Page 38 of Forbidden Need

She returned to him in under half a minute. “Okay, I’m good,” she said, threading her fingers between Connel’s again.

They crossed the room together.

“You can’t go out like that,” her father said as she slipped on her heels.

Razer opened the door again. “You think there’s a man in the city who’d so much as look while she’s with us?”

Connel took her waist to direct her out of the apartment and down the hall. Yeah, okay, her dad kind of had a point that a satin cami didn’t offer the best coverage, but she’d be on the sidewalk for seconds at each end of their car ride.

And Razer was right. She could probably walk stark naked down the middle of Main Street without getting hassle. Not now the world knew she had Connel McDade’s attention. The only thing was, what did she want to do with it?

SIXTEEN

WHEN THEY GOT OUTSIDE, the Bentley was nowhere in sight. Instead, Daly opened the back door of a long Mercedes. Connel guided her into the rear-facing seat before sitting in front of her. His cousin got in the opposite door, sitting next to him on the other side of the center console.

It was a nice car. Super nice and it smelled new.

“Where’s Whisper?” she asked, stroking the soft leather, admiring the red stag head emblem embroidered in discreet locations.

“We don’t trust Whisper to control herself,” Connel said.

“You put her in a timeout?” she asked, surprised. As she absorbed, she grinned at Razer. “Good chance you’ll pay for that, sir?”

“She has a thing about defending women,” Razer said. “Gets upset when women are taken advantage of.”

“Especially when men take liberties,” she said, running her hands up and down the leather. “I know; I have experience with that.” Her attention drifted, not to anywhere in particular until she noticed both men were intent on her. “Ignore me.”

“Which one of you was touched?” Razer asked, his voice varying baser tones that came from somewhere deep in his chest.

“It was a loser at the club trying his luck,” she said, appealing to their cooler heads… if they had them. “He wasn’t a threat, he was an asshole.”

“Answer him,” Connel growled.

“Baby,” she murmured on a semi-laugh. “No.”

“No one touches a McDade in their own house.”

“Okay,” she said, slipping her feet from her shoes. “But Whisper took care of it. The woman is amazing.”

The men shared a look.

“Your woman goes both ways,” Connel said.

“Apparently, so does yours,” Razer replied, retrieving his phone from an inside pocket.

And for the first time in maybe her life, she didn’t have to be ashamed of her curiosity.

She raised her feet to rest them on Connel’s thigh. “He has experience.”

Razer crooked a brow at his cousin.

“Dasha,” Connel said by way of explanation.

Razer accepted with a nod and returned to his phone.

Connel scooped up her feet and repositioned them to massage the one crossed over the other. “What do you know?”

“They put time of death between two and three,” she said. “He was in his pajamas, so apparently ready for bed. Lachlan said he still had paperwork out or the computer on or something. No signs of a disturbance. No broken windows or forced doors. Security didn’t hear anything.”

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