Chapter 17
C assie
Riordan sped us into the night, heading south, and my brain raced over thoughts and feelings just as fast.
The engine roared. I wanted to scream.
Out of Aberdeen, we reached a junction, and I sucked in a breath, suddenly realising where we were. Tapping Riordan’s arm, I gestured for him to take the road to the left. The sea road. A slower route down the east coast of Scotland but one which held a place that was precious to me.
I wanted to at least drive past it. To somehow help crest the strange feelings brewing in me.
Without pause, Riordan signalled where I’d directed and drove us on, past the sign for the Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle, then Catterline Bay. Even through my borrowed helmet, the salty tang of the sea made it to my nose, and emotion continued to rock me.
As if sensing my weird state, Riordan drove more slowly.
Then I saw it.
Almost hidden by overgrowth, the switchback led down the low cliff. I stiffened and pointed, and my fiancé, because I was running with that, turned the bike almost three-sixty to take it. We cruised down the potholed road, bumping over ruts then crunching rocks at the bottom. He stopped, engine off, a hand already waiting to help me down.
In zombie fashion, I stumbled, my boots sinking into the loose gravel of the beach.
Silence greeted me. Nothing but the hushed pull of the waves.
It had been years since I’d come here. Not one thing had changed. Not the house to our left with the glassed-in porch and the shed full of surfboards. Not the exact arrangement of rocks in the silvered, calm sea. Yanking off my helmet, I set it down and paced to the water’s edge. It rushed up to greet me. Like it knew me. Like it was welcoming me back.
Riordan approached, scrubbing over his flattened hair. “What is this place?”
“Nowhere, really. It was home for a few days when we were on the run.”
He watched me for a beat then sat in the gravel. “This after the hostel Jamieson burned down?”
He was piecing together my history. I kind of loved that he cared.
“Aye. But that was back on Torlum.”
“Where you were kidnapped to? Tell me about it.”
It was better than trying to get to grips with what I’d learned about my mother. Staring out at the dark horizon, I considered my own past. “None of us knew each other growing up, apart from Sin and Jamieson who had seen each other in passing. We didn’t know we were related until one by one, me and my brothers were kidnapped and taken to Torlum. It’s a remote, desolate island in the Hebrides. The locals were told our presence was a young offenders rehabilitation type deal, but really, we were picked up because we were McInver’s kids and he was dying. Someone else wanted his inheritance, and as we had no idea who we were, hiding us away meant the executors of his will would never find us. I was six years old when they took me.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Right? Except for me, for the first time, I had a family. I had four big brothers and their girlfriends. From nothing to everything, and every single one of them gave a fuck about me. It was in that house over there that I realised I wanted Sin and Lottie as my parents. That I loved them. We swam in this bay.” I choked on a thick throat. “We weren’t even here that long before the homeowner discovered us trespassing and called the cops. It’s just always been in my mind as the real starting point of my life.”
“What happened when the police came?”
I hung my head. “They took me. I had to go back into foster care. I didn’t see my family again until Arran’s father kidnapped me as a hostage. It was the end of us being on the run because he got what was coming to him.”
“Arran killed him?”
“He wanted to, and so did I. There were too many cops there. That man is rotting in jail now, but not before he murdered Arran’s mother, Audrey.”
Something registered in Riordan’s gaze. “Project Audrey. Your brother mentioned that to you. What did he mean?”
“It’s a service Thea runs. She’s Struan’s wife and a social worker. We help women who are at risk of losing their kids to social services because their lives are fucked up. They get referred to Thea’s team, then helped with legal matters and housing. Whatever they need. It’s very worthy. We named it after Audrey because Arran’s warehouse is the front of the business. Many of them come via that route after being trafficked. Thea wants me to work for her.”
He wrinkled his nose. Without a word, I read his thoughts.
“Yes, it’s worthy as hell. Yes, I’d be bored out of my mind. It’s not for me, as much as my family would apparently prefer that to the path I’m taking. I get it. They’ve seen me pick up and drop obsessions like no one’s business. They saw me quit uni and take an apparent wild card job at Arran’s warehouse so obviously they’re expecting me to quit that, too. Did ye see the skull on my bookshelf containing the souvenirs of my failed obsessions? I can’t really blame Jamieson for acting the way he did.”
Stooping, I picked up a pebble and flung it at the water. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke. I got lost in memories. Riordan just watched me.
Finally, I returned to the events of this evening and the dots that were now connected.
“All these years, I wondered about my piece of history that came before this place. Before my real family was formed. All that time and my mother’s friend was just a couple of hours away. We searched records. We asked people who Arran encountered, women who worked for him. Nothing.”
“The information DeeDee gave, the fact you were born on a Sunday, does that give you a date of birth?”
It did. God. “The thirtieth of October.”
“Ten days away.”
“More importantly, it gives me something real about her. Up to this point, other than her name, all I knew was that she’d sold her body to McInver. She had ambition. I can follow that.”
“The ambition, right? Not selling yourself.”
Caught in too many competing emotions, I hauled in a breath. “When I was new to the warehouse, I talked to some of the women about what it would be like to work there. On my back.”
“Theoretically?”
“No.”
Riordan stared, his features almost hidden now that the moon was setting. “You said that in the club on the night of the game, but I convinced myself you were joking. Why the fuck would you want that?”
All of a sudden, I needed to provoke him. I needed him to jump up and grab me, because I was reeling and had to fix my energy on something. For whatever reason, with him, I’d never been able to make the first move. For all my big talk, touching him scared the life out of me, yet it was everything I desperately wanted.
I took a step in his direction. “I asked that question because I wanted to know what it would be like to work in the brothel. To prove to myself that sex was just transactional.”
To feel closer to the mother I never knew.
Shoving his hand into the pebbles, he rose to standing. “You were going to sell your virginity?”
Fury poured off him.
My breath quickened. Yes, more of this. Eagerly, I nodded.
Riordan released a pained sound then turned and stomped back up the beach. My heart fell. He was leaving?
My panic was short-lived.
At his bike, he snagged the rucksack I’d left there and rooted through. A few seconds later, he came back down with something in his hand and marched straight up to me.
He thrust his wallet against my chest. “Sell me your first time.”
I rocked back and fingered the leather. Something hot flashed through me, burning up on the challenge. I needed more.
“Ye can’t afford me.”
“The fuck I can’t. At least if I paid, I’d have some pretence at control.”
Pulling back my hand, I threw the damn wallet as far as I could into the water. It landed with a plop and disappeared beneath a wave.
In outrage, Riordan watched it fall then came back to me. With barely a pause, he snatched hold of my biceps and tugged me against him.
His mouth took mine in a brutal kiss.
He devoured me, no softness in the move. It should have been made of anger, but all I tasted was passionate need. Desperation. An undeniable connection that exploded as he slanted his mouth over mine and opened my lips for his tongue.
I clawed to get closer. Frustrated by his height, I pushed on his shoulders, and Riordan dropped down on the sloped gravel, taking me with him so I was straddling him. He lay back; I plastered myself to his body, his arms tight around me, one spearing into my hair to control my head. He’d redone our first kiss with hearts and flowers. Soft touches and care.
That wasn’t my style at all.
I needed him like this. On the edge of anger and crazy. His fingertips digging in. His need burning bright. It’s how I felt for him all the time.
Our thighs moved against each other’s.
My fingers twisted in his waistband.
With a groan, Riordan rolled us, protecting my head from the damp pebbles with that big hand of his, and settling into the cradle of my hips. I arched into him, his hard dick meeting the juncture of my thighs through too many clothes. Then he grabbed my wrists and held them together, stopping me from touching him.
He kissed my throat, driving his nose up my jaw before lightly biting it. “You make me insane. You’re too wild for me. All I want to do right now is tie you up as punishment for even having those thoughts.”
Breathing hard, I gazed up at his darkened features. “Deal.”
His gaze searched mine. “What?”
“I’ll add that to the offer. Ten nights of belonging to each other. We sleep together. Eat together. And when we have sex, you can tie me up. Either way, I’m calling ye my fiancé when we get back to Deadwater. Take it or leave it.”
I held the eye contact, my heart speeding along so fast I thought it might shatter. It almost did when he finally spoke.
“Deal.”