Page 108 of Secondhand Smoke

“That’s the girl you favor, isn’t it?” Ian asked. “Lovely breasts, though obviously not real.”

“Ian, I swear to God–”

“Have you given her up?” A note of seriousness this time, all joking aside. A quiet, graceful desperation. “Are you ready to leave here and come away with me?”

Ian, so arrogant and brilliant…and so utterly stupid. Tango didn’t stay because of Jazz. This was his brotherhood, his home – this was the thing that had not only made him a man, but enabled him to be one, when the rest of his life would have turned him to a sexless object.

He wanted to say all of this aloud, but the words echoed only in his head, as Ian’s hand landed on his stomach. A familiar, deft hand, ducking beneath his shirt, slipping into the gapped waistband of his jeans, traveling down and finding the true heart of him.

“You don’t eat enough, darling,” Ian whispered, which was stupid given his own thinness. “I’m worried about you.”

Tango wanted to protest, but the hand on his cock prevented any rational thought.

“Watch them,” Ian urged. “Watch them, if that’s what you need.”

So he did, and he thought he and Jasmine came at the same time, at the hands of lovers more skilled than either of them.

~*~

Candy was leaning against one of the support pillars beneath the pavilion when Mercy returned to the clubhouse. Mercy joined him, bracing the other side of the steel column and digging out a fresh cigarette.

“Get anything useful?” Candy asked.

“Yeah, plenty.” He frowned. “Didn’t get to even touch him, though. Apparently, I’ve got areputation. And he was a total pussy stoolpigeon.”

Candy chuckled. “I think just about anybody would turn into a pussy stoolpigeon if he knewyourreputation.”

“Maybe. I guess it’s a good thing,” Mercy said, then grinned. “Man, I’m a legend.”

They both laughed over that.

Then Candy sobered. “How’d Colin do?”

“Nervous a little, I think. But he was all ready to hold the guy’s hand down if I’d needed to take a finger.”

A quick grimace. “If anybody’d be able to stand what you do, it’d have to be your brother.”

Half-brother, Mercy thought, but didn’t voice it. He was getting tired of making the distinction. “Fox says he’s got an eye for your sis.”

Candy snorted. “Oh yeah. Big time.”

“And we’re happy about this?”

“We are. If a Lécuyer attaches himself to a woman you care about, you don’t fight it,” he said with feeling, glancing over. “He’s been a help to her. I’m tempted to patch him in just for that.”

“He’s a dog, you know.”

“Maybe he was. He’s not now. If we start holding grudges for past behavior, we’ll have an in-house shootout.” Candy softened the words with a quick grin, but the meaning was clear: Men could gain focus, and clearly, Colin had done just that.

“I just don’t trust him,” Mercy admitted.

“That’s because you’re related to him.”

Ghost arrived, cutting off further brother contemplation. “How’d it go?”

Mercy gave him the quick rundown.

“Good. We’ll cut him loose in the morning and send him back to his boss with a message.” He clapped Mercy on the shoulder affectionately. “Good job.”

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