleaker corners of town. I don’t like bringing Bree here, but I couldn’t risk the witness running.

  “I’m not sure how long this will take,” I tell Bree when we get there. “Could be nothing, could be something. We’ll go in together, but you’re going to sit on the opposite side of the place and pretend you don’t know me.”

  “Okay.”

  I pull out my wallet and hand her some money. “Get yourself something so you won’t look suspicious.” Rico told me she didn’t eat her pizza, which pisses me off. Not the expense, but the thought that she was that mad … or that upset.