Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Ciaran
As I carried Annie along the corridor to my bedroom, I felt a deeper sense of contentment than I had for many years. There was something so right about having her nestled close to my chest. It was where she belonged. I loved her softness, the peachy glow of her skin. I’d fucked a lot of women, too many to remember them all, but I’d never experienced anything like I did with Annie. Her responses to my voice, my touch, had fueled my desire to give her pleasure. I wanted to own every part of her.
It was crazy how strongly I felt about this woman I barely knew. Annie seemed perfect, and not just because she was incredibly beautiful. I was drawn to her on a deeper level. She offered me both submission and challenge. I needed that.
From the first moment I set eyes on Annie, I wanted to protect her. Now I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her. I must be delirious after coming so hard inside her deliciously tight pussy because I was having dangerous thoughts about keeping this woman, whether she liked it or not.
I took Annie into my bedroom and set her down on the edge of my bed, a California king I’d only ever occupied alone.
“Wait here,” I told her, before heading into the en suite bathroom.
An enormous tub dominated the space. To the right of the room was a shower cubicle, large enough to accommodate a dozen people, not that it ever had. I might like to experiment in the bedroom, but I wasn’t into orgies.
The walls of the shower were tiled in a vibrant emerald green, a nod to my ancestral homeland. I’d visited Ireland as a child. My parents, both the children of Irish immigrants, felt it was important to keep in touch with our heritage. My memories of Dublin were bittersweet. While I’d enjoyed the sights and learning about the history of my people, the tension between my parents had been palpable. They’d tried not to fight in front of my siblings and me, but we’d known their marriage was falling apart. When we returned to the States, my father moved out of the family home. He never divorced my mom, but he didn’t return to her either. He spent the rest of his life building his mafia empire and screwing his way through the female population of Michigan.
Though I was tempted to shower with Annie, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist shoving her against the wall and fucking her. I needed to pace myself and allow her time to recover. The last thing I wanted was for her to see me as a sex-crazed monster. We had all day, and it would be nice for us to get to know each other better.
Rolling up my sleeves, I put the plug in the tub and turned on the water, making sure it was nice and warm. I found a bottle of scented bubble bath in the cabinet under the sink. My sister Emily stayed here on the rare occasions when she ventured into the city, and she preferred my tub to the smaller one in the room she’d commandeered for her use. A delicate floral scent filled the air as I poured a generous amount of bubble bath under the running water.
When the tub was full, I turned off the faucet and went back to the bedroom where Annie was sitting at the edge of the bed. Her smile warmed me to the core.
“Are you planning to take a bath?” she asked. She’d obviously heard the water running.
“No, it’s for you. I thought you might like to soak in the tub for a while.”
“You thought right.”
Taking my proffered hand, Annie allowed me to lead her into the bathroom. I helped her to step into the tub and she sighed contentedly as she sank into the water, leaning her head back and letting her eyes drift shut.
“How is it?”
“Perfect. I love orange blossom.”
Ah, that’s what the scent was. I’d recognized it but would never have been able to name it.
“I wouldn’t have had you down as a lover of bubble bath, though.” She cracked an eye open to peer at me.
I wondered if that was her subtle way of probing me for information about my love life.
“It’s my sister’s. She stays here sometimes.” I felt the need to reassure her, so I added, “No other woman has ever been here.”
“Really?” Now both of Annie’s stunning blue eyes were fixed on me as she searched my face for evidence of a lie.
“Well, apart from my sister and my cleaner, that is.”
Annie smiled, obviously pleased by my response, before closing her eyes once more. Beneath the bubbles, her chest rose and fell as she breathed in a slow, steady rhythm. Her face was serene, the very picture of relaxation. I envied her the ability to let her guard down so easily. Obviously, she’d had a very different life than mine. She didn’t have to be wary of most of the people around her. There was nobody plotting to topple her throne. For a moment, I considered whether I should tell her I’d changed my mind about spending the day with her. I should let her go before I got any more attached. But I couldn’t say goodbye. Not yet.
Removing my watch, because I didn’t intend to test its claims to be waterproof, I grabbed a washcloth and dipped it into the fragrant water. I ran it slowly across Annie’s body, from one shoulder to the other, skimming over the thin skin covering her collarbone.
“Hmm,” she murmured, “that’s nice.”
I lingered for a moment on the faded scar on her shoulder. The injury that caused it must have been a nasty one. “What happened here?”
She opened her eyes and glanced at the jagged mark. “Oh, that happened when I was thirteen. I was biking through the woods with friends and hit a stone. I went over the handlebars and somehow ended up impaled on a sharp stick.” She shuddered. “I can still feel it now.”
“Jesus! I can’t imagine.”
“You’ve never been in an accident?”
“Nothing beyond a few cuts and bruises.” Considering my line of business, I was extremely lucky never to have been badly injured. Both my brothers had been badly hurt. Sean, the next oldest after me, had been stabbed twice and shot once. Will, our youngest sibling, was slashed across his chest a few years ago by a debtor unwilling to pay what he owed. It was an occupational hazard I would hopefully continue to avoid. “Now, relax and let me take care of you.”
Annie closed her eyes. A smile curved her lips as I moved the cloth lower to wash her plump breasts. Her pretty pink nipple poked out from the milky-white bubbles and peaked beneath my touch. As I dragged the cloth down over her abdomen, Annie wiggled restlessly, making ripples in the water. I knew what she wanted, but she would have to wait.
I carefully washed her left leg, going all the way down to the tips of her toes, and then worked my way back up the right. When I reached the apex of her thighs, Annie looked up at me.
“Ciaran.” My name was a plea on her lips.
Discarding the cloth, I parted her thighs and drew my fingers along her slit. She lifted her hips, molding herself against my palm as I cupped her feminine mound.
“Are you sore?” I asked.
“A little.” As I withdrew my hand, intending to leave her alone until she recovered, she grabbed my wrist. “But not too sore.”
She dragged my hand back between her legs.
Fuck! This woman was incredible. She wasn’t afraid to let me know exactly what she wanted. That didn’t mean I was going to let her dictate how things would be.
“Play with your breasts,” I instructed. “I want both those nipples nice and hard.”
Annie sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, a sign of uncertainty, but she cupped her breasts for me anyway, arching her back to lift them from the water so I could see what she was doing. She kneaded her delicate flesh and made circles around her nipples with her forefingers, gradually drawing them up into taut peaks.
As she moaned with pleasure, I pushed two fingers inside her and curled them toward me, searching for that sweet spot that would drive her wild. When she sucked in a sharp breath, I knew I’d found it.
“Fuck yourself on my fingers, sweetheart. I want you to get yourself off.”
Flicking her tongue out to wet her lips, Annie looked me dead in the eyes as she ground her hips against my hand, pushing my fingers deeper into her tight channel. She felt incredible, and I wondered absently what it would be like to fuck her ass.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” I dragged my mind back to the present. “Take what you need.”
“Ciaran.”
She whimpered as I held my hand still. She was going to have to do the work for now.
Water splashed out of the tub as she raised and lowered her hips at an increasingly frenzied pace. Annie chased her climax, but her whine of frustration as she tugged her nipples told me she wouldn’t reach it on her own. Grabbing her hair, still half up in a ponytail, I pulled her to me for a bruising kiss. As my tongue tangled with hers, I drove my fingers in and out of her pussy. I pressed my thumb down hard on her clit, noting how it throbbed.
“Come for me, Annie.” I knew she was close. “Show me what a good little slut you are.”
It seemed she responded well to a little dirty talk. Her pussy clenched around my fingers. A strangled cry ripped from her throat as she convulsed violently, splashing water out of the tub. My pants were soaked, but I didn’t care. Watching this woman come apart was the greatest thing I’d ever witnessed. I leaned over to kiss her through her orgasm, then, as the tremors in her body subsided, I pulled back, stroking her face.
“That was beautiful, Annie.”
She grinned, a slightly goofy, dazed look on her face. I got to my feet and moved around the tub to stand behind her.
“Sit up, sweetheart.”
She did as she was told, and I removed the elastic holding her hair in a loose ponytail. It wasn’t easy to free it from her hair now it was wet, and she hissed as I accidentally tugged too hard.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” Tossing the elastic band aside, I teased out her hair, then grabbed a plastic jug my sister had left on the shelf by the tub and filled it with water. “Lean back a little.”
She tilted her head back, and I poured water over her hair. When it was wet through, I grabbed a bottle of shampoo. Its sandalwood scent was on the masculine side, but it was all I had to hand. I squirted a generous amount into my palm and then massaged it into Annie’s hair.
“This reminds me of a film,” she said. “Robert Redford was in it, and Meryl Streep, I think.”
I knew the movie she was talking about. “Out of Africa.”
“Yes.” She smiled as I continued to work the shampoo onto her scalp. “You know it?”
“My mom’s a movie buff. She used to make the whole family watch movies together every Saturday night.”
“You have a big family?”
“Two brothers, two sisters.”
“Wow. Are you still close to everyone?”
“My mom moved to Florida after my father died.” I didn’t give Annie the chance to offer the inevitable condolences. “My brothers and my sister Emily still live in Detroit. My other sister, Erin, is at school in New York. She’s doing her Masters in Fine Art.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.”
“Yeah, I’m really proud of her.” Erin had incredible talent. I had no idea where she got it from. None of the rest of us were artistic. We used to joke she was a changeling left by the faeries. “What about you? Any siblings?”
I already knew from the research I’d asked my cousin Jace to do on her that she was an only child, but I wanted to hear it from her.
“No, it’s just me.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what do you do for work?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“You like your job?” I asked as I filled the jug with water to rinse her hair.
“It’s fun most of the time. The kids are great. It’s the parents that are a handful.”
I laughed at the dramatic shudder she gave.
“I’ll bet.” It wasn’t a job I could see myself doing. “So, you’re on summer break right now?”
“Yes. I’ve had two weeks’ holiday already. There’s four and a half to go.”
So, she didn’t have to rush back to Scotland for work. That piqued my interest. I tilted her head back a little more as I poured another jugful over her hair. I didn’t want to get shampoo in her eyes.
“Any plans for the rest of your vacation?”
“No, I’m just going to read, relax, meet friends for lunch, that sort of thing.” She pursed her lips as if an annoying thought had occurred to her. “I have to paint my kitchen, though.”
“You’re not going to hire someone to do it?” I couldn’t think of any woman I knew who would get hands-on with a project like that.
“Of course not. I can paint a few walls easily enough.”
“Sure, but you didn’t sound enthusiastic about it.”
“I’m not, but I can’t afford to not do it myself. I spent most of my savings to come here.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “So, if you were planning to seduce me for my money, you’re out of luck.”
I laughed loudly at that. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I have a little of my own.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Annie waved a hand around the room. My apartment was luxurious. “What do you do exactly?”
There’s no way I was about to tell her I headed up one of the most powerful mafia organizations in the Midwest. I didn’t want to scare her off. “I run a couple of businesses.”
“They must do well if you can afford to pay men to kidnap unsuspecting tourists.”
“They do all right, and that’s not something I make a habit of.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She closed her eyes and hummed quietly to herself as I finished rinsing her hair. When I was done, I helped her out of the rapidly cooling water and wrapped her in a fluffy black towel. I grabbed a second towel and dried her hair the best I could. As I finished, she yawned widely. Clearly, the bath had relaxed her more than I intended.
“You need to change,” Annie said, motioning toward my soaked-through pants.
“Yeah, and we need to get you dressed. I’d like to take you to one of my favorite spots for something to eat.”
“Sounds good.”
I steered Annie back into the bedroom. “Wait here. I’ll go fetch your clothes.”
She took a seat on the edge of the bed, and I went to the living room to retrieve her clothing. Her dress lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. She couldn’t wear that. Fortunately, Emily kept some clothing here for when she stayed over. I didn’t think Annie would want to wear another woman’s lingerie and, to be honest, I didn’t like the idea of rummaging through my sister’s underwear to find something suitable.
Scooping up Annie’s bra and panties, I headed along the corridor, past my bedroom, to the room Emily used. Her closet contained only a dozen different items, but I found a pair of jeans and a shirt that would probably fit my girl.
My girl. I should not be thinking of her that way, but I couldn’t help it.
With the borrowed clothing, I made my way back to my bedroom. I pushed open the door and stopped dead at what lay before me. Annie was curled up on the bed, the towel still wrapped around her, fast asleep. I walked over, as quietly as a man of my size could, to get a closer look at her. She was so peaceful. Like this, she appeared almost angelic, with wisps of golden hair framing her face.
I could picture myself waking up next to her every morning. The thought shocked me, and I paused to ponder it. My reputation with women wasn’t good. I wasn’t normally one for any sort of romantic gesture, but I imagined myself bringing Annie flowers, buying her pieces of jewelry. Already I was a different person around her. Though my desire to dominate was still there, I also wanted to show her a softer side I thought had been buried years ago.
Saying goodbye to her tomorrow would kill me. I had to find a way to make her stay.