Читать книгу Inside Out - Amy Lee Burgess - Страница 5

Chapter 1

When I woke, I was in bed with two men. One of them, my Alpha Paddy O’Reilly, had his hand on my ass. The steady, inhale exhale of his breath was warm against the back of my neck.

The other man, Liam Murphy was my bond mate. Deeply asleep, he lay curled in a ball at the extreme edge of the king-sized mattress, his back to me. Still I’d managed to hook one ankle over his in my sleep. Awake, I’m sure I never would have done it because I was angry with him.

He hadn’t been there for my tribunal. Though I’d begged him to stay with me, he’d gone to Virginia to search the Pack’s archives for a case precedent which would have spared me from being put to death on a murder charge. However, I saved myself—or rather, my wolf had. She’d shown the Councilors on the tribunal the way to absolve me. In the end, I’d been commended for my service to the Great Pack—a twist I’d never expected even in my wildest imaginings. I’d been convinced I was doomed.

Thoughts of the tribunal and Murphy’s absence made sleep impossible. After I lifted Paddy’s hand off my ass, I wriggled from beneath the comforter and sheets, and slid down to the end of the bed.

My reflection in the mirror over the dresser frightened me a little. Damn I needed to wash my hair. Or at least brush it. I pushed blond snarls away from my face and stared at my eyes. Darker blue than normal. Definitely troubled.

“Bullshit,” I muttered and stalked across the bland beige carpeting. I made a pit stop at my suitcase, which inconveniently blocked access to the bathroom. I threw the first things that came to hand—jeans, a t-shirt, and underwear—over my shoulder. Then I snatched up my toiletries and makeup bag, and took a long, hot shower.

The scent of hotel body wash and shampoo clung to my skin when I emerged forty minutes later.

Paddy O’Reilly, leader of my pack, Mac Tire, hung up the phone on the nightstand and turned to give me a cheerful smile. His curly black hair never looked neat, but the extreme state of bed head he boasted this morning was truly phenomenal. Yet, he still managed to look appealing. How did men do things like that? It wasn’t fair.

“Room service is on the way. Let them in if I’m still in the shower, okay?” The Irish lilt to his voice reminded me of Murphy’s. By association, my gaze slid to the figure still huddled beneath the comforter. He hadn’t shifted position and, while he wasn’t exactly snoring, he breathed loudly.

Paddy followed my gaze and grinned. “Dead to the world, he is. Be that way for several hours by my estimation. Guess we won’t be heading back to Boston today, will we?”

I scowled. “We could wake his ass up.”

Paddy gave my wet hair a friendly tousle on his way past to the bathroom. “Nah. He needs his sleep, Stanzie. He hasn’t done anything but grab cat naps here and there for the past four days. Boston will still be there tomorrow and the day after that too, I suspect.”

But I wanted to leave Connecticut now. I’d wanted to leave yesterday when the tribunal cleared me.

The tribunal had really hung me out to dry emotionally. I’d had some awesomely terrible experiences over the past three years, but that had been one of the worst of my whole life. Since I’d turned thirty, my life had blown up and everything I’d thought I’d have until I grew old and died had been systematically yanked away from me until I clutched at what was left with increasing desperation.

I tried to live on the bright side, only it was getting harder and harder to find anything but darkness.

Liam Murphy was one of the brightest things that had happened since my first bond mates had died in a car crash the night of my thirtieth birthday. Six months ago, under strange and dramatic circumstances, we’d bonded. Somewhere along the line, I’d fallen in love with him. He had no clue whatsoever that I loved him.

I knew and accepted, sort of, that he’d never truly love me as he’d loved his dead bond mate, Sorcha, but I had thought we were great friends and even better bond mates. Now my faith had been seriously shaken. Something in me had broken when he’d left me to face the tribunal alone. Other Advisors had also searched the archives for a precedent to clear me. He could have let them do it and stayed with me, and I tried to understand his reasons, but it was so hard.

Murphy had plead exhaustion and fallen into a deep sleep the minute we’d walked into Paddy’s downtown Hartford hotel room last night, but usually he did not curl into a fetal ball at the extreme edge of the mattress to avoid me. Normally he met my eyes when he talked to me.

My life was once again a shit mess. The first step to make it less shitty would be to leave Connecticut behind, but Murphy had to sleep.

I had very little sympathy. He could sleep when we got to Boston. With a rattling briskness, I whipped aside the floor length curtains across the hotel windows. Hideous late-morning sunlight jabbed my eyeballs and I muffled a curse. Fucking sun. What was I? A vampire?

Meanwhile Murphy hadn’t moved a muscle. Oblivious.

I shaded my poor eyes with one hand and forced myself to stare out the window. The hotel overlooked the Connecticut River, but not from our room. We had a view of a glass-and-steel office building which accounted for the truly appalling glare, and three stories below, a sidewalk where several young saplings were trained against sticks and surrounded with wire fencing for protection.

The hotel boasted the largest ballroom in the city and I’d played my harp there several times for wedding receptions when I’d belonged to the Riverglow pack. If I closed my eyes, I could conjure up the peach-and-cream floral pattern of the carpeting and the phantom scent of baked stuffed shrimp and prime rib. I hadn’t played a harp in nearly three years and it was more than that since I’d played professionally. Did I still remember how?

I let the apricot-colored curtains fall from my hand and turned to the king-sized bed. Murphy was still scrunched up beneath the covers. Just his blondish brown hair protruded. And one bare arm.

From the bathroom Paddy burst into an Irish folk song. I understood one word in five. Maybe. He had a pleasing baritone that shook the shower gel off the side of the tub by the sound of it. Or maybe the container slipped through his fingers. My enhanced hearing made it sound like he showered with the bathroom door wide open. No, wait, the bathroom door was wide open.

I almost tripped over the dark peach footstool that matched the armchair by the windows. Everything in the room was peach, apricot, cream, or pale blue. Except for the wallpaper. That had wide yellow stripes on a cream background. Or maybe vice versa, I couldn’t decide.

On my way to shut the damn bathroom door, someone knocked on the front door. Room service.

Great. My hair still hung in wet strings around my face. I had no idea where the hair dryer was, though I suspected it was in the bathroom where Paddy currently shook the walls with his voice.

I cast a look at Murphy curled in the bed. Not a twitch of movement. With a sigh, I opened the door.

The bellboy wheeled in a cart. He was maybe eighteen. He looked at my wet hair and Murphy’s bare arm against the king-sized mattress. Paddy’s exuberant singing vibrated the shower curtain which was visible through the open bathroom door.

“Niiice.” He gave me a lewd smile and made a production of removing the silver covers off the plates. Appetizing smells wafted into the air—eggs, bacon, butter, toast.

I fumbled a five dollar bill from my pocket and shoved it into his hand. He continued to gaze at me lasciviously. I could only imagine the tales he’d spin for the hotel staff when he left the room.

I herded him to the door and, after I locked it, I leaned my forehead against it and counted to ten, which didn’t help matters.

Paddy stopped singing and shut off the water. When I heard him enter the bedroom, I turned around. “We’re checking out.”

Paddy elevated an eyebrow. Just one. I’d only ever seen Mister Spock on Star Trek pull that off. Paddy had one blue eye and one brown eye. The raised brow was above the blue eye.

Black curls were plastered down onto his skull and he wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. The man’s chest hair was marginally less curly than the stuff on his head. His bond pendant dangled from a gold link chain around his throat. I couldn’t see which two birthstones made up the pendant because they were buried in the chest hair.

“In approximately fifty-five seconds, the entire staff of this hotel will think we spent last night in a torrid threesome.”

“So?” He had another towel in his hands which he used to scrub at his hair. Curls sprang back into shape.

“So I don’t care to be the object of all their lewd speculations. Plus, I hate it here.” I stalked over to the room service cart and plucked up a crisp piece of bacon which I devoured in two bites.

Paddy looked around the room. “It’s not the grandest hotel room in the world, but it’s not hideous. For three hundred dollars a night, it better not be.”

“Here as in Hartford, Connecticut, not this hotel in particular. Although now that you mention it, Paddy, this peach-and-cream color scheme gives me headache.”

Perhaps in response to my rant, he nonchalantly dropped the towel around his waist and headed for the dresser.

I rolled my eyes. “Can you put on some pants, damn it? I’m trying to have a conversation about how indignant I am at the hotel staff’s delusions and you’re walking around without your pants. Or anything else.”

He had a nice ass. Not as nice as Murphy’s, but still nice.

“If you hold on for about twenty seconds I will have pants. I promise.” Paddy cast me an amused look and opened one of the dresser drawers. “What do you care what Others think? They don’t understand. You, Liam and I are pack mates. Pack mates frequently sleep in the same bed together. As many as the bed will hold sometimes. With or without sex involved.”

I curled my lip at him. Yes, he had a point. When I’d been a member of Riverglow we’d go back to Callie, Peter and Vaughn’s house after every hunt and pile in an exhausted heap on Callie’s bed. No carnal thoughts in any of our heads, just exhausted sleep together.

We’d wake in an affectionate tangle half on top of each other. If I’d opened my eyes first and was on the bottom of the pile, it had sometimes taken me five minutes to extricate myself.

That seemed so long ago. Maybe I had forgotten some things about belonging to a pack.

I picked up the carafe of orange juice and took a slug. I couldn’t be bothered with a glass.

“Hey, save some for me. That was supposed to be for all of us!” Paddy hastily withdrew a pair of black boxer briefs from the drawer and pulled them on.

“He who hath not pants, getteth not the orange juice,” I declared and swallowed half the contents of the carafe in one long gulp.

Paddy balanced on one leg like a hairy stork and when he laughed, he had to grab the edge of the dresser so he wouldn’t crash to the floor. The boxer briefs slipped down to his ankles. Truly a nice ass.

As Pack, we were not prudes and were used to group nudity. Group sex for that matter. But I still preferred to have most of my conversations with people who had their clothes on.

“I have pants, damn you, woman!” Paddy roared as I continued to suck down the orange juice.

Murphy unclosed one eye and peered blearily around the room until he found us.

“Liam, this woman is taking shocking advantage of her Alpha. My word should be law!”

Murphy struggled to focus. “Take care of Stanzie. Please, Paddy?” His fight to push aside the covers ceased as he fell back to the pillows and into sleep.

Offended, I set down the mostly empty juice carafe and stalked to the peach-colored chair by the window. I threw myself into it and drew my knees up to my chest as I stared out at the goddamn shiny glass building next door. I did not need to be taken care of. Who the hell was Murphy to delegate the assignment to Paddy as if I were some sort of weak little girl?

Paddy finished dressing—he put on a pair of dark brown corduroys over the boxer briefs, but nothing else, and fixed himself a plate of breakfast.

As he scooped eggs and bacon into his mouth, he watched me, but I refused to be drawn.

After he set down his empty plate, he got one for me and padded over on bare feet to hand it to me.

“Not hungry.” My stomach gurgled. Paddy elevated an eyebrow again, this time the one above his brown eye, and put the plate on the little side table by the chair.

He went back to the cart and took the plate which would have been Murphy’s if he’d bothered to get up and balanced against the edge of the dresser before he dug in.

Murphy abruptly began to snore.

I pressed an apricot-colored pillow to my chest and resisted the urge to throw it at his head.

Paddy’s chewing didn’t help me either. Resentment, seething and malevolent, swirled around me in an almost visible mist. Paddy smelled it—he couldn’t help it with his enhanced senses—but continued to eat until his plate was once again empty.

He regarded the orange juice carafe for a moment and chose coffee instead. My stomach gurgled again. Murphy rolled over and stopped snoring.

“Are you pissed off because we haven’t had the torrid threesome the hotel staff is supposedly gossiping about?”

I aimed the apricot-colored pillow at the coffee mug in his hand and scored a direct hit. Hot coffee splashed along the bottom of the dresser. The mug hit the brass handle of one of the drawers and cracked in two.

“A simple ‘no, Paddy, that’s not the friggin’ problem, you idjit’ would have sufficed.” Paddy surveyed the damage with a rueful shake of his head. He found another mug and, before he poured more coffee, cast a wary look to make sure I had no more ammunition.

“Eating something might improve that temper of yours,” he remarked and ducked to protect his coffee when I winged my fork at him.

“I don’t want to spend the whole damn day in this cramped hotel room listening to him snore and you chew, Paddy.” The smell of breakfast drove me crazy but I did not give in and grab up a handful with my fingers. Not even the bacon.

“So, who’s stopping you?” He sounded impatient but not mad. Yet.

That response took me aback for a moment. He had a point. I was no longer a “guest” of the Councils, unable to leave the premises without an escort and permission. House arrest was over. I was a free woman.

Still suspicious, I said, “I can go out? Like leave the hotel?”

“The world’s your oyster, woman. Well, within reason. I would like to take you out to dinner tonight so you’d need to be back here around six.” He grabbed his watch from the dresser top. “That gives you nearly seven hours. That enough time for you?”

I didn’t need another invitation. I leaped to my feet and dashed to the overnight case which held my shoes. All seven pairs. Before I’d even unzipped it, I started to fret. Did I have a pair with me I wanted to wear? I’d worn the ballerina flats yesterday and my Louboutin pumps didn’t go with jeans, plus Murphy had given them to me and I didn’t want to wear anything from him. That only left the nude pumps, knee-high brown boots, an impractical pair of red stilettos—what the hell had I been thinking when I’d packed? Sexy red stilettos at a tribunal?—my navy blue Chucks and the loafers I’d worn in the car on the way to the safe house from Vermont. Bleh. No fucking way. They still had mud on the insides from Grandmother Emma’s dirt driveway.

I tossed them toward the trash can by the dresser. One of them actually made it in. Paddy ducked again until he realized I wasn’t aiming for him.

Once the Chucks were tied, I stood and craned my neck around in search of a damn room card and my purse.

“I only have the one card.” Paddy knew what I looked for which was somewhat amazing for a man. “Let me keep it in case I want to go out. You can knock on the door and Sir Sleeps-a-lot can let you in if you get back before me.”

I opened my mouth to argue but he shook his head.

“Alpha,” he reminded me and tensed, as if he expected me to throw something at him again.

I had the door half open when he called my name. I turned back and he tossed me something that jangled. I caught whatever it was automatically and stared down with dismay. A set of car keys rested in my palm. I didn’t drive cars. Not since the night I’d crashed my birthday present Mustang and my bond mates, Grey and Elena, had been killed.

Paddy knew damn well I didn’t drive. He had to. Murphy told him everything. I’d spent half the ride to the hotel yesterday white knuckled with fear because Murphy had been too tired to take the wheel and I hadn’t known or trusted Paddy’s driving. The bastard wasn’t used to driving on the right side of the road, as he came from Ireland, and that had only added to my extreme anxiety. I had never been so glad to get anywhere in my life as when we’d arrived at the hotel.

Paddy had wanted me to help with the luggage and stay in the car as he parked, but the very idea of a parking lot, and an underground one at that, had proved too much. I’d shrilly demanded to be let out by the hotel entrance and I’d waited in the lobby. Murphy, exhausted as he’d been, had been forced to help with the luggage. He hadn’t complained because he knew why I was scared.

In fact he’d looked absolutely guilt-stricken in the harsh lights of the elevator as we’d ridden to the third floor. He’d forgotten I would be scared to drive with Paddy. It was an indication of his level of fatigue, but at the time it had seemed yet another betrayal.

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” I glared at Paddy and my fist closed over the keys so tightly I felt the edge of one of them dig into the flesh of my palm. It hurt.

“Maybe a little,” he admitted and ducked when I threw the keys at his face. He knocked them away and they fell with a jangle to the carpet. When he looked at me, I knew I’d finally goaded him into anger.

“Throw one more thing at me, Constance Newcastle, and you’ll be one sorry woman.”

“Gonna beat me?” I mocked. He lunged at me and before I could escape out the door, he’d slammed it and had me pinned. I jutted my chin and braced myself for the blow, but it never came.

“I don’t hit women.” From his scowl, I guessed Paddy was highly insulted that I’d even entertained that notion. His mouth was approximately two inches from mine and the entire length of his body was pressed—none too gently—against mine. In fact, I found it a little hard to breathe. One of his hands was pressed flat against the door near my head, the other clamped firmly to my shoulder. A knee rested against my locked-together legs.

He elevated one of his brows again. “I do, however, kiss them. You are kinda turning me on here, woman.” He dipped his mouth closer to mine and laughed uproariously when I turned my face and his lips landed on my cheek instead.

“Be a pity to make the entire staff of this fine hotel into liars, wouldn’t it?”

“A threesome generally takes three people,” I reminded him.

“So we’ll wake Liam.” Paddy moved his mouth to my ear and nibbled at my earlobe.

“Padraic O’Reilly, you let go of me,” I demanded, but his breath in my ear did send a tingle down my spine. A small one, but a tingle nonetheless. Damn him.

“He did tell me to take care of you, Stanzie. I’d just be doing what he asked me. You want to make him happy now, don’tcha?” Paddy moved the hand on my shoulder south and I twisted away from his fingers.

“I don’t...” I gasped when his knee nudged my legs apart. “...think this is quite what he had in mind, Paddy!”

“I’ve known him his whole life. You just met him six months ago. I think I might have a wee bit better understanding of how to interpret his words.” Paddy nuzzled my exposed neck. “You smell fantastic, Stanzie. No perfume. Why do Pack women insist on wearing perfume and covering up their natural, gorgeous scents? Every Pack woman smells the same, yet different. You’re nearly irresistible, you know that?”

“That’s why we wear perfume. So big goons like you don’t mack on us like we were catnip.” I gave him a shove, but it didn’t do any good.

“Every day for three days I sat next to you at that damned conference table smelling this scent and thinking what a good thing it was I was sitting down and the table was there.” Paddy traced a circle on my neck with his tongue then sucked at the center of it.

“I’m going to tell Fiona on you!” Fiona Carmichael was his bond mate. And Murphy’s twin sister.

“Fiona knows what Pack women’s scents do to me.” Paddy was supremely unconcerned. He moved his hand south again and this time found his target and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Oddly enough, she has the identical problem, only with the scents of male Pack members. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Hilarious,” I muttered.

“Wouldn’t you rather sleep with me than have me drive you around the city?” He was back to my ear again and his tongue invaded with such skill my knees went weak.

“I’m never getting into a car with you behind the wheel again, Paddy.”

“So is that a yes to sleeping with me? The bed’s king-sized so Liam won’t fall off. Probably.” Paddy drew his nails up the side of my arm hard enough to leave red marks, but they didn’t last.

“No. I’ll walk or take the bus. But I seriously need you to let go of me so I can unlock the damn door.”

He smiled at me before he relented and took a step backward. An entire foot of space now separated us. His playfully lustful expression was replaced by genuine affection. Paddy liked me. I had the sneaking suspicion I liked him too. I hadn’t been close to my Alpha in a long time and for some reason the fact he liked me made me want to cry.

I don’t know what he saw on my face, but he said, “Can’t I come with you? Walking? I’ve never taken the bus in America yet, that could be fun.”

I told myself he was just being kind and not protective. I could handle being alone. But it would be nice if I had some company.

“If you want to walk with me, you need a shirt. And shoes.”

Paddy chuckled, but he did get dressed.