Tied Up in Knots Read online

  “No. I wanna see you,” he said. His voice was flat and hard and left no room for argument. “Do what I say. Take off your clothes and get in my lap.”

  Oh… God.

  It was like a switch had been flipped and I had a different man on my hands, one who wanted to claim what was his.

  “Did you hear me?”

  I huffed out a breath as pure liquid need washed through me.

  “Miro?”

  “Yes,” I rasped because Ian all possessive and dominant was enough to bring my cock to full, drooling attention in moments. I liked to be the one to hold him down and give directions, but it was a big fat turn-on to hear him issuing demands.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  Moving quickly, I toed off my dark-brown Prada wingtips and then tore everything else off as fast as I could. Once I was stripped bare, I stood there a moment, taking in the decadent sight of him just sitting there, stroking his own length.

  “I will take care of you, do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “In every way.”

  I couldn’t speak. My words deserted me in the face of his obvious need to protect and reassure himself that I was there and whole.

  “Come here.”

  I lunged at him, but he stopped me, slowed me with a gentle hand on my hip, and carefully guided me down into his lap so I was straddling his hips.

  “Take me in.”

  The words, his words, swept everything else from my mind. Gone was worry or fear, gone was Hartley and the military, babies and any other plans. There was only me sinking down over him, the slide and the burn, feeling every inch as he filled and stretched me, riding the wave of arousal as it crested and receded, loving his hands sliding over my back, up my sides and down, touching, smoothing, before he took my face in them and pulled me close for a kiss.

  He made love to me with his mouth, with his tongue, and I in turn rode him, lifting and lowering, impaling myself over and over, rocking into him until he was buried to the hilt one second and almost free the next.

  “Oh God, you feel good,” he said thickly, sounding drunk as I grabbed hold of his shoulders so I could lever down harder, deeper, and faster. “Fuck yourself on my dick.”

  In minutes I no longer cared who saw us or who came in. There was only Ian moving inside of me and working my cock with one hand as he anchored me to him with the other. He’d leave bruises, as tight as he was holding on, and between what I could feel in my heart and the erotic counterpoint of my muscles greedily fisting around him, I climaxed seconds later in a rush of euphoria that for a split second was blinding.

  He cupped my face in his hands again and kissed me like I was food, air, all of it, voracious in his attention, sucking on my tongue so I couldn’t pull away. He reached for my legs and wrapped them around his hips, toppling me onto my back fast and easy.

  He rolled forward, draped my legs over his arms, and pounded down into me, the pumping lasting only seconds before his body tightened and he came.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he promised as he released my legs and found my mouth, kissing me deeply, at the same time shoving both hands under my ass, kneading, squeezing, not ready to let me go. “Always.”

  I stared up at him, at the man I loved.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” he whispered before he kissed me and then hugged me. Tight.

  Ian was a good hugger, the best, because he always gave me his whole heart when he did it. I could always feel his body settle, and breathe.

  “What was that?” he asked abruptly, breaking the spell.

  “I don’t hear—” But there was suddenly the jingle of keys in the lock on the front door. “Oh crap!”

  Ian slid gently from my body and kissed me one last time.

  “Are you guys here?” Liam bellowed as he came through the door. He’d been watching Chickie all day, and by the sound of it, had brought him back.

  I dived down on the side of the bed as Ian popped up and leaned over the railing.

  “You guys need to learn to knock,” he yelled down from the loft.

  “And your boyfriend needs to learn not to take what isn’t his.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said, offended as I stood, wrapped up in a sheet from the bed, and moved over next to Ian so I could stare down at him.

  Unfortunately, Janet was there, too, as was Aruna, carrying Sajani, and both women were looking up at me with wide eyes, judgment all over their faces.

  “What?” I barked at them. “This is my house.”

  “And you’re allowed to get your freak on whenever you like,” Aruna assured me as Sajani called my name and waved. “But how pervy do you feel right now?” she asked as Sajani started waving at Ian too.

  I groaned.

  “I feel like a god,” Ian announced, as Janet snickered, Liam rolled his eyes and went to put groceries down in the kitchen, and Chickie tore up the stairs to us.

  Aruna nodded. “Good for you, Irish,” she said, giving him the thumbs-up.

  He gave her his killer grin, and I left to change as Chickie darted by me on his way to Ian.

  “Get off the bed!” The all-powerful god ordered his dog to absolutely no avail.

  I TRIED to give Aruna cash for the groceries, but she fought me, as usual, and even when I shoved the money in Liam’s back pocket, she took it out.

  “I feel like a stripper,” he said.

  “I could see that,” I told him.

  “Over my dead body,” Aruna assured me.

  “Take the money,” I ordered her.

  One eyebrow lifted and I gave up. “I’m putting it in Sajani’s college fund.”

  “Now that is a good idea,” she conceded as she began doing the prep, issuing orders to Liam and Ian as I helped with the chopping and cutting, and Janet sat on a bar stool in the kitchen and ate ranch dip and veggies.

  Every time Liam got close to me, Aruna gave him another task.

  “But I have something to say to Miro,” he growled.

  “After you go through their fridge and make room for everything I’m going to be putting in there, as well as figuring out the best place to put the cooler for the drinks, you can.”

  He wasn’t happy and nearly yanked the fridge’s door off the hinges when he opened it. I glanced at Aruna, who rolled her eyes and shrugged. Clearly whatever it was, was not life or death.

  Ian eventually took Sajani and Chickie for a walk, and as soon as the door closed, Liam, who was pacing back and forth in the living room, started in on me.

  “You can’t just keep them. They’re not yours anymore!”

  I glanced over at Aruna. “What is he talking about?”

  “I have no earthly idea,” she said, feeding me a spoonful of the green curry she made a few days ago and brought for us to eat.

  “They all love you—Aruna, Janet, Min, Catherine—and come at a moment’s notice when you call. Do you have any idea what I had to threaten Aruna with when you were in that hospital in Phoenix? She was buying herself a plane ticket when I told her that I’d tie her to the bed if she tried to leave.”

  “Kinky,” I teased.

  “Bowchickabowmow,” Aruna said, turning to give Liam an exaggerated wink.

  He threw up his hands, which looked funny on the huge mountain of muscle that he was. “You need to cut the cord, Miro! These women are your family, yes, but they have other families now too!”

  Janet slid off the stool and walked over to me, leaning in and wrapping her arms around my waist. “I’m so glad I can come move in with you and Ian once the baby’s born.”

  I looked down at her, completely lost. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I asked Ian. He said I could. He loves Sajani, and he said he’d love another little one around here as long as I was part of the package.”

  It was really sweet of the love of my life to say that to Janet. He obviously loved me and so would
make room in his life for my dearest friends. Yes, it was really very sweet, but no way in hell was that actually going to happen.

  “Awww,” Aruna cooed, making a face at me. “He loves my little muffin.”

  I hugged Janet tight and looked over at Liam, who muttered, “I hate you.”

  I smirked at him as his phone rang and he answered.

  “What kind of cranberry salad should I make?” Aruna asked me.

  “Don’t you just open a can?”

  “Heathen,” she labeled me.

  “Oh,” Liam said loudly, dramatically, walking into the kitchen with his phone to his ear, “actually, why, yes, yes she is, Ned. Let me put you on speaker.” He held it in his hand, smiling triumphantly as he stepped into the center of all of us. “Go ahead.”

  “Janet Eugenia Powell, how dare you go out of town and not tell me!”

  “Eugenia?” Liam asked.

  “She doesn’t like it,” I told him.

  “She kinda hates it,” Aruna echoed me.

  Janet shot him a look that was meant to kill.

  “Miro, you selfish piece of crap!” Ned shouted on the other end of the line.

  “What?” I retorted, surprised that he actually sounded mad. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes you did! You always do!”

  Everyone was crazy except me and Ian.

  “Did you even think for one second of telling her not to get on the plane? Did you think, oh, she’s pregnant; this Thanksgiving she’ll be pregnant, and won’t that be awesome for her to spend time with her family on—”

  “I’m with my family!” she shrieked, pulling free of me as she went to stand over Liam’s phone so she could scream directly into it even as the big man began slowly leaning away. “And that’s the part you never get! We always do everything with your family, every goddamn holiday we’re with them, but what about my family? When do I get to come here and see them? When is it my year?”

  “Janet—”

  “Just because they’re not related to me by blood doesn’t make them any less important to me or vital to be around, and that’s the part you refuse to understand!”

  “Janet—”

  “You think when my mother died that I became an orphan, but just because Miro and I don’t have any blood relatives doesn’t mean we don’t belong to a motherfucking family!”

  We were all silent and nobody moved.

  “So yes, I know you don’t get it, and neither do Liam or Eriq or that new guy Min’s dating—” She turned to look at Aruna. “What does he do, again?”

  “Some kind of performance art where he drinks coffee and looks at you,” Aruna explained. “And draws at the same time.”

  “How is that different from college?” I asked Aruna.

  She shrugged.

  “Janet,” Ned tried again. “I just—”

  “I’ll be home on Sunday, and we can talk and figure out what to do for Christmas and New Year’s this year. If you want to stay there, then—”

  “No!” he yelled. “I love you, and I’m sorry I was a dick about your hormones. I was an insensitive asshole because I’ve never been through this, either. We’re both just finding our way. But in my defense, I’m used to number-cruncher girl, and emotional passion girl threw me for a loop.”

  We could all hear the kitchen clock ticking on the wall. It was a good clock, I liked it. I’d picked it out when the old one died. It was stainless steel, very retro 1950s chic.

  “You thought I was passionate?” she asked tentatively, and by the way her voice dipped, got silvery and sweet, it was more than clear that she loved the rest of us, but Ned was her endgame.

  “Yes, darling, very.”

  “Do you miss me?”

  “Terribly.”

  Her sigh was loud.

  “I’ll be there tomorrow,” he told her. “And we’re staying with Aruna and Liam; they at least have a guest room.”

  “Hey,” I growled.

  “And I’m going to kick the crap out of you when I see you,” he warned me.

  “If you can get through the Green Beret to me, more power to you.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Ian’s a Green Beret?”

  I grunted.

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah, huh.”

  “Well, Liam will help me.”

  “Have you met Ian?” Liam asked.

  Ned cleared his throat. “I’ll be there in the morning, and God help you if my flight’s delayed.”

  I really hoped he’d have clear skies. “I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  “I need you all to go away so I can speak to my wife.”

  Liam took it off speaker, and Janet took his phone and walked into the living room, curling up on one end of my couch.

  “He loves her,” Aruna said, hand over her heart. “It’s sweet.”

  “Do I get to eat any curry?” Liam asked her as she made me a plate and added the dill rice I loved that she’d made special.

  “I don’t know, are you sure you want it?” she asked sharply. “Your mother didn’t.”

  “For crissakes, woman, that’s not what she said.”

  “Oh?”

  I wanted to hear the explanation as well.

  He huffed out a breath in exasperation. “She said since you were going to make the Indian dishes, that she would make the traditional ones so you didn’t have so much to do.”

  She nodded slowly. “Because I can’t do both. Because it was finally my year to host, and now she’s going to horn in and cook.”

  “No, she was just trying to help because you work, plus you take care of Sajani.”

  “She didn’t ask Karrie if she needed help last year, and Karrie has two kids, Liam, two, plus she’s a full-time graphic artist, so…. Where’s the disconnect here?”

  “Maybe Karrie wanted help too.”

  “She did, and she asked me, not your mother! When it’s finally your turn to have the whole Duffy clan over, you don’t want to mess it up! But your mother is just waiting for us to crash and burn because then this experiment will be over, and she’ll go back to hosting all the holidays at her house.”

  “Well, sweetie, she is the matriarch of the fam—”

  “Who complained every year for years that it was so much work, and so we all agreed to the rotating holidays, and now this year, when it’s finally my turn, she needs to help me because my dishes are too ethnic?”

  He made a noise of pure disgust. “That’s not what she said!”

  “She hates me.”

  “Oh, she does not.”

  “The acid that drips from her voice when she speaks to me could etch diamonds,” she said flatly.

  I lost it.

  “Oh God,” her husband lamented.

  “You know what, you can go over there and eat with your family, but Sajani stays with me. We’ll be here eating with my family.”

  “We went to see your family in Dallas last year.”

  “Well, I’m lucky I have family there too. I have you, Sajani, Miro, and Ian here, and that way I’m never alone, even if I never lay eyes on your mother again.”

  His smile was defeated and gentle at the same time. “You realize you counted me in with our kid and the boys, right?”

  She glared at him. “Of course I did. You belong to me. Why wouldn’t I include you?”

  He moved then, fast, and grabbed her, scooping her up off her feet in the princess carry, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in and kissed him.

  It was not a PG kiss, and when she leaned back to smile at him, I saw that he was flushed.

  “I’m still not going over there, even if you sex me up.”

  I choked on my curry.

  Liam groaned.

  And Aruna looked very pleased with herself.

  When Ian and Sajani and Chickie came home right before the sky opened up and dumped down rain, Ian asked what he’d missed.

  “Not too much,” Aruna assured him, swapping him
a plate of food for her daughter. “Eat something. You’re too thin.”

  He glanced at me.

  “Just eat.”

  After I fed Chickie, I got a call from Barrett. I let it go to voice mail, as well as the other four.

  “Oh shit,” Aruna announced. “I need marshmallows. Crap!”

  Sometimes it was a domino effect. Ian needed beer, and Liam was more than ready to go with him to get that. Janet wanted some things from the store because now Ned was coming, and there was a grape salad that was his favorite thing in the world. But Chickie had eaten, so he had to take his constitutional.

  “I’ll stay here,” I told everyone.

  No one moved.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, you know I’ll be fine.”

  But no one was moving, especially Ian, who crossed his arms as he looked at me.

  “Oh come on.”

  He didn’t move an iota.

  “May I remind you that there are two FBI agents on our front curb.”

  “Aren’t they the ones that lost Hartley to begin with?” Aruna asked.

  Ian tipped his head at her like yeah, that.

  It was stupid, but the idea of Ian and Liam walking around together, choosing beer, made me very happy. I wanted the man I loved to bond with the man Aruna loved because, clearly, as evidenced earlier, he was getting close to the girls, and I wanted the same with their significant others. So Ian doing something without me or Aruna, with just Liam, I wanted that. I wanted to build a network of friends, and I could be honest: the more Ian liked everyone, the more rock solid the foundation of our life became.

  But at the moment, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

  He shook his head.

  And then my hip was bumped as a loud dog yawn caught my attention. There was Chickie beside me, sitting, his head coming to my waist.

  I motioned to the dog, because, really, there was no arguing with 150 pounds of werewolf. Chickie’s protective instincts had been proven time and time again.

  Ian gave in because it made sense. “Yeah, all right.” No one was stupid enough to try to get past Chickie into the house. That was simply suicidal, and Hartley had never been labeled that.

  As I herded everyone out, Ian charged over and gave me a scorching kiss good-bye. When I had to grab for the counter, I got a world-class smirk. He was so proud of himself and of his power over me. I liked seeing him like that—smugly confident. It was very sexy.