39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Afuture that is taking too damn long. Getting Jillian to proposition me and give in to her desires is impossible when I haven’t seen her.
Work and court.
Those are the responses I get the following week when I ask where she is.
I dig further into Jillian’s life and absorb every piece of who she is until she feels like she’s a part of me.
Over a bottle of whiskey, I unearth a treasure trove of personal data. Where she went to school, the grades she got. How she got special accommodations to take the bar due to an attention deficit exemption.
Balor sent me her medical records, which were thin because she’s only thirty. She sees a dentist regularly, and I push away the anger, picturing a man hovering over her, putting his fingers in her mouth.
Turns out someone rear-ended her last year just off the strip. Her insurance company deemed it no fault and settled the claim.
What stands out are the food delivery orders. Checking her credit cards, I don’t see any grocery store charges. She does everything online, which stuck with a lot of people after the lockdowns.
It’s the feedback in one app from one order that strikes me.
Love Renee, my delivery girl. She gets me and understands why I don’t want to be seen in a supermarket buying groceries or getting fast food.
Fuck me, sparkles. With me, she’ll eat whatever the hell she wants, and I’ll sit there with a knife ready to slit the throat of anyone who gives her a dirty look.
God, I’m off the rails.
Calming down, I hack into her Google Calendar for the week.
Gel Manicure- Wednesday 1 p.m.
She doesn’t have time to sit in my office, or on my face, but she can sit in a chair and let some stranger touch her hands?
But when I swing by the salon on Wednesday and spy on her through the window, seeing her with a woman, the two of them chatting, I calm down.
Her socials are filled with posts of her nails and the colors she picks.
She goes every three weeks. Never gets the same color twice. I’m oddly excited to see what color nails will be scratching down my back soon.
Gynecologist- Thursday 9 a.m.
This raises my hackles. Especially when I scroll back through her phone and see she tagged an appointment with this quack three months ago as Annual.
There’s no description for this visit.
This will take more maneuvering to see why she’s going back to her gyno so soon. I hope I didn’t do anything the other night to hurt her.
Exhaling, I call Balor.
“Yeeeees?” he answers, like he’s mocking me.
It ticks me off. “What the hell, Balor? Your job is to check out whatever we tell you.”
“You’re spying on a woman who has no further involvement with our family.”
“I’m spying on the prosecutor who, at any time, can initiate an extradition of our brother. I’m…working on her.”
“You’re fucking her.”
“I’m doing what is necessary to protect our family.”
A roar of laughter pierces my ear. “And do you think I’m not spying on you? I know you’re sitting in front of an office building and her car is a few feet away. I read your texts for fun now.”
Fuck.
“All right!” I swear under my breath. “Just do this one thing for me.”
When only silence echoes over the line, I say, “Please?”
“What do you need? And it’s only because I have Shane working with me, that I can spare extra time like this. Fuck, that guy’s got skills I’m blushing at.”
Good to know.
“Dr. Michael Paulson.” I don’t bother giving Balor the address, since he hacked a satellite to fucking find me. “Jillian has an appointment and—”
“He’s a gynecologist.”
“I know that,” I snap. “I need to know what she’s visiting him about. I’m worried about her.”
“Think she might have an STD?”
“She was a virgin when I fucked her, Balor.” My eyes hit the door to the office building, watching for her.
“Jesus,” he says, like he knows what that does to men like us. “According to the details in the appointment logs, she’s asking for birth control.”
Hmmm. That rubs me the wrong way. I wore a condom my first time with her, and also when I fucked her as Johnny. Two different ones, on purpose.
I didn’t know her that first night. But if she’s on the pill, I won’t wear one again. Not as me. But I can’t justify skipping one as Johnny. If that’s the only way to get inside her tight cunt, I’ll do what I have to.
Did she schedule this appointment so I don’t have to wear one again?
“Thanks, Bale.” I hang up and call Darragh.
“Still in Vegas?” he asks, instead of saying hello.
“Aye, I hit a snag here with the deal I made for Cormac.”
“Does that snag have a pussy?”
I drag a hand down my face. These motherfuckers are talking about me behind my back.
“Aye, a good one. Tight and wet. You’re married now and won’t ever—”
“What do you need?” he grinds out, not amused. “And I’m not just married. I’m happily fucking married.”
“I’m happy for you. You saved our asses, you realize that? You got Ana to talk to her father. He was ready to level Astoria.” I exhale. “I want to get tested to make sure I’m clean.”
“Clean? Drugs?”
“No! STDs.”
“Who did you screw that—”
“Stop! The woman I’m currently enjoying was a virgin.”
“Really?”
Darragh and Cormac lived a separate life from us for years. Deep inside, we all have that visceral alpha O’Rourke blood pulsing through our veins.
“Really. She’s getting on birth control, so I want to make sure I’m one hundred percent. For her.”
“Have you ever been tested?”
“No.”
She’s the only person I’ve cared enough to be tested for.
“I’ll call in a script for a full blood panel. Go to the testing center in the link I send you. You can walk in.”
My phone beeps with the link. “Thanks, man.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Soon,” I say, watching Jillian stroll from the building and into the parking lot. “Gotta go.”
Jillian is talking on her phone, not paying attention. From the corner of my eye, I see a car barreling toward the crosswalk.
“Fuck!” I slam on my horn, pushing my door open. “Jillian!” I scream just in time enough for her to jump back.
I dive from my car and rush toward the crosswalk, putting myself in the path of the car. It screeches to a stop, and I slam on the hood.
“Watch where you’re fucking going,” I bark, my murderous glare on the man behind the wheel wearing dark shades.
This city is filled with shady-as-fuck assholes. I make my way to the driver’s side door, pulling my gun. I have every intention of smashing his tinted window until it rolls open a crack.
The guy keeps his eyes on his hood, where I’ve made a few dents with my fists. “I think you better watch it,” he says with an accent I can’t exactly place.
I lift my gun, but he peels away.
I try to read the license plate but don’t catch all the numbers.
“Are you okay?” Jillian’s hands on me bring me back to life.
Or the male form of blood, flesh, and bone, I become when I’m with her.
“I’m fine. You have to watch where you’re walking, sparkles.” Taking her arm, I steer her to her car, shoving my gun back inside my coat.
“Holy shit. What are you doing here? Are you stalking me?”
“Clearly.” I keep walking.
“And you followed me here?”
“You bet.”
“Why?” She pulls away.
“What part of you belong to me is not getting into your head?”
“Because you can’t own a person, Eoghan. I don’t know what other arcane laws you’re thinking of manipulating. You don’t…”
I crash my mouth down on hers and sweep her senses away with a kiss that fills my lungs with air for the first time in days. “I may not own you in the legal sense, but in the physical sense, this…” I stroke her mouth. “And this.” I grab her arse. “Is mine.”
Looking dizzy from my kiss, she utters, “You really followed me here?”
“Aye. And if I wasn’t here. You’d be flattened.”
She swallows, her throat working so fucking erotically. I’m a few brain cells away from pushing her into her car and shoving my cock down her throat and getting off on her mouth right now.
Like she wants!
“True. You’re really just protecting me, right? Because of the case? You think the Borgias might try to hurt me?”
“Every second of every day,” I say, but fuck, I never even considered that.
Only because that would be the stupidest fucking thing to do. You kill investigations, but if one slips past the goalie—no pun intended considering what Jillian is here for—and your fuck ups become a full-blown indictment with a prosecutor assigned, that counselor getting mowed down can be seen by the judge as a strike against the defendant.
The man in the car just threated me. That accent. Italian? Mediterranean? Slavic?
The Borgias are using Russian mercenaries.
“What are you doing now? Come back to my villa. I seriously need to fuck you,” I blurt and push my full-blown erection into her stomach. “You don’t want to feel all ten inches of me inside you?”
Flushed and lip bruised from the brutal kiss I laid on her because I’m losing control of myself, she says, “I have to be in court in an hour.”
“Tonight.”
She shakes her head. “Late night with the investigation team.”
“What fucking case is this?”
“Bank fraud. Small company. I have a meeting with Daniel tomorrow morning to go over your brief,” she whispers. “I’ll be at the villa as soon as I can after that.”
“Let me see your new manicure.” I reach down and hold her fingers. “I don’t like this color,” I sneer at the dark purple that draws out the veins in her hands.
“You knew I had a nail appointment?” She’s breathless but holding on and not letting me wear her down.
“I know everything about you.” Except her court schedule apparently because those aren’t in her phone.
I make a note to hack her desk computer next.
Holding my hands, she says, “I’m sorry you don’t like the color.”
“Too dark.”
“Look who’s talking.” She stares right into my eyes. “This manicure cost me forty dollars, I won’t redo it.”
“I’ll pay for another.” I reach for my wallet, but her hands close around mine.
“Stop!”
We stare for a moment. I’m unraveling. I feel it. She’s got this hold on me I can’t explain or shake. But she’s forcing me to keep the crazy in check.
“I have to leave.” She hugs me and it breaks me inside. “Thank you. For stopping that car.”
Her lips brush my cheek and I clench my stomach to keep myself from dragging her to the villa. Why is she still denying me?
“Get to court, counselor,” I mutter to her, and open her car door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With no more words, she gets in, and I close the door. Watching her drive away feels like my heart being ripped out of my chest.
On my phone, I find the testing clinic and am thankful I have something to do for the next hour.
What the hell will I do until tomorrow morning, or my life, if I can’t convince this woman to be mine?