5. Elle
ELLE
My hands are trembling as I walk back from the bank.
I knew it was a lost cause before I left the flat this morning, but I needed to try.
Again. For the hundredth time to get an overdraft.
They declined. They didn’t laugh me out of the bank, but it was still humiliating.
They might as well. Maybe then my stubborn brain would give up on the idea that a lifeline exists somewhere in this godforsaken city.
I make it back to my flat after looking over my shoulder ten times, but I can’t see anyone following me.
But that doesn’t mean no one is there. Lorcan Keane doesn’t strike me as the type to just make a girl debase herself in front of a roomful of rich arseholes and then forget about her.
I reach the top of the stairs and fumble with my key. It slips before I steady my hand and jam the metal into the lock. I push the door open and move inside, locking the door behind me.
Kicking off my only pair of decent heels that aren’t stripper shoes, I move further into the dark flat. I’ve left the curtains closed in case someone was watching me… on the first floor of this building. My gaze shoots to the single armchair by the window, and I scream.
He moves faster than I anticipate, clamping his hand over my mouth. “Quiet, Elle. You don’t need to be afraid.”
I thrash against him, digging my fingernails into his wrist. He doesn’t move. He stays still and presses me back toward the door. He is tall, muscular. Irish. Dark hair falls over his brow. His flat blue eyes stare at me.
“I’m going to let go,” he says. “If you scream again, I’ll put you in the boot of my car.”
I nod. He pulls his hand back. My chest heaves.
“Who are you?” I ask. My voice is small.
“Fintan Keane.” He is broad and blocks the bit of light from the window as he looms in front of me. Tattoos crawl up his neck. “I came to see what all the fuss was about.” His gaze rakes over me, head to toe. “I get it now.”
My mouth dries. “Get what?”
“Why Lorcan didn’t just kill you,” he says, his voice a low rumble that makes me almost wet myself. He steps back, but his presence fills every inch of the space. “You’re smaller than you looked in the file. More fragile.”
“I’m not fragile,” I snap, the fear sparking into a desperate kind of anger. “How did you get in here? I locked the door.”
He holds up a small metal pick set, his expression unchanged. “Locks only keep out honest people, Elle. We aren’t honest people.”
I swallow hard. Up close, he’s just as terrifying as the other two brothers, but there’s a stillness to him that feels even more dangerous. He’s a predator waiting for a reason to strike.
“What do you want?” I whisper.
“To see if you’re a liability,” Fintan says.
He moves then, a slow, deliberate prowl around my small flat.
I take the opportunity to dart from the front door and around the kitchen counter, putting something between us, even if it is pointless.
Fintan ignores my move. He stops by the small table and flicks through a stack of unpaid bills with one finger.
I want to snatch them away, but I stay behind the laminate counter. My head pounds with fear.
“You’re in deep, aren’t you?” he says. He doesn’t look at me. He stares at a final notice for my electric.
“Get out of my flat,” I say. My voice wobbles, but I don’t look away.
He turns his head. His blue eyes are flat and cold. He doesn’t look angry. He looks bored, which is far more terrifying. “Tiernan thinks you’re innocent. Lorcan thinks you’re a toy.”
“I don’t care what they think. I didn’t mean to be there. I don’t even know what I saw.”
Fintan moves toward the counter. He doesn’t hurry, but each step makes the room feel smaller. He stops right in front of me, separated only by the cheap worktop. “I think you’re a fucking problem that needs a solution.”
“I haven’t told anyone,” I promise. I hold the edge of the counter until the plastic digs into my palms. “I just want to pay my rent and forget last night ever happened.”
He reaches out. I flinch, but he only taps the counter near my hand. “How much is your rent?” he asks, surprising me.
“Eight hundred,” I stammer.
He blinks. “A week?”
I snort in disbelief. “Look around, arsehole. Does this look like the Ritz to you?”
“A month,” he says flatly. “Fine. I’ll give a grand in cash, right now, if you give me the same show you gave my brothers.”
At first, I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Fintan says. He pulls a thick roll of bills from his pocket and thumps it onto the counter. The sound of cash hitting the laminate is the loudest thing in the room. “One grand. Rent paid with enough left over to heat this dump for a while. It’s getting cold next week.”
I stare at the money. It’s my rent. It’s food. It’s a chance to breathe. But the cost makes my skin crawl. “You’re a prick,” I whisper.
“I’m a Keane,” he corrects as if that makes it all better. I suppose, logically speaking, it does. He doesn’t move. He waits with that dead, blue stare. “I want to see what has my brother so obsessed.”
“What exactly are you asking me?” I whisper.
“Strip,” his voice drops lower, “masturbate, come for me, Elle.”
“No,” I whimper. “I’m not doing it.”
“Not even for a chance to pay your rent?”
“I’m not a fucking whore,” I spit out, finding a spark from somewhere.
“No one said you were. I’m not going to touch you. I’m going to watch.” He turns to the armchair and sits down, elbow resting on the arm, his fingers on his chin.
“You’re serious?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“You want to watch me?”
Silence.
I gulp and glance at the cash on the counter. Rent, food, heating. He’s right about the forecast for next week. A major cold snap. I’m dreading it. But… I look back at him. “You won’t touch me?”
He shakes his head as if his quota for words is done for the day.
I stare at the money, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
One grand. It’s right there. All I have to do is strip naked and touch myself while Fintan Keane watches from my armchair like a king on his throne.
He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move. He just waits, as if this is the most normal request in the world.
My fingers twitch toward the cash, but I pull back. “You’re sick,” I say, my voice shaking. “All of you.”
He tilts his head slightly, as if considering my words. Then he reaches into his jacket and pulls out another roll of bills. He tosses it onto the floor at his feet. My breath catches.
“Everyone has a price, Elle. What’s yours? Two grand? Three?”
“You’re insane,” I whisper, staring at the cash he threw so casually on the ground like it means nothing.
I swallow hard. My rent is due. The electric company has already sent a final warning. I’ve been surviving on instant noodles and stolen ketchup packets from fast-food places. Two grand is the lifeline I’ve been wishing for.
But I’m not some performing monkey for these men.
Except I am.
That’s exactly what I fucking am. I’m a stripper. I take my clothes off to entertain men.
I’m being unusually prim about this, but it’s the extra that makes me skittish.
“Five grand,” I say, my voice shaking. “And you don’t touch. You don’t even reach for me.”
He nods and throws the rest of the bills on the floor. He is going to make me grovel for it.
And the really sad thing is, I’m going to do it.
I want a roof over my head. I want to be warm and not hungry. It’s just one step away from doing what I do for a living anyway.
Taking a deep breath, my hands tremble as I reach for the hem of my shirt.
The fabric feels heavier than it should, like it’s made of lead instead of cotton.
I pull it over my head and drop it on the floor near the cash, so I have an excuse to bend down and grab the money as well as my clothes.
The flat is chilly, peaking my nipples hard.
My skin prickles with awareness, every nerve ending hyper-sensitive under Fintan’s gaze.
I reach behind me and unclasp my bra, letting it slide down my arms. I flick the button undone on the only pair of smart pants I own, and they slither down my legs when I pull the zip down.
I step out of them, moving seductively for this man, this billionaire who has broken into my flat and demanded I perform for him for an obscene amount of cash.
I kick the pants toward the pile of cash and stand in my knickers.
Fintan’s gaze doesn’t waver. He watches me like I’m a specimen under glass, something to be studied and dissected.
I swallow hard and hook my thumbs into the sides of my knickers. The fabric feels flimsy, barely there. I push them down my thighs, stepping out of them with as much grace as I can muster. The air in the flat is cold against my bare skin, but the heat of his stare burns me.
“Touch yourself,” he murmurs.
I hesitate, my breath hitching. My fingers tremble as I slide them down my stomach, my skin prickling under his gaze.
I keep my eyes locked on his. It’s just a performance.
Just another show. But it feels different this time—more intimate, more violating.
I slide my fingers over my clit, my movements slow, deliberate.
My pussy responds to the pressure, the friction, the weight of his stare. The fucking cash.
“Move closer,” he says.
I do as he says, but keep more than an arm’s distance from him. He stares at my hand as I stimulate myself. I hate that I find it a turn-on. I try to push it aside with disgust, but it’s just not there.
His breathing grows heavier as I circle my clit slowly, drawing it out instead of trying to get it over with.
What is wrong with me?
His desire is intoxicating, and I’m a hopeless case.
“Are you enjoying this?” I murmur.
His gaze shoots up to mine, and he nods.
“Touch yourself then. Show me.”
His eyebrow goes up, and he smiles. It’s not amusement.
It’s anything but. It’s cold, frightening, and so incredibly sexy I nearly whimper as my clit pulses under my fingers.
His eyes darken as he watches me. I hold his stare even as my fingers press harder against my clit.
My blood races through my veins. He shifts in the armchair and spreads his legs wider.
His hand moves to his belt, and he loosens it.
He frees his cock and wraps his fist around the base.
He is enormous, thick and long. He strokes once, slow and deliberate.
I bite back a moan at the sight. Heat floods my face.
I hate how my body reacts to his. The money lies scattered on the floor between us.
I focus on the bills to steady myself. Five grand means rent paid and food in the fridge.
It means no more instant noodles for a week.
His breathing grows rougher. He pumps his hand in time with my circles.
I quicken my pace to match him. My thighs tremble.
Pleasure builds low in my belly despite the fear that still knots my stomach.
Fintan grunts low in his throat. The sound sends another spark through me.
I press two fingers inside and curl them.
My hips rock forward. He keeps his distance as he promised.
He never reaches for me. His gaze stays locked on my hand and my exposed skin.
I bite my lip hard to hold back my moans.
“I want to hear you,” he mutters, pumping his fist faster, matching my rhythm. His eyes stay fixed on my fingers as they work over my clit and let out a low moan.
Pleasure spikes through me. My legs shake.
I press harder, chasing the release that edges closer with every stroke.
He grunts once, low and rough. The sound pushes me over.
My clit twitches viciously as heat floods me.
I ride it out with shallow breaths, my free hand braced against the counter for balance.
Fintan follows right after. He spills over his fist with a sharp exhale.
Neither of us moves for a long moment. The cash lies between us on the floor.
I pull my hand away and reach for my clothes.
He wipes his hand on a cloth from his pocket that is wrapped around a blade before he tucks himself back into his pants and stands.
He gathers the bills from the floor into a neat stack and sets them on the counter next to the first roll.
He reaches into his jacket pocket again and pulls out another roll.
“That was worth another three grand,” he says. “No one has got me hard in a while.”
“How long?” I ask to my own horror.
“Three years.”
“A grand a year. Lucky me,” I say.
He turns to me and moves forward, grasping my upper arm and turning me to press my back into the counter. He moves as close as he can get, forcing me to look at him. He is six-four, at least.
“I get it now,” he rumbles. “You are special.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He releases my arm and grips my chin. “How much to ride me until I break?”
My eyes widen, and my mouth goes dry even while my pussy soaks through my thin knickers with an enthusiasm that I will deny to my grave. “You don’t have enough,” I say as derisively as I can, even though we both know it’s a lie.
He smirks and brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “We’ll see.”
He steps back and, with a final smouldering glance, he leaves, and I sink to the floor, wondering if this was real.