Chapter 2
God, she was perfect.
And when I said perfect, I meant it.
I’d fucked a lot of women. Redheads, blondes, brunettes, even the rare thing that is a natural head of black hair. None of them, not a single one, lit up like Aoife Keegan.
Her cheeks were cherry red and in the light camisole she wore, a cheerful yellow, I could see how the blush went all the way down to the upper curve of her breasts.
She’d go that color, I knew, when she came.
And fuck, I wanted to see that.
I wanted to see that perfectly pale flesh turn bright pink under my ministrations.
Even as I looked at her, all shy and flustered, I wondered if she was a screamer in bed.
Some of the shyest often were.
Maybe not at first, but after a handful of orgasms, it was a wonder what that could do to a woman’s self-confidence, and Jesus, I wanted to see that, too. I wanted a seat at center stage.
My suit jacket was open, and I regretted it. Immensely. My cock was hard, had been since we’d shaken hands, and her fingers had clung to mine like a daughter would to her daddy’s at her first visit to the county fair.
Fuck.
Squeezing her fingers wasn’t intentional. If anything, I’d just liked the feel of her palm against mine, but when I put faint pressure on her, she jerked back like she’d been scalded.
Her cheeks bloomed with heat again, and she whispered, “Mr. O’Grady, what can I do for you?”
You can get on your fucking knees and sort out the hard-on you just caused.
That’s what she could fucking do.
I almost growled at the thought because the image of her on her knees, my cock in her small fist, her dainty mouth opening to take the tip. . . .
Shit.
That had to happen.
Here, too.
In this fancy, frilly, feminine place, I wanted to defile her.
Fuck, I wanted that so goddamn much, it was enough to make me reconsider my demolition plans.
I wanted to screw her against all this goddamn lace, which suited her perfectly. She was made for lace. And silk. Hell, silk would look like heaven against her skin. I wouldn’t know where she ended and it began.
When her brow puckered, she dipped her chin, and that gorgeous wave of auburn hair slipped over her shoulder.
If we’d been alone, if that brassy bitch—who was staring at me like I could fuck her over the counter with her friend watching if I was game—wasn’t here, I’d have grabbed that rope of hair, twisted it around my fingers, and forced her gaze up.
Some guys liked their women demure. And I was one of them. I wasn’t about to lie. I liked that in her, but I wanted her eyes on me. Always.
It was enough to prompt me to bite out, “Can we speak privately?”
She jerked at my words, then as she licked her bottom lip, turned to look at the waitress. “Jenny, it’s okay. I can handle the rest by myself. You get home.”
Jenny, her gaze drifting between me and her boss, nodded. She retreated to a door that swung as she moved through the opening, and within seconds, she had her coat and purse over her arm.
As she sashayed past—for my benefit, I was sure—she murmured, “See you tomorrow, Aoife.”
Aoife nodded and shot her friend a smile, but I wasn’t smiling. There were dishes on every table. Plates and saucers and tea pots. Those fancy stands that made any man wonder if he could touch it without snapping it.
Aoife was going to clear all that herself? Not on my fucking watch.
When the bell rang as the waitress opened the door, I didn’t take my eyes off her until it rang once more upon closing.
Aoife swallowed, and I watched her throat work, watched it with a hunger that felt alien to me, because, God, I wanted to see my bites on her. Wanted to see my marks on that pale column of skin and her tits.
Barely withholding a groan, I asked, “Do you often let your staff go when you still have a lot of work to do, so you can speak to a stranger?”
Her cheeks flushed again, and she took a step back. “I-I, you’re not—” Flustered once more, she fell silent.
“I’m not what?” Curiosity had me asking the question. Whatever I’d expected her to say, it hadn’t been that.
She cleared her throat. “N-Nothing. You wished to speak with me, Mr. O’Grady?”
My other hand tightened around my briefcase, and though seeing her had made my reason for being here all that more necessary, I was almost disappointed. There was a gentle warmth to those bright-green eyes that would die out when I told her my purpose for being here. And her innocent attraction to me would change, morph into something else.
But I could only handle something else.
Some men were made for forever.
But those men weren’t in my line of business.
I moved away from her, pressing my briefcase to one of the few empty tables. I wasn’t happy about her having to do all the clearing up later on, and wondered if Paul, my PA, would know who to call to get her some help.
There was no way I was spending the rest of the night alone in my bed, my only companion my fist wrapped around my cock.
No way, no fucking how.
I paid Paul enough for him to come and clear the fucking place on his own if he couldn’t find someone else.
I wanted Aoife on her knees, bent over my goddamn bed, and I was a man who always got what he wanted.
In this jungle, I was the lion, and Aoife? She was my prey.
I keyed in the code and opened my briefcase. The manila envelope was large and thick, well-padded with my documentation of Aoife’s every move for the past few months.
It had started off as a legitimate move.
I’d wanted to know her weaknesses, so I could put pressure on her and make her cave to my demands.
Now, my demands had changed. I didn’t just want her to sell the tea room we were standing in, I wanted her in my bed.
Fuck, I wanted that more than I wanted to make Aidan Sr. a fucking profit, and Aidan’s profit and my balls still being attached to my body ran hand in hand.
Aidan was an evil cunt.
If I failed to deliver, he’d take it out on me. Whether I was his idea of an adopted son or not, he’d have done the same to his blood sons.
Well, he wouldn’t have taken their balls. The man, for all his psychotic flaws, was obsessed with the idea of grandchildren, of passing it all on to the next generation. He’d cut his boys though. Without a doubt.
I knew Conor had marks on his back from a beating he refused to speak about. Then there was Brennan. He had a weak wrist because his father had a habit of breaking that wrist.
Without speaking, I grabbed the envelope and passed it to her.
She frowned down at it and asked, “For me?”
I smiled at her. “Open it.”
“What is it?”
“Leverage.”
That had her eyes flaring wide as she pulled out some of the photos. A gasp fell from her lips as she grabbed the photos when she spotted herself in them, jerking so hard the envelope tore. Some of the pictures spilled to the ground, but I didn’t care about that.
Leaning back against one of the dainty tables once I was satisfied it would take my weight, I watched her cheeks blanch, all that delicious color dissipating as she took in everything the photos revealed.
“Y-You’ve been stalking me. Why?”
The question was high-pitched, loaded down with panic. I’d heard it often enough to recognize it easily.
I didn’t get involved in wet work anymore. That wasn’t my style, but along the way, to reach this point, I’d had no choice but to get my hands dirty. Panic was part of the job when you were collecting debts for the Irish Mob. And the Five Points were notorious for Aidan Sr.’s temper.
He wasn’t the first patriarch. If anything, his grandfather was the founder. But Aidan Sr. was the type of guy that if you didn’t pay him back, he didn’t give a fuck about the money, he cared about the lack of respect.
See, you owed the mob and didn’t pay? They’d send heavies around, beat the shit out of you, and threaten to do the same to your family, and usually, that did the trick. You didn’t kill the cash cow.
Aidan Sr.?
He didn’t give a fuck about the cash cow.
Only the truly desperate thought about borrowing money from Aidan, because if you didn’t pay it back, he’d take your teeth, and your fingers and toes as a first warning. Then, if you still didn’t pay—and most did—it was death.
Respect meant a lot to Aidan.
And fuck, if it wasn’t starting to mean a lot to me. The panic in her voice made my cock throb.
I wanted this woman weak and willing.
I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.
Ignoring her, I reached for my phone and tapped out a message to Paul.
Need housekeeping crew to clean this place.
I attached my live location, saw the blue ticks as Paul read the message—he knew better than to ignore my texts, whatever time of day they came—and he replied: Sure thing.
That was the kind of reply I was used to getting. Not just from Paul, but from everyone.
There were very few people who weren’t below me in the strata of Five Points, and I’d worked my ass off to make that so.
The only people who ranked above me included Aidan Jr. and his brothers, Aidan Sr. of course, and then maybe a handful of his advisors that he respected for what they’d done for him and the Points over the years.
But the money I made Aidan Sr.?
That blew most of their ‘advice’ out of the window.
The reason Aidan had a Dassault Falcon executive private plane?
Because I was, as the City itself called me, a whiz kid.
I’d made my first million—backed by the Points, of course—at twenty-two.
Fifteen years later?
I’d made him hundreds of millions.
My own personal fortune was nothing to sniff at, either.
“W-Why have you done this?” Aoife asked, her voice breathy enough to make me wonder if she sounded like that in the sack.
“Because you’ve been a very stubborn little girl.”
Her eyes flared wide. “Excuse me?”
I reached into the inside pocket of my suit coat and pulled out a business card. “For you,” I prompted, offering it to her.
When she turned it over, saw the logo of five points shaped into a star, then read Acuig—in the Gaelic way, ah-coo-ig, not a butchered American way, ah-coo-ch—aloud, I watched her throat work as she swallowed.
“I-I should have realized with the Irish name,” she whispered, the muscles in her brow twitching as she took in the chaos of the scattered photos on the floor.
Watching her as she dropped the contents on the ground, so she was surrounded by them, I tilted my head to the side, taking her in as her panic started to crest.
“I-I won’t sell.” Her first words surprised me.
I should have figured, though. Everything about this woman was surprisingly delicious.
“You have no choice,” I purred. “As far as I’m aware, the Senator has a wife. He also has a reputation to protect. I’m not sure he’d be happy if any of those made it onto the National Enquirer’s front page. Not when he’s just trying to shore up his image to take a run for the White House next election.”
She reached up and clutched her throat. The self-protective gesture was enough to make me smile at her—I knew what the absence of hope looked like.
There’d been a time when that had been my life, too.
“But, on the bright side,” I carried on, “this can all be wiped away if you sell.” As her gaze flicked to mine, I added, “As well as if you do something for me.”
For a second, she was speechless. I could see she knew what that something was. Had my body language given it away? Had there been a certain raspiness to my tone?
I wasn’t sure, and frankly, didn’t give a fuck.
There was a little hiccoughing sound that escaped her lips, and she frowned at me, then down at herself.
“Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m the kind of guy who jokes, Aoife?” Fuck, I loved saying her name.
The Gaelic notes just drove me insane.
Ee-Fah.
Nothing like the spelling, and all the more complicated and delicious for it.
“N-No,” she confirmed, “but . . .”
“But what?” I prompted.
“I mean . . . you just can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” I grinned. “Deadly. You’ve wasted a lot of my time, Aoife Keegan. A lot. Do you think I’m normally involved in negotiations of this level?”
Her eyes whispered over me, and I felt the loving caress of her gaze as she took in each and every inch of me. When she licked her lips, I knew she liked what she saw. I didn’t really care, but it was helpful for her to be eager in some small way—especially when coercion was involved.
Aidan had called it bribery. I preferred ‘coercion’. It sounded far kinder.
“No. That suit alone probably cost the mortgage payment on this place.”
I nodded—she wasn’t wrong. I knew what she’d been paying as rent, then as a mortgage, before some kind benefactor had paid it all off. Free and clear.
“I had to get my hands dirty, and while I might like some things dirty . . .,” I trailed off, smirking when she flushed. “So, as I see it, we have a problem. I want this building. You don’t want anyone to know you’re having an affair with a Senator. Or, should I say, the Senator doesn’t want anyone to know he’s having an affair with someone young enough to be his daughter . . .”
If my voice turned into a growl at that point, then it was because the notion of her spreading her legs for that old bastard just turned my stomach.
Fuck, this woman, the thoughts she made me think.
Because I was startled at the possessive note to my growl, I ran a hand over my head. I kept my hair short for a reason—ease. I wasn’t the kind of man who wasted time primping. It was an expensive cut, so I didn’t have to do anything to it. Even mussing it up had it falling back into the same sleek lines as before—a man in my position had to look pristine under pressure. And very few people could even begin to understand the kind of strain I was under.
The formation of igneous rock had less volcanic pressure than Aidan Sr.
She licked her lips as she stared down at the photos, then back up at me. “And you want me to sell the place to you, even though this is my livelihood and the livelihood of all my staff, and then sleep with you?”
Her squeaky voice, putting suspicion into words, had me crossing my legs at the ankle. “We wouldn’t be doing much sleeping.”
Another shaky breath soughed from her lips, then, those beautiful pillowy morsels that would look good around my cock, quivered.
“This is crazy,” she whispered shakily.
“As far as I’m concerned, all of this could be avoided if you’d just sold to me a few months back. Now you have to pay for my time wasted on this project.”
“By spreading my legs?”
Another squeak. I tsked at her question, but in truth, I was annoyed at her using those same words I had to describe her with that old hypocrite of a Senator.
I didn’t move, though. Didn’t even flex my arms in irritation, just murmured, “Small price to pay. And, even though it’s ten percent above market price, I’ll stick to the last offer Acuig gave you. Can’t say anything’s fairer than that.”
She shook her head, and there was a desperation to the gesture as she cried, “I need this business. You don’t understand?—”
“I understand that some very powerful and very dangerous businessmen want this building demolished. I understand that those same powerful and dangerous men want a skyscraper taking up this plot of land. I understand that a four hundred million dollar project isn’t going to be put on hiatus because one small Irish woman doesn’t want to go out of business . . .” I cocked a brow at her. “You think I’m coming in hot and heavy? These kinds of men, Aoife, they’re not the sort you fuck around with.
“Take my check, and my other offer, before you or the people you care about are threatened.” I got to my feet and straightened my jacket out. “This suit? These shoes? That briefcase and this watch? I own them because I’m damn good at what I do. I’m a financial advisor, Aoife. Take my word for it. You’re getting the best deal out of this.”
She staggered back, the counter stopping her from crumpling to the floor. “You’d hurt me?”
“Not me,” I repudiated. Not in the way she thought, anyway. “But the men I work for?”
Her gaze dropped to the one thing she’d retained in her hand—my card. “Acuig,” she whispered. “Five in Gaelic.”
My brows twitched in surprise. She knew Gaelic?
“The Five Points.” Her eyes flared wide with terror. “They’re behind this deal.”
I hadn’t expected her to put one and one together, but now that she had? It worked to my advantage.
Nodding, I told her, “Any minute now, there’ll be a team of housekeepers coming in here to clear up for the night.” When she gaped at me, I retrieved the contract from my briefcase, slapped it on the table, and handed her a pen as I carried on, “I suggest you let tonight be your last night of business.”
What I didn’t tell her, was that my suggestions weren’t wasted words. They were like the law.
You didn’t break them, and, like any lawmaker, I expected immediate obeisance.
***
Aoife
So, the beautiful man just happened to be an absolute cocksucker of a bastard.
Still, this couldn’t be real, could it?
The dick could have anyone he wanted. Jesus, Jenny was panting after him like a dog in heat. She would have gone out with him if he’d so much as clicked his fingers at her.
But he’d had eyes for me.
Like he wanted me.
He thought he’d bought me. Or, at least, bought my silence, and yeah, to some extent he had. But . . . why buy me, why not just drop the price on the building if he wanted me to pay for the time he’d wasted on me?
The arrogance imbued in those words was enough to make me pull my hair out, but that was inwardly. I was a redhead. I had a temper. But that temper was mostly overshadowed by fear.
Senator Alan Davidson wasn’t my boyfriend, my lover, as this dick seemed to believe. He was my father, and as Finn O’Grady had correctly surmised, he was aiming for the White House.
How could I put that in jeopardy?
My dad was a good man. He’d made a mistake one summer when he’d come home from college, one that only some careful digging by his campaign manager had uncovered. Dad himself hadn’t known of my existence, not until his CM had gone hunting for any nasty secrets that could come out and bite him in the ass.
This had been five years ago when he’d run for Senator. Now, Dad’s goal was the presidential seat, and I wasn’t going to be the one who put a wrench in the works.
When Garry Smythe had approached me back then, I’d thought he was joking. I was out on the street, heading home from work. At the side of me, a black car had driven in from the lane of traffic, just to park, or so I’d thought. As he’d held out his hand with a card, one of the car doors had opened up, and I’d been ‘invited’ inside.
Had I been scared?
At first.
But when Garry had told me my country needed me, I hadn’t been sure whether to laugh or tell him to fuck off. He hadn’t shuffled me into the car, though, hadn’t tried to coerce me. He’d just asked if I’d voted for Senator Alan Davidson in the elections, and because he was one of the only politicians out there who wasn’t a complete douche, and that was the name printed on the card in my hand, I’d shuffled into the back of the car.
Where the Senator himself had been sitting.
Now, when I thought about that day, I realized how fucking naive I’d been to get into the back of a limo for such a vague reason. But I’d been fortunate. Alan had been waiting for me. Waiting to tell me a story that still shook me to my core.
I’d made a promise to my dad that I wouldn’t tell anyone. He’d offered me money, and I hadn’t accepted it. I guess I should have, but back then, I’d been haughty and proud, and because the good guy I’d thought him to be hadn’t been so good when he tried to buy my silence, I’d told him to fuck off. I’d been disappointed in him, frightened by the lifelong lie I’d been living, and equally hurt that the man who’d sired me was just concerned that I was a threat to his campaign.
I’d walked out of that car never expecting to see my dear old Dad ever again.
Then, the day after he’d been elected, he’d been sitting in the booth of the cafe where I worked part-time to get me through culinary school.
Seeing him, I’d almost handed that table off to one of the other waitresses, but I hadn’t. Not when every time I’d passed the table, he’d caught my eye, a patient smile on his lips, one that said he’d wait for me all day if he had to.
Ever since that second meeting, I’d been catching up with him every three weeks.
And this bastard thought he could use our limited time together against my father? The one politician who could make a difference in the White House? One who didn’t have Big Oil up his ass, a pharmaceutical company sucking his dick, or any other kind of corporation so far up his rectum that he was a walking, talking lie?
No.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Which meant I was going to have to sleep with this stranger.
Before this conversation, hell, that hadn’t been too disturbing a prospect. Because, dayum, what woman wouldn’t want to sleep with this guy?
Even with an ego as big as his, he was delicious. Better than any cake I could bake, that was for fucking sure.
More than that, I knew him.
And I now knew that the life Fiona would never have wanted for her son was one he’d been drawn into.
The Mob.
The Five Points were notorious in these parts. Everyone was scared of them. I paid protection money to them, for God’s sake. I knew to be scared of them, and having been raised in their territory, it was the height of stupidity to think paying them wasn’t just a part of business.
Still, Fiona had never wanted that for Finn, and her Finn was the same as the one standing before me here today. In my tea room, which looked far too small to contain the might of this man.
She’d be so disappointed. So heart-sore to know that he was up to his neck in dirty dealings with the Five Points, and as he’d pointed out, the cost of his shoes, his clothes, and his jewelry, was enough to speak for itself.
If he wasn’t high up the ladder in the gang, then I wasn’t one of the best bakers of scones in the district.
Like Jenny had said, I had five star ratings across most social media platforms for a reason. I was good. But apparently, this man wasn’t.
Before I could utter a word, before I could even cringe at how utterly sorrowful Fiona would be about this turn of events—not just about the Five Points but what her son was making me do—the door clattered open.
Like he’d predicted, a team of people swarmed in.
Finn motioned to the floor. “Want anyone to see those?”
With a gasp, I dropped to my knees and collected the shots, stuffing them back into the envelope with a haste that wasn’t exactly practical.
Two shiny shoes appeared before me, followed by two expensively clad legs, and I peered up at him, wondering what he was about. He held out his hand, but I clasped the photos to my chest.
“You’re making more of a mess than anything else, Aoife.” His voice was raspy, his eyes weighted down by heavy lids.
For a second, I wondered why, then I saw why.
He had an erection.
An erection?
I peered around at the staff, but they were all men. Not a single woman in sight, well, save for the seventy-year-old with a clipboard who was barking out orders to the guys in what sounded like Russian.
So that meant, what?
The erection was for me?
The blush, the dreaded, hated blush, made another goddamn appearance, and to cover it, I ducked my head, then pushed the photos and the envelope at him.
For whatever reason, I stayed where I was, staring up at him as he calmly, coolly, and so fucking collectedly pushed the photos back into the torn envelope—it was some coverage. Better than none at all, I figured.
Being down here was. . . .
Hell, I don’t know what it was.
To be looked at like that?
For his body to respond to me like that?
It was unprecedented.
I’d had one sexual experience with a boy back in college, and that had not gone according to plan. So much so I was still technically a fucking virgin because, and this was no lie, the guy had zero understanding of a woman’s body.
Craig had spent more time fingering my perineum than my clit, and every time he’d tried to shove his dick into me, he’d somehow managed to drag it down toward my ass.
I’d gotten so sick of him frigging the wrong bits of me, that I’d pushed him off and given him a blowjob. It had been the quickest way to get out of that annoying situation.
Yeah, annoying.
Jenny, when I’d told her, had pissed herself laughing, and ever since, had tried to get me to hook up with randoms, so I could slough off my virginity like it was dead skin and I was a snake. But life had just always gotten in the way, and I’d had no time for men.
Shortly after that had happened, we’d lost Fiona. Then, I’d graduated, and after, Mom and I had set up this place thanks to some insurance money she’d come into after her husband had died. It had been crazy building the tea room into an established cafe, and then mom had passed on, too.
So, here I was. Still a virgin. On my knees in front of the sexiest man on Earth, a man I knew, a man whose mother had half raised me, one who wanted me in his bed as some kind of blackmail payment.
Was this a dream?
Seriously?
I mean, I’d been depressed before Finn O’Grady had walked through my doors. Now I wasn’t sure whether to be apoplectic or worried as fuck because he wasn’t wrong: you didn’t mess with the Five Points.
God, if I’d known they’d been behind the development on this building, I’d have probably signed over months ago.
The Points were. . . .
I shuddered.
Vindictive.
Aidan O”Donnelly was half-evil genius and half-twisted sociopath. St. Patrick’s Church, two streets away, had the best roof in the neighborhood and the strongest attendance because Aidan, for all he’d cut you into more pieces than a butcher, was a devout Catholic. His men knew better than to avoid Sunday service, and I reckoned that Father Doyle was the busiest priest in the city because of Five Points’ attendance.
“I like you down there,” he murmured absentmindedly.
The words weren’t exactly dirty, but the meaning? They had my temperature soaring.
Shit.
What the hell was I doing?
Enjoyingthe way this man was victimizing me?
It was so wrong, and yet, what was standing right in front of me? I knew he’d know what to do with that thing tucked behind his pants.
He wouldn’t try to penetrate my urethra—yes, you read that right. Craig had tried to fuck my pee-hole! Like, why?
Finn?
He oozed sex appeal.
It seemed to seep from every pore, perfuming the air around me with his pheromones.
I hadn’t even believed in pheromones until I scented Finn O’Grady’s delicious essence.
It reminded me of the one out of town vacation we’d ever had. We’d gone to Cooperstown, and I’d scented a body of water that didn’t have corpses floating in it—Otsego Lake. He reminded me of that. So green and earthy. It was an attack on my overwhelmed senses, an attack I didn’t need.
With the envelope in his hand, he held out his other for me. When I placed my fingers in his, the size difference between us was noticeable once more.
I was just over five feet, and he was over six. I was round and curvy, and he was hard and lean.
It reminded me of the nursery tale Mom had sung to me as a child—Jack Sprat could eat no fat, and his wife could eat no lean.
Did it say a lot for my confidence that I couldn’t seem to take it in that he wanted me? Or was it simply that I wasn’t understanding how anyone could prefer me over Jenny?
Even my mom had called Jenny beautiful, whereas she’d kissed me on the nose and called me her ‘bonny lass.’
Biting my lip, I accepted his help off the floor. My black jeans weren’t the smartest thing for the tea room, but I didn’t actually serve that many dishes, just bustled around behind the counter, working up the courage to do what Mom had done every day—greet people.
I wasn’t a sociable person. I preferred my kitchen to the front of house, hence the jeans, but I regretted not wearing something else today. Something that covered just how big my ass was, how slender my waist wasn’t.
Ugh.
This man is blackmailing you into his bed, Aoife. For Christ’s sake, you’re not supposed to be worrying if he likes the goods, too!
Still, no matter how much I tried, years of inadequacy weighed me down as I wiped off my knees.
“Do you have a coat?” he asked, and his voice was raspy again. “A jacket? Or a purse?”
I nodded at him but kept my gaze trained on the floor. “Yes.”
“Go get them.”
His order had me shuffling my feet toward the kitchen, but as I approached the door, I heard his strong voice speaking with the old woman with the clipboard: “I want this all cleaned up and boxed. Take it to my storage lot in Queens.”
With my back to him, I stiffened at his brisk orders. Was I just going to let him do this? Get away with it?
My shoulders immediately sagged.
Did I have a choice?
If it was just him, just Acuig, then I’d fight this, as I’d been fighting it since the building had come to the attention of the developer. But this wasn’t a regular business deal.
This was mob business, and it seemed like somehow, I’d become a part of that.
FML.
Seriously, FML.