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STAR

“What’s wrong?”

“What makes you think something is wrong?”

Conor snorted.

I arched a brow.

He smirked.

I narrowed my eyes.

“I know you too well and you hate it.”

I huffed.

“See? There’s you hating it.”

“No one likes a know-it-all.”

“Apart from when they’re great at oral.”

“Who said you were great at oral?”

“You. Last night. Ten times.”

“It wasn’t ten times.”

“Ten.”

“Eight.”

“Ten.”

“Seven.”

“ Ten .” He tugged on his turtleneck like he was about to strip out of it. Because I wasn’t dumb and wouldn’t mind the show, I kept my mouth shut. At my silence, his smirk deepened. “Want me to come over there and prove I’m deserving of the title? At least it’d cheer you up. You’ve been miserable ever since you found out we’re hosting Christmas Day here.”

“I’m not miserable.” I pouted at him. “But you know I wanted to go and shoot that asshole on Christmas Eve. It’d be a great gift for his future widow. Plus, we’d get to vacation in Hawaii.”

“I thought we’d agreed not to shoot anyone anymore whether they were inside the continental US or out of it,” was his placid retort, though the amusement in his eyes told me I wasn’t fooling him.

“We did. It was a shit agreement. I vote we renege and come up with a new one.”

“We agreed that we’d stop reneging on agreements because we always renege on them.”

“That was your idea.”

“It was mutual.” He got to his feet, all six-foot yum of him, and stretched.

How dare he?

A small glimpse of his abs peeped at me.

So rude.

Then, he tugged the sweater down and ambled toward me, all calm and collected.

Annoying .

“Come on, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I denied with a sniff, gaze darting over to the baby monitor when Niall mumbled in his sleep. When he quieted down, I continued by declaring, “I’m fine. Absolutely fine. F. I. N. E . So what that your goddamn mother told me that her stuffing was better than mine? That’s got nothing to do with it. NOTHING. AT. ALL.”

His brow lifted. “I love you for not shooting her.”

Because the moment merited it, I sniffed. Again. “Thank you. I appreciate that you appreciate my restraint. That fucking woman. First, it was my gravy, then it was my stuffing. I won’t stand for it, do you hear me?”

“You don’t even like cooking,” he pointed out as he settled his cute ass on the edge of my desk.

Good thing it was cute with fighting words like those.

“That’s got nothing to do with it. She wants to come into my home and take over my kitchen and tell me that my stuffing sucks.”

He scratched his jaw. His five o’clock shadow was something I thought I’d get tired of—no one likes beard rash—but nah, even that’s perfect.

Soft.

Silky.

Even better when he was between my legs, proving that he was a master at oral.

Not that I was going to stroke his ego and tell him I’d declared it eleven times last night when he’d already vetoed a shooting and was on the fence about defending me over his ma.

“Well, how about she cooks it in her apartment and brings it up?”

I harrumphed. “That’s not a solution. It’s impractical, Conor.”

“More impractical to shoot that mayor in Honolulu because you’ve got issues with my ma,” he remarked, casually flinging out a hand.

He was so lucky I didn’t bite.

“Tell me you don’t think the mayor deserves to die.”

“Oh, he does. But I’ve decided that I prefer it when they rot in a jail cell. You don’t suffer in a grave.”

“You do if you’re alive,” I muttered.

He clicked his fingers. “Now, that sounds pretty neat. Buried alive. That is the gift that keeps on giving.”

“I’m glad we see eye to eye.”

“You see eye to dick.”

“Not my fault you’re sitting on my desk.” I folded my arms across my chest. “She insulted me, Conor.”

His lips pursed. “You put me in a difficult position, Star.” Before my temper could stir, he continued, “If I get involved, you tell me that you can handle it. If I don’t get involved, you tell me to get involved.

“So, the question is, what do you want me to do about her? Just tell me and I’m on it.” He chucked me under the chin. “I hate it when you’re upset, baby.”

Because he was right and beautiful when he was calling me ‘baby,’ I grumbled under my breath, “Nothing.”

Lena might be a cunt, but she wasn’t the first one I’d come across in my lifetime.

My usual method of dealing with them didn’t work here though—Conor loved her, so torture was out.

“I can talk to her,” he promised. “Tell her to stop giving you so much shit.”

“No. That’s why I haven’t brought it up. I don’t need you fighting my battles, thank you very much.”

Guns were a no-go. So were cattle prods.

With my usual weapons unavailable to me, I'd admit I was floundering.

I was not a woman born to flounder.

Hence the miserable expression.

Of course, he had to be perfect and talk about feelings, didn’t he? Most men would prefer to come face-to-face with my cattle prod. But not Conor.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, so how about we have Christmas at Aidan and Savannah’s?”

That had me scoffing. “I’d never hear the end of it! This place has the biggest square footage to fit your, frankly obscene, number of relatives.

“No, we’ll host the holiday dinner here,” I said, tone grim. “And we’ll like it.”

“That sounds full of festive cheer.”

“It had better be. You watch me out-Christmas her,” I growled. “I have six trees coming from Nordstrom?—”

“Six?!”

“Yeah. One for each of her boys and themed to match. You are going to help me decorate them.”

He pulled a face. “I’m sure Savannah would love to host?—”

“Fuck that,” I snapped, stomping to my feet. “This place is going to make Santa Claus nauseated, do you hear me?”

“I guess,” he muttered. “I’m just not sure how that hurts Ma?”

“It won’t. It’ll distract her.”

“Distract her?” he repeated warily.

“Yes. We’re going to distract her and then we’re going to swap my stuffing for hers and she’s going to eat it and look at me smugly and tell me that her recipe is so good and all along, it’ll be mine!”

“Mwahahahahahahahaha!”

I cut Kat a look. “I thought kids were supposed to be seen and not heard.”

“Tell me that wasn’t the perfect moment for an evil laugh, Conor.”

He hid a grin. “I can’t tell you that, Katina. It was very Dr. No.”

“Not more of the 007 bullshit. Please .” I groaned.

“What number were you, Star?”

“I was with US Intelligence, Kat,” I told her as I’d told her many times. “We don’t label operatives the same way, and if UK Intelligence still does, if they ever did, then they’re idiots.”

Conor smirked. “Maybe it’s a double-blind… Ya know, like what you want to pull?”

Kat twisted into a standing barrel roll through the office door, somehow avoiding both Ren and Stimpy, who’d grown used to her impromptu bouts of gymnastics, and landed beside Conor. “I want in.”

“On?”

“Operation: Stuff The Turkey.” She elbowed Conor before grabbing Ren and rubbing her chin over the hellcat’s head. “Star’s stuffing is about the only thing she cooks that doesn’t taste of ass.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You are aware that I’m the one who pays for your gymnastics classes?”

She batted her lashes up at Conor. “You’d pay for my classes, wouldn’t you?”

He rubbed his jaw. “Death by Star or Death by Kat… I think I’d prefer to face your wrath than hers.”

She pouted. “No fair!”

He curved an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sure when you’re Star’s age, you’ll be equally as terrifying.”

That had her preening. “I want to be scarier than her. I’m on track too. I made three boys cry in school last week!”

I held out my hand for her to high-five. “Good job. Who were they and what did they do to deserve it?”

“Tim Wright and James Sullivan—they pick on the grades lower than us. Tim made this one kid’s nose bleed and had him lie to the teachers about it.” Her eyes grew round with her outrage. “Kieran Cavendish got this dumb camera so that he could look up girls’ skirts?—”

“He did what?”

Conor grabbed my shoulder. “Calm down, Star!”

“There's a pervert in our daughter’s class, Conor, and you want me to calm down?” I barked.

“I never said we wouldn’t deal with it,” was his patient retort.

“His dad's a congressman,” Kat chimed in, a small smile curving her lips at my fury. “All three of them only got detention so I punched them in the junk.”

“THEY. GOT. DETENTION, CONOR!” I screeched, two seconds away from pulling my hair out while deftly ignoring my daughter's belief in corporal punishment. I knew I'd taught her well. I stabbed my finger on his chest. “You pull whatever moves you have to to get that little pervert ousted from the academy, do you hear me? Or I’ll handle it and there will be bloodshed.”

He snagged a hold of my hand and tugged me into him. When his thighs bracketed mine, he placed my hand on his chest and blanketed it with his own. “Breathe, Star. Come on. There’s no need to get so upset about this. I’ll deal with it. I promise.”

“You better,” I warned, “or I’ll skewer them alive.”

Kat giggled. “I’d like to see that, Star.”

“She thinks I’m joking,” I mumbled when Kat twisted into another midair somersault.

“Well, she doesn’t know what you’re capable of, does she?” he drawled. “But I do.” He hugged me, arms tight and fast around my body in that way only he was capable of. Anyone else tried to hug me like this and I’d garrot them. But Conor, somehow, always got me to calm down.

It’d be annoying if it wasn’t more practical than Valium.

Though equally addictive.

Somewhere between killing my grandfather and today, I started having these weird episodes.

The doctor labeled them anxiety attacks.

I called them annoying.

Conor tried getting me to use these breathing techniques but all they did was piss me off. Now, he used the breathing techniques while he hugged me.

Hey, it was my process, all right?

“She hurt all three of them more than they hurt her by the sounds of it,” he tried to soothe.

“That’s not reassuring, Conor. That little bastard didn’t look up her skirt. She always wears pants, but that’s not the point. Nor is it the point that she's big enough to deal with bullies.” I jabbed his shoulder with my finger. “You’re lucky I like you because I’m starting to get really pissed off at the male population.”

His lips quirked at the corners. “I always knew I was special but didn’t realize why.”

I huffed. “What are you going to do with this Cavendish fucker?”

“Ruin his credit for the rest of his life?” he chirped.

“Yeah, because seventeen-year-olds have credit. Punishments have to be practical, Conor, or they’re no fun,” I snarled, trying not to be amused when his grin turned wicked.

“Hey, I can affect his future credit. I have a long memory—as well you know. For the moment, maybe I’ll throw in a virus on his phone so that if he does anything like this again, I can dump something on his cloud that’d give the feds a boner.” His eyes turned distant. “His permanent record obviously needs my creative input too. I think I’ll set up his father as well. I wonder what skeletons he has lurking in his closet.”

I patted his arm. “Go and fetch me the bones, Conor, pretty please.”

His gaze snapped from that distant point and onto me. “You’re the one who’s great with bones.”

I could no more stop myself from laughing than I could from shuffling my hips so that my belly nudged his dick.

Thankfully, no matter how whacko I got, that still was hard for me.

“You owe me.”

“I always owe you,” I disregarded, knowing exactly where he was taking this. “And you still need to decorate the trees with me.”

A groan escaped him. “Can’t Kat help with that while I bring down this politician and his son?”

My lips pursed. “Okay. But you have to fix your tree.”

“That’s fair,” he concurred with a nod before lowering his head and kissing my lips. As they drifted along my cheek, he settled at my ear and whispered, “I love your crazy, Star.”

Deep inside, that small, cold place that’d always been there since my mom died warmed up a touch at his words.

I nuzzled my forehead against his jaw. “I just plain love you, Conor.”

And I did.

It was the weirdest fucking thing but I did.

Annoying mothers aside, I knew that I always would too.