“I’ll ask—”
“Hell no.”
“Cam, that’s wit I was gonna say. The lad will have them. He’s discrete.”
Okay, get condoms from a horny teenager? That takes my momma’s old saying, “Ain’t no shame in my game,” to a whole other level. Yes, please. I tear my attention away from the spellbinding sight of him. Power is restored to my brain. “Let’s head back inside, Brody.”
Malice shoots across his marbled face.
“Rain check?” I run a hand along his beard. He groans in agreement. “A hundred years, remember?” I defer to how old Brody anticipates being when settling down.
“Ye cold,” Brody says, not waiting for a reply, and starts shrugging out of his blazer.
“No, I’m hot,” I huff. Molten lava channels through my veins. I ache in places I never knew existed. Brody looks me over before offering a hand to help me off the tabletop. I tug down my dress. He’s running a thumb across the outline of my lip, most likely fixing my smeared lipstick. I look up. An authentic smile radiates across my face. The exchange between us borders on natural.
“Wit?”
“You’re a nice guy.”
He sniffs.
“It all starts with the little things, Brody.”
The muscles beneath his jaw run tight, though he nods, gesturing toward the restaurant.
“Wait.”
His eyebrow shoots up as I lift one stiletto clad foot after the other to yank down my panties. I place them in the pocket of his pants.
“Rain check,” I tell Brody again, desperate to leap to the next level with him.
His hand finds my throat, thumb gliding over the vulnerable hollow. Brody catches my mouth in a kiss that could combust all the windows out of a car.
My heart is in more trouble than I realized.
“Feck,” he’s muttering to himself. I’d like to think the same sentiment smacked him in the head—he’s catching feelings—but Brody’s glancing into the restaurant.
“That’s Ewan, Erika’s father.”
“A McFarland?”
“Aye.”
“The one on the left?” I glance at three men through the glass windows. Two of them are your typical thick-necked goons, flanking someone’s grandpappy. The older gentleman’s sporting a gray tweed suit with elbow patches. All he needs is one of those old-school tobacco pipes. Yeah, great grandpappy material, although he looks to be in his sixties at most.
“Nae. The nugget deid center. He’s the only lad I mind who brings protection to a clan event. Matter of fact, Ewan wasn’t invited.”
I search Brody over for the truth, but he’s tight-lipped. I ask, “Why not?”
“He ain’t the mate Da once knew.”
Brody’s hand reaches for the door, but I rest my hand on his. “Wait. You still,” I pause, unease in the pit of my stomach, “asked him to help me and my family, Brody. He’s a good guy?”
“Wit’s with ye and good guys, Justice? I ain’t one. Cam? That motherfecker has a hunner different faces, depending on what he wants—if ye’re not blood. Leith’s a funny nugget. Days ago, he took out his enemies.” He murmurs something about tonight that I don’t catch and proceeds to list off his parents, Nan and Big Brody. And how thirteen-year-old Lachlan is crazier than Jamie. Hell, he mentions Jake will murder one day too.
“But you said it wasn’t a favor!” A pressure spans my entire chest and throat. Maybe I sound immature but being at someone’s mercy frightens me.
Brody gestures with his hands. “Nothing in the world is free. Ya know that much.”