THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (23 page)

“I’m sorry if you felt abandoned. That’s not what I intended.”

“What did you intend?”

“I needed to be on my own for a while, Stacy. To figure things out. I know you understand that.”

I did. I’d come to New York to escape Brian and the boys always checking in on me, always getting into my business. But it didn’t feel the same. It felt back then like he was avoiding me. And now, with what Sara had said, I was almost convinced that I’d been right.

“Mom needed you to come home.”

“Just Mom?”

I shrugged. “You were my big brother, the one I trusted. And suddenly you were gone. It wasn’t a good feeling.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s a little late for apologies, isn’t it?”

“It’s never too late.”

He touched the side of my face and a tingle of pleasure danced on my spine. I wanted to curl into him, into his touch. I wanted him to touch me everywhere. But I didn’t want to frighten him by pushing this thing too hard, too fast. So I stepped away.

“I should go.”

I felt him watch me as I slipped out the door. A sense of satisfaction slid through me as I quickly left his building and returned to my own. But there was something else there that I decided I didn’t want to analyze. What was the point? This wasn’t going to end well for him.

Killian

“Things are complicated here,” Ian was saying in my ear as I quickly crossed the street. “We’ve had a few conflicts with the Italians this week.”

“You said the same thing last week.”

“I know. Things seem to be escalating. Pops wants you to stay with Stacy until this thing simmers down a little.”

“What about the war? Shouldn’t I come help?”

“He says there’s no point in putting more of us in trouble. He wants to send Kevin back to Paris, did I tell you that?”

“No. But I’m not surprised. He’s always been fondest of Kevin.”

“He has. And Kevin’s never been a part of this stuff.”

“True. Neither has Stace.”

“That’s why you need to stay there, keep her out of it. If some of these Italians think they can use her against Pops…”

“I know. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thanks, big brother.”

I ended the call a moment later, exchanging the phone for my keys. I unlocked Stacy’s apartment door, wondering what today would bring. She’d spoken to me a little more over the last few days, ever since our conversation on Sunday. But things continued to be tense between us. I didn’t like it, but at least I knew now what had been bothering her so much.

She thought I abandoned her. If only she knew the truth.

Just as I pushed the door open, I heard a crash come from the bedroom.

“Dammit!”

I ran across the living room and burst into the bedroom. Stacy was bent over, more curses slipping from between her pretty lips. She’d dropped a water glass, and it’d shattered on the hardwood floor. A piece was embedded in the bottom of her bare foot, blood pouring around the shard and dripping on the floor. I scooped her up into my arms and carried her into the bathroom, realizing only as I set her on the edge of the toilet that she was naked from the waist up.

“I picked up my phone, forgetting it was still hooked up to the charger, and it caught the glass.” She looked down at the blood dripping from her foot. “Damn, stupid thing to do.”

“Let me look.”

I carefully raised her foot and touched the shard of glass. She hissed. It was an inch long and maybe an inch wide, imbedded deep in the center of her foot. My hand shook as I studied it, trying to decide what would be the best thing to do.

“You might need stitches.”

“Great. Imagine trying to get heels on with stitches in the bottom of my foot.”

“You’ll probably have to take a couple of days off of work.”

She groaned deeper at that thought than she had at the pain.

“I just started working there. They’ll fire me if I have to take time off.”

“They won’t fire you.”

“You don’t know these people.”

I looked at her, trying to ignore her perky breasts that were barely hidden behind her crossed arms. I must have blushed because she glanced down at herself and smiled.

“Sorry. I was still getting dressed.”

“I can see that.”

“My bathrobe is right behind you.”

I turned, still supporting her foot with my left hand, reaching for her robe with the right. I handed it to her, averting my eyes as she slipped it on. I still managed to get quite a glimpse of her bare breasts, a sight that made my balls tighten and my cock to stretch. It made squatting an unhappy position to be in. I stood, turning slightly and forcing my concentration on her foot.

“Do you have a pair of tweezers? I should pull the glass out.”

She pointed to a drawer beside me. “Be gentle, huh?”

“I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

I studied the piece of glass, a little nervous about pulling it out. Her blood was running down over her heel and through my fingers. I didn’t want to make the situation worse, but I knew I needed to get the glass out so the wound could clot. If it were my foot, it wouldn’t be an issue. But this was Stacy’s foot.

I barely touched the tweezers to the glass, and she hissed again.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly, as I grasped the glass and pulled it out as quickly as I could. She cried out and blood gushed, but the glass hadn’t been as deep as I’d thought. It was a long cut, about three-quarters of an inch long, but it was pretty shallow.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but you’ll have to stay off of it for a couple of days.”

“Just bandage it up really well.”

“Stacy…”

“I can’t lose my job.”

She stared at me with the earnest stare that once convinced me to take her to a New Kids on the Block concert even after Mom and Pops had said she couldn’t go. I shook my head, aware that I couldn’t deny her anything when she looked at me that way.

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

She pointed to another drawer on her vanity. I dug it out and shifted her around so that I could prop her foot over the sink. She hissed again when I poured nearly a whole bottle of hydrogen peroxide over the wound, washing away old and new blood alike. I dabbed it with a piece of gauze and then fashioned a bandage over it. Stacy made a chorus of sounds as I worked on it, her face almost anemically pale when I was done.

“It’s Friday. If you take off the weekend, it’ll probably be better by Monday. But if you try to walk on it too much today…”

“Okay,” she said, looking as though she might faint.

I scooped her into my arms again, holding her tighter against my chest than I probably had to. I didn’t like seeing her in pain. It made my heart ache, almost like it had done when Mom died.

I laid her carefully on the bed, grabbing a pillow so I could prop up her foot.

“I’ll get you some aspirin.”

She pointed again to the same cabinet in the bathroom where I’d found the first aid kit, but I already knew it was there. I took it to her, watching until she’d swallowed both pills. Then I cleaned up the glass, hunting down the vacuum to make sure I got all the pieces, not just the big ones.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“Of course I did.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and studied her face. She was still pale, but some of the color was starting to come back into her cheeks.

“You should be more careful.”

“I usually am. I hardly ever bring glass in here, but I was exhausted last night and I’d run out of water bottles.”

“You should have called me. I would have gotten you more.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“When are you going to figure out that I’m here for you? There is nothing more important.”

“Why? Why now?”

I shrugged, finding it impossible not to touch her. I took her hand between both of mine, holding it tighter than I probably should have. My eyes caressed her face, moving over her jaw, her full lips, and her dainty little nose. I wanted to brush the hair out of her face, but she reached up and did it for me. However, I could almost feel the silkiness of it.

How often had I imagined a moment like this? And how many times had I told myself how wrong it was?

“You’re my family.”

“I’m not. Not really.”

“Stacy—”

“We weren’t raised together. By the time Mom brought me home, you were headed out to college. And I was never adopted. It was never made official.”

“Does that really matter?”

She shrugged. “It depends.”

“On what?”

She sat up a little straighter and touched my jaw with just the tip of one finger. She slowly allowed it to slide down, resting it on the center of my chin before sliding it up over my bottom lip. I turned my head, forcing her hand to fall away.

“Do you want me to call Sara? Let her know you won’t be in today?”

“Wouldn’t you love that? An excuse to talk to your lover?”

She pulled her hand away, turning slightly against the pillows so that her back was mostly toward me.

“That’s not what I meant. I just thought I’d help you out.”

“I think I’ve had enough of that kind of help.”

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I grabbed her shoulder and forced her to turn back to me. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Why do you think?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

She stared at me through narrowed eyes for a long second. “Are you really that oblivious?”

“Oblivious to—?”

She moved into me and pressed her finger to my lips. Then she replaced it with her lips. It caught my breath; I was totally not expecting this. But then her hand was on my jaw, and I was lost. It wasn’t a sisterly kiss. It was the kind of kiss that had the power to steal my sense of reality, my ability to think and breathe. I sighed against her mouth, opening to the tiny flick of her tongue against my lips. She tasted cold, like toothpaste or mouthwash, but she quickly warmed up, the spicy taste of her coming through after a minute. It was exactly how I’d imagined it would be.

I pushed her back against the pillows and deepened the kiss. She moaned softly against my lips, the moan sending a vibration through my body. Her fingers slid into my hair, tugging me against her. I slipped my hand under her bathrobe, her nipples tight and erect against my palm. I groaned again, an ache growing in my lower belly. A kiss had never been so intense, the taste so intoxicating. My head was spinning.

It was…it was so wrong. This was Stacy. This was my sister.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her fingers away from me, climbing off the bed before she knew what I was doing. I heard her call for me as I stormed through the apartment, but I couldn’t go back. If I did…I wasn’t sure I could control myself. I’d wanted this for so long that I couldn’t stop myself. But I couldn’t do that to Stacy. She’d already been through too much these last six months. I couldn’t make things worse.

I walked for a long time, trying to cool the heat that lived deep in my belly.

Why did she kiss me? Why would she want to touch me that way? Why did she do that?

My head was still spinning, but it was a different sort of spin. I was confused, but I knew what I wanted all at the same time. I wanted Stacy. I’d wanted her since that night when she was fifteen and I was twenty-one and she crawled into my bed. She was upset over a fight she’d had with Mom. In the past, when she was little, she would crawl into my bed and we would tell each other stories until she fell asleep. But there was a big difference between curling up with an eleven year old when you’re seventeen and curling up with a fifteen year old when you’re twenty-one.

Her warm body pressed back against my chest…I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks afterward. Feeling her warmth, listening to the soft murmurs of her voice, the feel of her fingers dancing over my arm. Holding her that night did things to me that I could never explain and that I never got past. I was home for two months after that, but every time I looked at her, every time I spoke to her, I remembered the feel of her in my arms and I couldn’t look her in the eye.

She wanted to know why I never came home while I was in graduate school. It was because I couldn’t look at her without wanting to throw her down on my bed. But it wasn’t just that. When I looked at her, I wanted to caress her face and hold her close. I wanted to listen to her troubles and make them better for her. I wanted to make everything in her life right. I wanted…I just wanted. I wanted her.

The thing was, I knew it was wrong. Mom sat us all down before she brought home Ian and explained that we were family, that we should consider any child she brought into the house as our sibling, like that child was born to her just like Sean and I were. I took that to heart. Every time I came home from school and found a new kid sitting at the dinner table, I did exactly what she said. I treated them just like I would Sean. I watched over them and made sure they didn’t hurt themselves, but I also teased them and maybe even tortured them, just as I did to Sean.

But Stacy…I couldn’t help the way I felt. So I stayed away.

I needed to leave again. But I couldn’t.

What was I going to do?