Criminal Pleasures (19 page)

Marc grinned. “So the sex was all right, then?”

“Understatement of the millennium.”

Marc laughed and rolled on top of Brendan. “Think we can try it again this weekend?”

“Oh yeah,” Brendan said.

“Then we better get some sleep,” Marc said, and kissed him.

The kiss lingered for a while, then Marc slowly pulled back, and rolled Brendan onto his side, tucking up against him the spoon position. His arms wrapped around him and he tugged him in, holding him tight.

Brendan fell asleep in Marc’s grip, safe.

Chapter Eighteen

They showered and had coffee in the morning, and Brendan packed a bag. Marc made a fuss about how good Brendan looked in his suit, and Brendan made more jokes about Marc’s green track suit, which he’d put back on, presumably so he could prowl the streets of Providence again. It made Brendan nervous, but he bit his tongue. If he was going to be dating a cop, he’d have to accept that it involved some risk.

He gave Marc his spare house key so he could come and go throughout the day as needed, then they headed for the door. Brendan’s mood was the best it had been in ages, and he whistled as he stepped out into the hallway, Marc following behind him, disguised again in his black knit hat and ugly sunglasses.

Brendan stopped short, and Marc bumped into his back.

“What’s wrong?” Marc asked.

Brendan stared down at the dead rat in the hallway, just in front of his door. It was mangy and stiff, its mouth frozen open as though trapped in a silent scream.

Marc stepped around Brendan. “Oh.”

“Why is there a fucking rat outside my door?” Brendan said. He turned to Marc. “Why is there a dead rat outside my door, Marc?”

Marc nudged it with the tip of his shoe. “Because...a rat died out here, I guess.”

Brendan’s heart thudded in his chest. “This is a nice place, we don’t have rats here! Someone put it there!”

“You don’t know that. It’s an old building.”

“It’s been renovated! They keep it clean, there’s no reason for a dead fucking rat to be outside my door unless someone put it there!”

Brendan’s voice was rising to a level of hysteria, and Marc grabbed his arm. “Calm down,” he said softly, as a neighbor came out of her door down the hall, dressed in a business suit. She glanced down the hallway at them.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning,” Marc said.

They waited until she’d moved off and disappeared through the exit doorway at the end of the hall.

Brendan stepped around the rat, grimacing. “Oh crap. This is another message.”

“You don’t
know
that,” Marc said. “Sometimes a rat is just a rat.”

“A dead
rat
, Marc? Do I have to explain the symbolism?”

“I get it, but Brendan—”

“I’ve seen
The Godfather
, I know what this means! It’s the horse’s head under my sheets! It’s Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes!”

Marc grabbed Brendan and pulled him back inside the loft, closing the door. He pushed him against the wall. “Breathe, Brendan.”

Brendan looked into Marc’s eyes, and took a deep breath, then another.

“Okay. Now just calm down. It’s not a horse’s head. It’s just a rat. But I will look into what’s going on with the DiPietros and Bibeta’s Garden today. Please just let me handle it.”

Brendan nodded, but his heart still pumped too hard in his chest, and he felt light headed.

Marc gave him a quick kiss. “Come on. I’ll drive you to work.”

****

Brendan had trouble concentrating on his cases all morning, the image of the dead rat creeping into his thoughts over and over again like a recurring nightmare. But he kept a smile on his face during his appointments, and made small talk with his staff as usual.

He had his lunch delivered and ate in his office. This was insane, being afraid to go outside to get a sandwich. He didn’t share Marc’s optimism, didn’t believe it was a coincidence. Someone was fucking with him. But if they thought he was a rat, a snitch, why didn’t they just confront him? Why the silly pranks? On some level he agreed with what Marc had said previously—the harassment had the smell of immaturity, more like actions of a scorned high school girl than a dangerous criminal.

But he was still frightened. Because the details behind it were real. The raid on Bibeta’s was real. Poppy DiPietro’s association with a murderer was real, and he was sitting in a real jail cell somewhere, while his daughters were roaming free to seek whatever vengeance they saw fit.

He couldn’t imagine Gina having anything to do with it. She’d let him into the restaurant that day when he showed up after the raid, had wept in his arms, confided in him. But Carmen had been brisk and unfriendly. He recalled her sneer as she’d pointed her sweeping brush at him.
“Don’t be fucking stupid, Gina. And
he
shouldn’t be here!”

But Carmen was just a young woman. She was a waitress, a people person.
A waitress with an assault on her record. A waitress who’d threatened to cut Marc’s dick off when he wouldn’t fuck her
. In light of that, dead rats and graffiti didn’t seem too far out of her scope of behavior. But why couldn’t the crazy bitch just ask Brendan if he’d tipped off the cops? He was sure he could convince her he wasn’t involved.

But then there was the added quagmire of Marc. Marc was the real snitch, the real rat, and that more than anything terrified Brendan. The DiPietro sisters could never discover who Marc really was. Disguise or not, it was probably unwise for Marc to be staying at Brendan’s place, spending time with him. Logic told him he should stop seeing Marc, at least until this blew over. He should tell him to go back home and stay away from Brendan, for his own safety.

But even as he had the thought, he knew he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to cancel their weekend away, to give up the chance to spend time alone with Marc in a romantic cottage on the beach. Like it or not, his attachment to Marc was growing. Brendan was feeling things he hadn’t thought possible, and his face heated just thinking about the way Marc touched him, the way he looked at him. It was still overwhelming, this new longing inside of him.

Brendan had played soccer and been a wrestling champ in high school. He’d always been considered strong, one of the big tough jocks. He never thought he’d enjoy being the softer side of an equation, overpowered by the masculine hardness of someone else. But he loved it, and no amount of dead rats could crush his desire for it.

So when his phone rang at the end of the day, and Marc told him he was parked downstairs waiting for him, Brendan gathered himself up and left the office with a smile on his face, determined to leave his problems behind him. At least for the duration of the weekend.

Chapter Nineteen

Brendan spotted the blue, compact car that Marc had driven him to work in. He climbed into the passenger seat, smirking at Marc, who still wore his gangsta getup with the hat and glasses. “Hey, homes,” Brendan said.

Marc leaned over and kissed Brendan, surprising the hell out of him. “What’s wrong?” he asked when Brendan pulled back.

“People could be watching,” he said, thinking more of his employees than anyone sinister.

“I don’t care if the fucking pope is watching,” Marc said. “Kiss me.”

Marc grabbed his neck and pulled him in, and this time Brendan melted into the kiss, the lick of hot tongue making his cock stir.

Breaking the kiss, Marc smiled at him, then put the car in gear and pulled out onto the street.

He turned on the stereo and jazz music played softly. Once they got onto the highway, Marc took off the knit hat, but kept the sunglasses on.

“How many cars do you have?” Brendan asked. “This isn’t the one you had when...you know. I met you at the police station. And I saw a Jeep at your house, too.”

“This is a rental,” Marc said. “I figured it was safer, considering why I was down here.”

Coldness crept into Brendan’s gut. He shifted in the seat, watching Marc as he drove. “So what happened today? What did you do all day?”

Marc tapped his hand on the steering wheel in time with the music. “Well, your property manager is going to look into installing cameras, but he hemmed and hawed about the cost. His big solution was putting a note in everyone’s mailbox, reminding them not to let anyone into the building unless they were sure it was a resident. He wasn’t a big help. But he freaked out about the rat and called an exterminator.”

Brendan winced. “Yeah, exterminators are what I’m worried about. But not the kind that kill rodents.”

Marc glanced at him. “The girls are selling Bibeta’s Garden. Gina went to a commercial realtor today. She was crying when she left. From what my sources tell me, the raid pretty much squashed the restaurant’s reputation, and with the economy what it is, they’re going to try to dump it and cut their losses.”

“What about Poppy?”

“You don’t have to worry about him. His associations with Quinn combined with the illegal gambling are going to keep him behind bars for a long time.”

“And Carmen?”

Marc’s grip tightened on the wheel, just a slight flinch, but Brendan caught it. “What?” he asked. “Did you see Carmen today?”

“Carmen,” he said, “left town with her boyfriend yesterday afternoon, and spent the night in Mystic Connecticut. She’s still there, on a long weekend.”

Brendan’s eyes widened. “So she wasn’t in town last night.”

“Nope.”

“But the rat showed up after you came to my house last night. Sometime before we left this morning.”

“Yep.”

“So it wasn’t Carmen who left it.”

Marc glanced at him. “Maybe no one left it. Maybe it just crawled out from somewhere and died.”

Brendan’s lips tightened. “Maybe. Or maybe Carmen DiPietro isn’t the one who wrote
snitch
on my door. Maybe there’s someone else who suspects me.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do you?”

“Look,” Marc said, “I called in a favor from a friend. He’s going to watch your place this weekend. Your car is in the lot, so it’ll look like you’re home. He’s going to keep a log of everyone who goes in and out of the building. If someone’s fucking with you, we’ll probably know who it is by the time we get back.” He grabbed Brendan’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Let’s try and forget about it for now.”

Brendan tried to forget about it, but it was a chore. Although his mind eased somewhat as they put more distance between them and the city.

As they neared Cape Cod, the scenery changed. They passed cranberry bogs, the setting sun casting an ethereal glow on the red lakes. The air took on a freshness as they crossed over the sea on the Sagamore Bridge, the watery canal dotted with lights of passing boats.

An hour and a half after leaving Providence they pulled into the driveway of a gray cottage with a white fence edging the yard. It was set back off the road, grassy bluffs forming a barrier between the house and its distant neighbors. Marc turned off the engine and they stepped out, a cold ocean breeze slapping at them. Night had fallen, and the sea was black beyond the back yard, the sound of waves hitting the shore in a soothing lullaby. “Oh, this is
just
what I needed,” Brendan said, inhaling the cool, salted air.

Marc got their bags out of the back seat. “You and me both. Come on. Let’s check out the inside.”

Brendan followed Marc up onto the porch. He set down the bags and dug a key out of a milk box, then unlocked the door. Marc flicked on a light as they stepped inside, the musty cottage smell making Brendan smile. The living room was rough wooden floors with scattered woven rugs, cozy furniture, and a large stone fireplace. Marc dropped the bags and caught Brendan in a hug.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

“Thank you for asking me.”

Marc kissed his cheek. “Let’s check out the rest of the place.”

They moved through the house, down a hallway with two quaint bedrooms, one with twin beds, another with a full sized. Marc threw himself down on the full sized bed and it squeaked under his weight. The decor was ocean themed, a lot of shells and tables made from lobster traps, and everything smelled like salt and cranberries.

“I want to go out back and look at the ocean,” Brendan said.

Marc bounced up off the bed, and brushed past him. “There’s supposed to be a sunroom out back with a view. Come on.”

He followed Marc and they found a glassed-in room at the rear of the cottage with worn but comfortable furniture and a dark wood case filled with paperbacks. A small private beach was visible below, the sea stretching dark and inky beyond it, a streak of moonlight down the center.

“Over here,” Marc said, opening a door at the side of the sunroom. Brendan followed him out onto a wooden deck, then down a set of rickety steps that led to the beach. Their feet hit the sand and Brendan shivered in the strong wind, but made his way to the edge of the water.

Marc stepped up beside him, gazing out at the sea. He wrapped an arm around Brendan’s shoulders. “Well,” he said. “This will do, you think?”

Brendan snuggled into him. “This will do just fine.”

Marc rubbed his arms. “You’re freezing. Let’s go in and start a fire.”

Catching Marc around the waist, Brendan pulled him in and kissed him passionately. Marc responded, tightening his grip around Brendan’s arms, the wind whipping their hair and jackets. Their lips slowly parted, and Marc looked into Brendan’s eyes, his expression soft. “What was that for?”

A rush of feeling overwhelmed Brendan, and he almost said,
“Because I’m falling in love with you.”

He shrugged. “Just because.” 

Marc looked back at him for a long moment as something passed between them. Finally he took Brendan by the hand and they headed back to the stairs. “How hungry are you?”

Brendan followed him up the stairs and back into the sunroom. “Getting there. Not starving yet.”