Fearless Sinner (Empire of Sinners #3)

Chapter 15

Chloe

Chapter Fifteen

I end up back at Kimera.

I’m at the bar having a drink.

I don’t know if I should call this place the bar where I had my disastrous interview. Or the place where Cillian first kissed me.

None of that matters. I don’t have either. Not the job or Cillian. How funny. Both were unobtainable to me but I went after them anyway.

Just like the loan.

I think I knew deep down that I wouldn’t get it from the interview when Mrs. Grimfrost started telling me how difficult the restaurant industry was.

Those doubts I had every now and again were my instincts or that sixth sense people talk about.

I tried to be positive because I didn’t have the energy to deal with the negative, so I chose the easiest option and decided to believe. Have faith. Have hope. Whatever.

It was all bullshit. I had no better luck than if I’d decided to dance around a fire with a broomstick.

I called Roxanne to tell her. She was as sad as I expected her to be but she put on her big girl shoes and tried to calm me.

She wanted me to come home but I told her I needed time to myself. Time to do whatever it is I’m doing. Wallowing. Feeling sorry for myself. Cursing my life. Dragging the remnants of my hopes to hell.

I take another gulp of my drink. It’s a vodka martini. The strongest drink I order when I need a hit.

And I think I’m a little tipsy.

I keep seeing Mom’s face and I keep imagining how I’m going to break this news to her.

How am I going to disappoint her again?

Despite the heartfelt words we said to each other when we spoke earlier, she confirmed she was mad at me.

I know my mother. She wasn’t just mad, she was disappointed.

I upped and left her after she put her soul into making sure I got my dream. I remember my parents working their fingers to the bone at the restaurant to make sure I could attend the best dance classes. I went five times a week and sometimes more. In the summer, they sent me to summer school.

I was scouted by Juilliard before I even got in, so I know my mother was more than disappointed as I sat there and confirmed that the man she warned me away from broke my legs and ruined me.

Mom didn’t say it in those words only because she just got me back and she didn’t want to hurt me.

Now I’ve failed again. I know I’m being hard on myself but I can’t help it when I can see all the ways I could have changed things.

I swallow the last of my drink and signal the bartender to come over. He does and takes one look at my pitiful state.

I’ve been here less than half an hour but he’s probably used to my kind of despair.

“What can I get you?” He looks at me with kind eyes.

“Something strong, like straight-up vodka?—”

“Water,” cuts in an overpowering voice with an Irish accent.

I look up and see Cillian standing next to me.

At first I don’t think he’s real. Maybe I went crazy and my imagination conjured him, but he’s only in my head.

“Water?” the bartender confirms but also lets me know that I’m not imagining anything.

Cillian really is here. Right next to me. He’s here and he’s looking down at my pitiful state that needs rescuing again.

He nods his head to the bartender. “Have a bottle sent up to the room and some wine.”

“Sure thing, Mr. O’Ridian.” The bartender saunters away.

“Looks like you’re here for a different sort of game tonight, lass.” Cillian looks me over.

It’s hard to look at him and be this close without remembering how we were last time. “I’m not playing any games. That’s your thing, remember?” I sound bitter but I don’t care. My world is falling apart and I don’t care who I take with me into the abyss.

“What are you doing here by yourself?”

“Drinking. What are you doing here? You know, if you’re not careful, I might think you’re following me again.”

“I am following you.” He’s so blatant I never know how to take him, but I know he’s being serious.

“It was you, wasn’t it. I felt someone watching me while I was dancing.” The alcohol is making me say shit that would never normally leave my mouth.

“Yes, it was me.”

At least I didn’t imagine that. What are the chances of being right? “Why? I thought you said goodbye? Obviously Harlan wouldn’t have been at the dance studio.”

“I wasn’t there for Harlan.”

“Well, I don’t think you were there for me either.”

“I was. Come with me, lass.”

Lass.

I’ve never been anyone’s lass. I’ve never had an Irish boyfriend—I still don’t. I just like the sound of it.

I didn’t even realize how much I missed him calling me that until just now. But I must be crazy because I’ve only known him for a little over a week. That’s not long enough to be able to say that about someone.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Remember what I said about throwing you over me shoulder?”

I do but I never took him seriously. He looks serious as fuck now, and I wouldn’t want to test him in front of so many people. I already look bad enough.

Reluctantly, I stand. My head has a buzz but I know I’m not drunk because I can still move. If I were drunk, I’d be staggering all over the place.

With his hand at the small of my back, Cillian ushers me away from the bar.

We head to the VIP room and when we sit, it’s like we never left.

The only differences are our clothing, his beard has grown fuller, and I have no hope left.

The bartender from the other night walks in with our drinks. He sets them down and is about to ask Cillian a question, but he waves him away.

He leaves and I reach for the wine but Cillian takes it from me and pours me some water instead.

“What happened to you?” He hands me the water.

I take it and drink because it’s something to do instead of feeling the weight of his stare. “Nothing.”

I can lie to him. I should. Of everyone I know, he’s the only one I’ll lie to in this circumstance because he just released me from a debt of a quarter million dollars.

There’s such a thing as asking for too much, so I can’t ask him for anything more.

I just need tonight to freak out, then I’ll figure out how to tackle the next thing, whether that might be applying for another loan or selling my liver or a kidney. Or giving my mother my own heart.

“You don’t look like nothing is wrong with you.” He observes me.

“I’m worried about my mother.”

“Has she woken up?”

“Yes, but she’s very sick.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.” I pour some more water. “Why did you order wine if you’re not going to let me drink it?”

“Because I don’t know how much you’ve had to drink.”

“One glass.”

He narrows his eyes. “You look like you had more than one glass to me, lass.”

“It was a vodka martini. Vodka is always strong for me.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No. Are we playing again?” I give him a thin smile.

“Alright. Let’s play. Let’s do alternate questions instead of making assumptions.”

“Okay. Me first. Why are you following me? That’s creepy.”

“Are you creeped out?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not creepy.”

I frown. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“I was keeping tabs on you.”

“Why? You said goodbye. You made this show of making me think you’re a good guy, let me pay off a debt by giving you twenty minutes of myself, then you said goodbye. Now you’re here. Imagine how confused I am.”

“Maybe I’m confused, too. My turn.” He takes back the reins quickly. “Something happened with your mom. What is it?”

I think for a moment about what to say without telling him the truth. “I haven’t spoken to my mother in three years and the first call I got was to tell me she had a heart attack. I found out that Nate, fucking Nathan, hid all my family’s attempts to contact me. He never passed on a message and made them think I wanted nothing to do with them. Now my mom is very sick.”

He grabs the wine bottle, pours me a glass, and gives it to me.

Grateful, I take it. Because my mind needs it.

As soon as the sweet liquid touches my tongue, the buzz I already had amplifies to what I was looking for.

Cillian slides closer and our knees touch.

Having him so close messes with my head. He leans in and I smell the leathery oak scent of his aftershave.

We stare at each other for a moment, then he touches my face. I lean into his touch and we fall into a kiss. It’s sweet and too tender for someone as raw as him. It feels forbidden. As if we’re stealing a moment we shouldn’t be having.

The tenderness mellows my brain, loosening the tension from my body. He picks me up and slides me onto his lap, then he kisses down my neck and moves my top down under my breasts. With my breasts exposed, he sucks on them, and I allow him to while I run my fingers through his spiky hair.

I don’t care what this is. It feels good and takes me away from the real world where I feel like I failed everyone.

Cillian kisses his way back up to my ear. “Are you on the pill, lass?”

“Yes.”

“I was following you because I want to fuck you.” The greed in his dirty words makes me wet instantly and has me squeezing my thighs. “I’m clean. Let me fuck you raw, right here against the wall.”

My mouth goes dry and my mind races with the hot desire flowing through my blood. There is only one answer I could give him right now. The truth. “Yes.”

“Good. Then take your clothes off for me.” He eases me off his lap.

I stand and look toward the door. “What about the bartender?”

“No one’s coming back in here unless I say so. And no one can see inside.” He glances at the glass wall, putting my mind at ease.

I straighten and he sits back to watch me. I lift my top over my head and the heat of his gaze touches me everywhere, stroking up and down my body.

When I take off my bra his mouth curls into the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen.

I take off my jeans and my panties, then I’m naked, standing before him wearing nothing but my desire for him to take me.

Cillian gives me that look from the other day. That look that makes me think he believes I’m perfect. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not.

There are so many imperfections to me, but I don’t want to spoil this moment for him by pointing them out.

He stands and I tug on the edge of his shirt. “Do I get to see you, too?”

“You do, lass.”

With that sexy smirk brightening his handsome face, he undoes the first two buttons on his shirt then pulls it over his head.

My mouth waters at the sight of his muscular body, sculpted to perfection with peaks and valleys of hard muscle lining his abs.

Down his entire left side are a range of tattoos, from two winged dragons to Celtic swirls. They’re all done in such an artistic way that they look like they might come to life.

He backs to the wall to our left which is opposite the glass one. I know he’s wild enough to fuck me against the glass wall, but he must have known I’m too cautious that we could be seen.

Cillian undoes his belt and I pay close attention to the growing bulge of his cock pushing against his pants.

When he shoves his pants and boxers down his powerfully built legs, his massive cock juts free, pointing and straining toward me.

Suddenly I’m not thinking about anything except what it might feel like to have him inside me.

He reaches for me and turns me to face the wall, then he’s at my ear again. “I hope you like rough, lass. I’m a monster. I don’t know how to do gentle. I plan to fuck you hard. Are you sure you still want me?”

“Yes.” I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.

Cillian bends me over, and my hair falls forward over my face like a curtain.

He grabs my hips, shoves my legs wider, and lines the head of his cock up with my slick entrance. I gasp when he pushes in, and I’m grateful when he inches in because I know I’m tight.

My walls struggle to take his length and thickness but I’m so wet that when he plunges in, he goes deep, and I know that the hard fuck he promised is about to happen.

He starts to move inside me and a blast of pleasure takes over, slapping over my body in waves of hot, consuming fire.

It’s like nothing else and all I’m thinking about is how amazing he feels inside me.

I moan with every thrust he gives me and the sounds of our bodies slapping together fill the room with a wild energy. That same wild energy I felt when I first kissed him.

When he starts to fuck me relentlessly I cry out with pleasure, screaming his name. It seems to encourage him to go even faster.

My breasts bounce before me and all I can do to keep myself from falling over is press my hands against the wall.

“Fucking hell, Chloe. You feel so fucking good,” he groans, taking a handful of my ass and squeezing it. “I’m going to fuck you harder.”

He does and I come. I come so hard the room shifts from my view and I feel like I might pass out.

“Oh… God… Cillian.”

“That’s right. Me. You’re mine.”

Mine.

A wave of emotion takes me, but among the sea of pleasure stealing my senses that word sinks into my mind and I soak it up like a sponge.

Cillian only allows me that moment of thought before he hammers into me relentlessly and so hard it hurts. Then his cock stiffens inside me, pushing harder on my G-spot.

I come again, and he does, too.

The two of us cry out this time while he floods me with searing hot virile cum. My walls squeeze his cock as if I’m trying to take it all, and he’s still pounding into me. As if he can’t get enough.

It takes a few moments before he slows, then the two of us try to catch our breath.

Slowly Cillian pulls out of me and my knees cave. He catches me and turns me to face him, cocooning me in the warmth of his strength.

We’re both drenched with sweat but I’m surprised by the glow I see on his skin.

I’m more surprised at myself. I just had sex with him.

We’re in a bar. In the VIP room. And here I am, naked, pressed against the wall in his arms.

I don’t know what I expect him to do next but it’s not to grab a stack of napkins from the tray and clean off the cum leaking down my thighs.

Neither is it to hold my leg, look at the faint scars that Nate left behind, and kiss each one.

“Come home with me.” Cillian speaks against the wild haze that is still floating between us.

“Home?”

“My place. I'm not finished with you yet. I need you in my bed. Just say yes.”

“Yes.”