Page 16 of Crown of Smoke

This is wrong. I'm here to protect her, not… whatever this is. Another splash is followed by a quiet moan that shoots straight through me.

Before I can stop myself, I edge closer to the gap. Lucy’s in the tub with her back to me. Her head is tilted back, eyes closed, one hand beneath the water's surface.

Holy fucking hell. She’s touching herself.

My breath catches. I shouldn't be watching this private moment, but I can't tear my eyes away. Her lips part on another soft sound that makes my whole body tighten. My dick is harder than a rock. It’s a wonder it hasn’t busted through the zipper of my jeans.

I stand frozen, transfixed by the sight through the cracked door. Steam curls around Lucy's bare shoulders, her wet hair darkened to honey-gold where it clings to her skin.I shouldn't be here, shouldn't watch, I tell myself again. But the way she moves, the little gasps that escape her parted lips… I’m helpless to look away.

Her hand moves beneath the water, creating gentle ripples. Those blue eyes that challenged me earlier are closed now, dark lashes fanned against flushed cheeks. Her bandaged hand grips the tub's edge. Water laps higher, matching the quickening rhythm of her movements. I press my palm flat against the wall, fighting to keep silent as she arches slightly.

I want more than anything to join her. To replace her hand with mine. To take her out of the tub and thrust inside her on the bathroom floor. Each breathy moan threatens what little control I have left.Leave, Flint.I chant the order in my head.Leave now before you do something unforgivable like push this door open and show her exactly what she does to you.

But she’s close to coming. Her breath is coming in harsher gasps, her hand moving more quickly.

She arches back and moans, “Flynn.”

The false name hits me like ice water. She's thinking about me while she touches herself, but it’s not me. I’m Flint. She doesn't know who I really am, who she's fantasizing about.

I back away from the door, disgusted with myself. What kind of man watches a woman pleasure herself without her knowledge? A creep, that’s who.

My feet carry me silently through her apartment. The sound of her pleasure follows me. I know it will haunt me. In the hallway, I quickly make my way to the stairs and down. Flynn Tine. A convenient lie. A mask I wear to get close to my family's killers. But hearing that name fall from her lips twists something inside me.

I want her to whisper "Flint" in that same breathless voice. I want to tell her everything about who I am and why I'm here. In some ways, she does know me. She’s been studying my family. But her information, her photos are ten years old. At seventeen, I was a cocky, clean-cut kid living the high life. Life has hardened me and my look. She doesn’t see the man I am now in the images she has of me then. I should be glad. The Keans don’t recognize me, either.

I can’t tell her the truth without putting her in even more danger than she's already stumbled into. Better she thinks I'm Flynn the undercover cop than Flint Ifrinn, the man plotting revenge against the most dangerous family in Boston.

It shouldn't matter. She's just a complication in an already complex mission. But somehow, in the space of one night, Lucy has gotten under my skin in a way no one ever has.

On the drive home, I try to focus on my next move, but all I can think about is Lucy in the warm tub, touching herself, coming because she’s imagining me. My dick, which had deflated when she said Flynn, is now rock hard again. Flint or Flynn, it was me she was thinking of. Was I fucking her? Maybe I was eating her out.

I slam my apartment door, the ghost of Lucy's moans echoing in my head, my dick throbbing with need. I undo my belt, shoving my jeans down just enough to free myself. The first stroke pulls a groan from my throat. Her name falls from my lips as I remember the way she arched in that bathtub, how the water traced paths down her skin that I ached to follow with my tongue. My grip tightens, my rhythm matching what I imagine hers was.

It doesn't take long. The memory of her breathy "Flynn" sends me over the edge embarrassingly fast. I come with a curse, spilling into my hand.

The high fades quickly, leaving me hollow. Guilt and shame war inside me as I clean up. I’m a sick bastard for watching her like that.

I slump onto my couch. One woman. One night. And she's turned my world sideways.

My phone buzzes, another text from Blaise. I ignore it. What would I even say? That I broke into Lucy’s apartment? That I watched her in a private moment like some perverted stalker? That I'm losing focus on the mission that's consumed the last decade of our lives?

The truth burns in my chest. Lucy is more dangerous than any Kean soldier. Not because she's digging into our past, though that's bad enough. It’s because she makes me want things I can't have.

I need to cut ties with her. Walk away. Maybe I can do something to make her editor pull her from the story. Or send her away to pursue a different story.

She needs to get as far away from the Keans and me as possible. That is my new mission.

7

LUCY

Iscroll through another archived news article, determined to get my story even as I’ve taken the last few days off from the field and instead have been researching in the quiet of my home. The cut on my arm throbs, a reminder of how close I came to something much worse in that alley. But I can't stop. Not when I'm this close.

Hampton Kean Donates Million Dollar Wing to Children's Hospital, the headline reads. I purse my lips in indignation. Such a perfect public image for a man whose thugs tried to kill me for asking questions.

The afternoon sun streams through my apartment windows as I dig deeper into old records. Every article paints the Keans as Boston's golden family, philanthropists, business moguls, pillars of the community even as it's an open secret that their gains are ill-gotten.

I open a new document, typing out my findings. The timeline is clear. The Keans' meteoric rise happened right after the Ifrinn family's downfall. Most of the people in law enforcement shrug their shoulders at this. “One less dirty family,” one told me. When I suggested the Keans weren’t so clean, he didn’t seem concerned. Or perhaps he was just resolved that there would always be organized crime in Boston.

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