“We don’t saddle up, but there are still posses,” he assured her. “But now it’s called a task force.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
She took a step closer to him.
“Let’s go,” I growled, hand on the small of his back. “She doesn’t really give a crap.”
“But I do,” she snapped, and I understood why. She wanted him to stay, and I wasn’t helping. “Please don’t leave, Ian,” she pleaded, stepping in front of him, barring his escape. “If Miro needs to go, he should, but this is your father’s birthday.”
“Wouldn’t have known that from the video everyone just watched,” I said harshly, my annoyance there in the sharpness of my tone.
“That’s not fair,” she said defensively. “Ian wasn’t here for us to get input or pictures from. I mean, certainly we don’t have any of him or his mother.”
“No,” I replied icily, “of course you don’t.”
She was silent, seething in front of me.
For my part, I was shaking a little, too, realizing slowly that my hands had balled into fists. Ian being forgotten had turned me inside out.
We all heard her name called from the other room.
“Ian, I’m going to call you up first,” she told him, and I could hear the quaver in her voice along with the threat. “So you best be prepared and you better not go anywhere.”
I grabbed his shoulder and pulled even before she turned to walk back in the living room.
“Ian!” she stage-whispered after us.
“You know,” he said as I shoved him forward, toward the sliding glass door, then hurled it open with far more force than was actually necessary, “you never get mad.”
Which was a lie. I was just as prone to rage as the next guy. The difference was that this wasn’t about me. This was about the man I loved.
Unfortunately, the door took the brunt of my frustration, and I threw it closed behind us so hard, it bounced back and forth, creating a hazard for anyone following. Not that I cared. I was too furious to give a damn. Slipping around Ian, I pounded down the stairs and kicked a plastic chair out of my way when I reached the bottom. I realized I was growling at the same time, getting angrier by the second.
The more I thought about it, the worse it got. How dare they act as though Ian’s mother had never existed, and therefore him as well? What the fuck?
“Okay,” he said, pouncing on me as I charged around the side of the house, yanking me back against his body, one arm thrown across my chest, the other curled around my abdomen. He buried his face in the side of my neck, inhaling deeply as he hugged me.
I couldn’t breathe around the anger boiling in the pit of my stomach and the pent-up aggression searched for another outlet, as the chair had proven to be a poor target. I was ready to punch a hole through a wall.
“Miro,” he crooned into my ear, his voice a husky whisper. “You really love me.”
There was no talking around the lump in my throat or the fury throbbing in my temples. How dare his stepmother guilt him into coming and then treat him like he was nothing!
“I mean, I knew it ’cause you told me, but watching you get mad over me… holy fuck, that’s hot.”
I growled at him. It was all I could manage.
“I matter to you.”
Needing him off me, unable to calm down, I tried twisting free.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said, his voice thick and sexy in my ear as he exerted more pressure, wedging against me. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He had the leverage, but more importantly, my body was starting to respond to his groin pressed against my ass. His hands dug into my chest, his lips opened on the side of my neck as he kissed up the side, and the brute force of him making me submit to his will was turning fury into bone-melting desire.
When his hand moved to my cock, I jolted in his arms, wanting him to touch and stroke me, craving him on his knees.
“Miro,” he breathed out. “You’re crazy about me.”
My voice, when I finally spoke, was rough and crackly. “You’re all there is.”
He held me tighter. “Let’s go home. I want to lay with you on the couch. I want your hands and mouth all over me.”
Oh dear God, yes.
But I couldn’t move. The rush of heat tore through me, and I let my head fall back on his shoulders, the anger dissipating, everything refocusing on Ian. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he husked, giving me a final squeeze before letting me go. “Come on. Follow me.”
Whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, I was ready.
We were at the gate when someone yelled.
“You’re breaking his heart, you fuck!”
Turning toward the sound, I saw Lorcan walking out the front door with other guys his same age following him.