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CONOR

“I’m so fucking mad. Because you want Declan to go legitimate, we have to sell our art!” Aela hissed as she prodded her fork in the air at me and then Aidan and then Finn.

Clearly, we three were the bad guys in this scenario.

The thought made me hide a smirk.

“Which art?” Savannah inquired, nosy as ever.

“My secret stash,” Declan said lazily as he stretched, reached out his arm, and hooked it over his bristling wife’s shoulder. “The stolen shit.”

Aidan groused, “You should have gotten rid of that sooner. The Saturns have just started winning since you transferred in that player from Berlin.”

“That wasn’t the point of this diatribe,” Aela muttered.

“Thought you’d want him to be legit,” Star stated. “For Shay’s sake.”

“I do. But I’m a hypocrite and I like having a Manet in my bedroom.”

“You have a Manet in your bedroom?” Inessa queried.

“How the hell did you get that, Dec?” Eoghan demanded after he spooned up some of Aoife’s cheese and broccoli soup.

“I have shady connections,” he admitted without an ounce of shame.

“You need to get rid of them,” Finn said.

“No, he doesn’t. Shady connections for us are law enforcement agencies! The more shady connections we have, the better.”

Dec tipped his glass at me. “Fair point, Con. Still, I’m with Aela that it sucks to have to get rid of our art.”

“Can’t you keep it? It’s not like people go into your bedroom. Unless you’re swingers.” Star’s brows lifted hopefully. “Are you? That’d make you more interesting for sure.”

Aela squinted at her. “Just as you were starting to get on my good side.”

Star just grinned before tucking into her meal.

“It’s hidden behind a safe,” Declan added. “We only open it up when we’re going to sleep in there.”

“That’s not weird,” I muttered.

“Weird but security conscious,” he argued.

“I say keep it,” Brennan mused. “We’re not going to get rid of our less-than-legal pasts overnight. Might as well enjoy them and cover them up?—”

“Secrets don’t die. They outlive us all,” was Star’s unusually serious tone. “If you keep that Manet now, Seamus will have to handle its disposal when you’re worm food. That’ll be much more awkward if he’s a politician.”

Brennan shot her a dour glance. “They’re not exactly in their dotage.”

“Neither was my mom and she died when I was a kid.”

I glowered at Brennan then mimicked Declan and curved my arm around Star to tug her into me.

“It’s okay, Conor. I’m not upset.” Her hand settled on my thigh and she squeezed me gently there. “Just saying if you’re going for broke, make it clean.”

Aela huffed but the conversation trickled down so we heard Inessa telling Aoife, “I swear to God, it gave me blue eyeballs, Aoife. How you can read that crusty vajayjay stuff is?—”

“Blue eyeballs?” I drawled with a laugh. “What are you reading?”

Inessa’s cheeks blushed. “Nothing.”

“Ha, doesn’t sound like that to me,” Eoghan teased, leaning over to smack a kiss on her cheek.

Aoife prodded the air with her fork. “Stop teasing her. Be grateful that we read what we do because you reap the benefits.”

Finn chuckled. “She’s right, Eoghan. Shut up.”

At that, Aoife kissed Finn—on the mouth.

None of us knew what had happened, and Finn wasn’t willing to talk about it, but three or so months ago, shit had changed between them.

Out of nowhere, they weren’t sitting at the heads of the table for Saturday night dinner anymore. No, they were sitting in the middle of a new glass table that was longer than the other one, with us all clustered around them, the heads no longer set with cutlery.

Weird, but it was their house and we didn’t question it.

Then, crazier still, Aoife, Finn, and Jake showed up at Ma’s apartment for Sunday dinner. While their relationship remained strained, it was better than not having them there at all.

Finn had started smiling more, had stopped looking like he was walking on eggshells, and then, when Aidan asked him to reschedule a trip he’d booked for his family to Denver for some book convention Aoife wanted to attend, Finn had refused.

Small steps, but I thought Star had something to do with it because when I’d told her about Aidan’s expression at Finn’s refusal, she’d smirked.

Now, my woman smirked a lot, but that was a special kind of smirk. One that was smug and happy at the same time.

I dipped my head down and whispered, “I don’t know what you did to fix them but thank you.”

She arched a brow at me. “I didn’t do anything.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” She tucked into her dinner without taking credit for getting involved, but she didn’t stop me when I hugged her to my side.

But I knew how she rolled.

She hadn’t said anything either when I’d lost a week in my office with work and had dropped ten pounds. Then Ma started popping up in our apartment with food. Food I was hard-wired to want to gorge on.

Star rarely said anything— she acted.

“Conor told us that you got the adoption papers through today, Star?”

She angled her head at Aidan and then peered at the second, smaller table that was set up in the next room where Katina, Shay, and Victoria had taken to sitting so they could watch TV at the same time. “I did.”

My older brother hid a smile. “It wasn’t an accusation.”

“Hmm.”

“Did you get the whole ‘kidnapping of a minor’ thing cleared up too?” Aela asked, surprising me with the fact she knew about that.

Since Star had started attending afternoon tea with the other women, I knew she’d grown closer to them.

“I didn’t. Grandfather did.”

That was new too.

Anton had morphed into ‘Grandfather’ when he’d visited the city to tell her Kathy Harridan, her burned ID, was no longer wanted in Ohio for kidnapping a child.

“Interesting,” Finn mused. “His power is definitely terrifying…”

“And he only abuses it for family,” I teased. “Something we can all get behind.”

Aidan touched his napkin to his lips. “I respect a man who’ll go to the ends of the earth for his kin.”

“That's why you’ve got the ECD causing problems for the British on the borders with Northern Ireland?” Aoife asked coolly. When Aidan arched a brow at her, she continued, “Dagda told me. He’s happier since you had him move back to Ireland, so I have to thank you for that. I won’t thank you, however, if you get him killed.”

I took a sip of wine. “I still don’t understand how that helps the US.”

Aidan shrugged. “Doubt it does. I don’t expect Kuznetsov to tell me his whole game plan so long as he helps us down the road with Seamus.”

Most of my brothers stared at Star as if she could explain. Star just hitched a shoulder. “Grandfather has good intentions. For the most part.”

“Helpful,” Finn retorted.

“When did I ever say that I’d try to be helpful?” was her smartass reply.

Finn rolled his eyes.

“Are you looking forward to tomorrow, Savannah?” Camille asked.

“I am. I know there’ll be an argument, but I haven’t eaten with the folks for a while.” Savvie tossed a glower at Star who was keeping quiet. “Star’s promised that she won’t cause trouble.”

“It’s Conor who’ll cause trouble. Drooling into his food instead of talking like a regular human being,” Brennan mocked. “Still can’t get over that crush on noxxious, can you, Kid?”

I flipped him the bird. “It’ll be fine.”

“You’re meeting your idol as a son-in-law this time,” Eoghan mused, but he was hiding a grin. Jackass. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

“Never meet your heroes,” Declan agreed.

“Just try not to show me up,” Aidan retorted.

I huffed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence!”

“I know how you got the last time you met Dagger. I wasn’t sure if you were going to cry, collapse, or come in your pants!”

“Aidan!” Aoife hissed. “The kids will hear!”

He shrugged unapologetically.

“You’re going to miss dinner with Lena?” Inessa inquired, obviously trying to change the subject to something more manageable. “All of you? I’m surprised she didn’t invite Lorelei and Dagger over so that she wouldn’t have to do without her precious boys for a day.”

“She offered,” Aidan said dismissively. “I told her what I keep on telling her—our wives also have families.”

Because I was sitting so close to Star, I noticed the faintest tension emanating from her limbs. She kept it hidden, though, not just throughout the rest of the meal but all the way home too.

Only after we tucked Katina in bed did I confront her about it.

“We don’t have to go tomorrow if you don’t want to. We both know how you love Ma’s company,” I drawled.

Though she smirked, she didn’t look up from the computer where I knew she was multitasking between coordinating an event that was being held at the Four Seasons for the ATRF—the Anti-Trafficking Relief Fund—speaking with Goldstein regarding a Sparrow who’d only ever spoken to his compatriots in a code she’d broken this weekend, and slowly gaslighting Temper Black into believing that the Brothers were trying to have her eradicated.

All in all, it was a slow week for my fiancée.

“Your ma’s sole redeeming quality is her ability in the kitchen.”

I snorted. “Not the love she has for her family?”

“Nope,” she said, popping the P. “Just what she can do with some beef and potatoes.”

“We both know you’re dreading seeing Lorelei tomorrow.”

She sniffed. “I dread the upcoming apocalypse from over-dependence on fossil fuels, Conor O’Donnelly. I do not dread seeing the woman who helped raise me.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“You would.” She glanced at me. “You working on your spreadsheets?”

“You make it sound like a seventh-grade project,” I grumbled with a pout.

She chuckled. “Trying to predict the future is definitely something you think you can do at that age.”

“I’m not trying to predict the future. Patterns are everywhere. Particularly in Italy where match-fixing is done as a fine art.”

“You settled on next season’s purchases?”

“In the process of doing so. We need to attract mid-level names from the upper leagues of the sport over in Europe. It’s hard when the team is worth shit.”

“It’s doing better now,” she argued.

“Yeah, but not Real Madrid or Paris St. Germain good.” I hitched a shoulder. “It’s a work in progress. Speaking of, I was thinking about inviting the Kensington FC chairman to your gala.”

“Why?”

“Alain Brentner has a good striker we want to buy but he’s holding out.”

“So?”

“ So , he’s the son of Juniper Brentner, which will bring a nice glossy sheen to the event because she’s still a Hollywood A-lister, and I’d like to lean on him.”

“Lean on him. Ha. Rachel will kill you if you commit a crime at her prissy gala.”

“I’m not scared of her.”

She smiled. “You’re scared of me though, aren’t you?”

“When you’re armed, yes.” I grinned at her. “But you’re not armed around the house.”

“A pencil can be deadly in the wrong hands. This you know.”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to stab me with a pencil.”

“No, I don’t need to. With the amount of apple pie you eat, you’ll give yourself cyanide poisoning.”

“That’s if you crush apple seeds. I don’t eat apple seeds. Just apples.”

“Semantics.”

“Big semantics. Huge ones. So?”

“So?”

“Do you want to invite Alain Brentner to the gala?”

“Translation: Please invite Alain Brentner. What did he do anyway?”

“Insider trading.”

“Got proof?”

“Rock solid.”

“Brentner’s an industrialist too, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. But the insider trading was within Kensington FC.”

She yawned. “Fascinating. I’ll invite him. But you have to blackmail him when I’m there. I’ll need some entertainment. This gala is looking set to be boring as fuck.”

My lips twitched. “Whatever floats your boat.”

Because that had been surprisingly easy to convince her of, I strode over to her desk, moved behind her chair, and rested my hands on her shoulders.

As I rubbed her there, she arched her neck, letting me get deeper into the crevices where the knots in her muscles told a story of their own.

“Maybe I am nervous about tomorrow,” she admitted with a grumble.

“No. You don’t say,” I mocked.

She sniffed.

My fingers trailed over her throat, trickling over her front to settle over her lower belly. “Did you charge it?”

“Of course.”

“I need to work on a better battery life.” I sighed. “I also need to convert one of the spare rooms because I can’t have Kat coming across this shit.”

“I think you should establish a sex toy line.”

“Nah, America’s not ready for a president to have an uncle in the sex toy business.”

“Shortsighted. There’d be a lot less violence if people had more orgasms.”

“I can’t argue with that.” I leaned down and pressed a kiss to the nook between shoulder and throat. “Where is it?”

“In my desk drawer,” she whispered.

“Use it. It’ll calm you down.”

She gulped but didn’t argue other than to say, “I’m not stressed about tomorrow. I said I’m nervous.” Her hand curved around the handle on the drawer and she tugged it open, retrieving the toy I’d made for her alone. “You never told me why it took you so long to make this.”

“Had issues with the motor. It kept burning out, so I had to make one.”

“You should have been an engineer.”

“Maybe. It’s not my calling,” I dismissed even though I knew my smarts fired her up.

Snagging the toy from her fingers, I flicked it on then ghosted it over her breasts.

Her throat held me in thrall so I continued tasting that area, wanting to leave a thousand marks dusting her skin so she knew she belonged to me, that I belonged to her.

Her head lolled to the side as I teased her nipples then traced circles over her abdomen until she was squirming against the chair, the mechanism rocking back against me as she arched and wriggled, her legs parting to allow me between them.

Moving my lips against her ear, I whispered, “Wider.”

She released a keening sound then lifted a leg and lodged her heel against her pussy. Angling her thigh to the side, she sobbed as I slipped the vibrator behind the waistband of her PJ bottoms.

Aware that she’d be bare beneath, I moved lower, lower, waiting for her soft cry as the vibrations began to make themselves known.

“Conor, please,” she whined, and that plea went straight to my dick. “Please, please.”

I moved the tip of the vibrator around her clit.

I’d studied the favorites on the market and had reasoned that an edge was necessary for extra pressure; that was why I’d shaped it like a lipstick but with a wider, more slanted head. I burrowed that sharper tip against her clit before laying the whole thing flat against her most sensitive spot for maximum sensation.

A breathy moan escaped her as her hands moved around to clasp me around my nape. Once she started rocking her hips faster, I slid the vibrator down, using her arousal as lube.

When I pressed the tip inside her, her short, sharp scream had me hiding a smirk in her throat.

Sucking down hard in time with her pulse, I circled the tip around her slit and thrust into her, only shallowly, letting the mouth of her cunt absorb most of the vibrations.

Fingers scrabbling at my hair, mouth releasing gasping breaths, she came. Wailing my name.

Heaven had a sound.

I chuckled against her throat, pulling back to study the purple marks I’d left behind, then retreated to let the vibrator find her clit.

After a few seconds of that treatment, her leg lifted, mimicking the other’s position so she looked as if she were sitting in a lotus position, and both snapped together as she groaned her way through another orgasm.

“Fuck, Conor, fuck,” she moaned.

I alternated a couple more times between her slit and clit, not stopping until she’d come a third time and was panting like she’d run a mile, “S-Stop, C-Conor, p-please.” Then, and only then, did I switch off the device.

She jerked in response to the loss of vibrations then stumbled to her feet.

Within seconds, her PJ bottoms were on the floor and she was bent over the desk. I needed no further invitation, but I didn’t give her what she wanted.

Instead, I dropped to my knees and buried my face in her cunt.

“No, no, no, no,” she sobbed as I slurped my way through her juices, only to focus on her clit, sucking down hard on the hyper-sensitized nub.

As I ate her out, encouraging her to come a fourth time, though it was slower than the others, she angled back, fingers hanging on to the edge of the desk, the motions panicked as if she didn’t know what to do with so much pleasure.

My cock ached like a fucker, but only then did I get to my feet. Twisting her around so we were face-to-face, I stared into her dazed, half-blind eyes and propped her against the surface.

Freeing my dick, I let it fall against her slit. The pressure had her arms giving way.

“I love you, Star,” I rasped as the head of my dick found her gate.

“L-Love you, C-Conor,” she slurred, her eyes falling closed as I thrust into her slick cunt, the muscles weakly clinging to me as if they were as exhausted as she appeared.

She hummed when I filled her then pressed her fingers to her belly. “Feel so good,” she confessed with a sigh.

“I want one more,” I whispered.

Her face screwed up as I reached for the vibrator again, but she didn’t stop me, especially when I pressed it into the space between my dick and balls. As I turned it on, my head rocked back in immediate response.

“Oh, f-fuck,” she cried, her other hand coming up to grip her hair. “I-I… C-Conor,” she said brokenly. “So close. So close. It hurts so good. So close.”

Her exhausted pussy clutched at me, drawing me impossibly deeper, urging me to cum as the inexorable vibrations drove me to hell and back.

I tipped my head forward again and glued my eyes to hers as I slowly thrust into her.

A pained wail escaped her as I retreated.

A choked sob was let loose when I filled her.

It was to that melody that I worked us both to release.

It was slow. Achingly slow.

My muscles trembled, sweat beading along the length of my spine as if I were working out. My entire being tensed in anticipation as I moved ever nearer to the end.

Then she screamed and I quickly bowed over her, covering her mouth with mine to shut her up. The change in position, the shift in pressure, had us both losing it.

I hissed out a long breath as my entire being seemed to be suffused by a darkness so pure, the only light was her—gleaming like the star she was in the endless universe that was the surfeit of pleasure she gifted me with.

As I shuddered through it, she clawed at my shoulders, nails digging deep enough that I knew my back would have been shredded if I weren’t wearing a tee.

The vibrator’s battery conked out at long last, making the throbbing silence even more powerful as the final jerking pulls of her pussy on my cock drained me of everything I was.

When I sagged into her, she groaned as she tried to hug me but ended up leaning her limbs against me as if that were all she was capable of.

I didn’t complain.

I felt like a bowl of limp noodles too.

Burrowing my face between her tits, I mumbled, “Mine.”

She breathed, “Mine.”

I smiled.

Sucked in air that was stained with sex.

Closed my eyes.

Home.

I was home.