Page 97 of Forbidden Need

“No…” Backing up, she hooked her hands onto the lower bar and boosted herself up to sit on it. “He is not.” Brushing her heel against his thigh was enough to tempt him between them. “You are my anchor, Mr. McDade.”

“Holding you down.”

“Keeping me steady. Without you, I’m adrift. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I always trust you, I just… If I wake up one day without you… I can’t be without you, Mo Grá. I can’t.”

“You won’t be. Present or not, I’m at your side.”

Did she like that? The ambiguous statement could be interpreted in many ways. She’d never force her guy to say more. Neither of them knew what was around the corner.

Roused, something lacked.

Sliding her hands up his body, her arms relaxed around his neck. “Tell me something.” He didn’t react. “Confide in me, Mo Grá.”

“I protect you.”

“I won’t act on whatever you tell me. If my burden is yours, then yours is mine. Let me be your sanctuary.” He didn’t have to open himself to her. Nothing would take her from him, not voluntarily, but if he wanted their worlds to unite, they had to… “Complete the circle.” Anything would suffice. She only needed a glimmer. “How are things going with Harvest? Are we secure yet?”

“Votes lie about equal with two holdouts.”

“Undecided?” she asked, her fingers playing in the hair at the back of his head. “You need both of them to secure the win. What happens if they’re deadlocked?”

“Bodies start dropping.”

One on each side until the rest got the message. One side would have to go further, much further to win. Offing city officials could bring seriously unwanted attention to their business, especially after her grandfather’s murder.

“Anyone we know?” she asked.

“Steinham, Blakely.”

“Jim Blakely?” After his nod, she smiled. “I dated his son in high school.”

“A perfect reason to kill him.”

“His son isn’t the one holding out,” she said, sensing his tease. “Rich of old Jim though, seriously, to be hesitant of a dark path like he’s some saint.” Maybe he and her dad were related. “If the rumors are true…” The twitch of his brow alerted her to his interest. “Talk about a trying time for the family. Donovan was the year above me. We were together for a couple of years; he dropped out before his senior year. Said the family were moving across town.”

“They weren’t?”

“Oh, they moved, left the state for a while, but not for Donovan’s benefit. The marriage eventually broke down, his mom started drinking heavily, lost everything. Donovan ended up in prison, I think. All because the prestigious principal, Jim Blakely, his dad, got a student pregnant.”

“A teenager?”

She shrugged. “That was the rumor.”

“Rumor to others, you got it from the source.”

“By proxy through Donovan, yeah. Really fucked with his head. It was all hushed up, of course. The girl was supposed to get an abortion and didn’t. Jim denied it was his.”

“Did they do a paternity test?”

“No. They paid an obscene amount of money to the family to keep them quiet and, like all scandal, it faded into fable. For the rest of us anyway. The girl left school, but she was already showing. The line was ‘troubled teen,’ but she was an honor student… Though, I guess if she was fucking teachers, grades could be questionable.”

“What was her name?”

“The girl, uh…” She should know the answer. Did she know the answer…? “Louise, I think. Louise Greco, something like that, she was in Donovan’s year.”

Tucking her head against him, he kissed her crown. “Good girl.”

Smiling, she tightened her embrace. “One for you… Now one for me…”

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