Chapter 7 #2
Whatever moments we might have had yesterday are packed beneath delicate ice layers. “Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
I’m almost late to the performance. I look around the small and intimate room as I slide in, the usher not daring to give me a hard time.
Cal’s there. Not even pretending to watch the stage.
He’s clocking people in the audience. No doubt already with a list of who’s who in his head.
Not the glittery Uptown old money, or even the newer money from Midtown and below.
But big time players. Shakers. Mafia and white-collar criminals with vast empires beneath them.
I don’t see Torin, but Harry’s sitting with Lucie.
Seamus is with Ava, and they’re pretending to watch. At least, Seamus is.
Some might say there hasn’t been enough time for the players to emerge, whether they be the mysterious Leon or whoever might be threatening the Briggs family.
I didn’t find anything from her stalker inside the dressing room. No gifts or cards. Just the lingering scent of hair spray.
It shouldn’t bother me. But it does. I don’t like the fucking feeling of something unseen breathing down my neck. It reminds me of the drugs I had to leave in that truckyard. Shit, maybe Molly was right, there wasn’t anything there, but even if a room appears empty…sometimes it’s not.
I put my hand in my pocket, closing around the hidden camera I found.
The stalker? Some pervert? Fuck if I know, but maybe Torin can trace a video upload or get information off of it.
I pulled it out and went over every inch of her dressing room because if anyone’s seeing Marlowe naked, it’s going to be me.
And fuck everything if me holding the world’s biggest grudge for her locking me up means that statement makes no sense. I still want her.
The music changes and my breath freezes. Marlowe dances onto the stage.
She’s fucking stunning.
I’m not a highbrow fine arts gobshite. Give me a fiddle and some raucous Irish music in any form. Give me a club and some action films. A good comedy. Shit, I’ve even got a soft spot for the old musicals, thanks to Mam. But ballet’s never crossed my mind.
Until now.
She’s delicate and ethereal, so elegant. She conveys heartache, love, happiness, and sadness in her movements, and I’ll confess I’m a little jealous of the eejit dancing with her.
But while I know I’m meant to be taking in the room, I’m taking in the red-headed swan princess on the fucking stage.
Shit. I rip my gaze from her dancing form and make my way out of the theater space.
I’ve been here all day, the bodyguard in the background.
I’ve been making calls, scrolling online for both personal and professional reasons, chasing down any and every lead that O’Shay could give me into this Mario guy, which isn’t much.
And I’ve been doing my job, too. Chasing payments, getting Clive to collect under instructions to just let me know who doesn’t pay, who has issues I need to deal with, and so on. The tiny little cogs of my day feel weird to be out of my hands.
I step into the lobby, and that’s when I see something from the corner of my eye. It’s probably someone involved in the production, walking with confidence through a door that leads to the backstage area.
But I follow.
It’s a corridor with others snaking off, and a lot of doors. But I turn left, toward the dressing rooms, because it strikes me now would be a good time to leave something for Marlowe. A so-called fan who doesn’t want to be seen.
I’m about to go into her room when I see him. A man in black, cap pulled down low, long sleeves to obscure any identifying markings. The jacket moves as he starts toward the stage area, and I narrow my eyes.
A fucking gun.
I dart after him.
He sees me, and all I get a glimpse of is a lot of scruff as he turns and runs. I chase him through the labyrinth of hallways and into a vast, dark area with packed props and people moving around. I ignore them, my gaze set on the guy.
He pushes through a door, a mark like a tattoo on his hand, and I take off after him onto a street.
But then he’s gone before I can get closer. Disappeared into the crowd of people on the sidewalk, or maybe into a car. The only thing, like a fucked-up Cinderella story, is the cap he was wearing that had fallen off and landed on the ground.
“Yankees cap.” I shove it in my pocket and make my way back inside, pushing past the workers in the backstage area and down to Molly’s dressing room.
My heart’s thudding hard.
Not from the run.
From the fucking failure.
How the hell could I lose the person? Shit, maybe he belonged here, but every instinct says no.
That’s when I find the flowers. A blood red rose in a sea of white. The card?
Red for red, in a pure white death.
“Doesn’t even fucking rhyme,” I mutter to quell the sparking unease skittering along my spine and bones.
The door opens and I know. I turn and shut it, holding Marlowe between me and the door. The heat of her flesh is pulsating against me, threatening to start all sorts of fires. She’s breathing heavily, and not just from the dance.
Her eyes are low-lidded, and she’s got too much makeup on. It’s thick and hides the sweet blush that hits her chest, just above her breasts in the tutu thing she’s wearing. It’s long, with a lot of netting and feathers.
I don’t say a word, just rub a thumb over her peaking nipples through the satin, and then I kiss her.
Soft and slow, teasing open her lips. I ride my hand up her thigh.
She’s wearing some sort of soft fucking chastity belt, the leotard and tights forming the barrier with no way in, but it doesn’t stop me sliding my fingers between the leotard and the tights, pressing and stroking against her flesh that gets wet, fast.
Marlowe moans into me as I push up into the cleft of her lips, trailing a tight little slow path up and down that sweet slit. I slide my tongue against hers, deepening the kiss.
And she returns it, opens up, and kisses me back, a hunger that grows as it infects and reinfects.
I stroke up to her clit, playing, taunting, twisting and pinching, only to stroke softly again. A low groan slips from her lips, her hands moving over me, a flutter of a move on my chest, then down, down, until she’s got my cock.
I fucking love the heat of her, the wetness that seeps through the material, and I adore her grasping, stroking fingers. I like the barriers, the edge it gives, like the first forays into sexual exploration with someone else.
And with her, it’s that exciting and new period. I could bust one right here and now if I let go of the control, and I start to retreat from her clit, pushing the tights up, the stretch of them like some kind of sex toy.
She’s not wearing panties, or if she is, they’re so minuscule I’ve somehow twisted them aside. I don’t care.
Because the barrier of the tights is both nothing and something. I can feel her velvet heat, the wetness on my fingers. And when I say I feel, I mean every part of her pussy. Outer, inner, all the fucking way to her ass and back to her clit.
But the wet heat of her velvet walls call to me.
The fever’s bright, and I push into her, thumb on her covered clit, finger thrusting into her. She pants hard, her fingers grabbing and pulling me as the kiss turns into pure hunger and desperate need.
And fuck, she works me over. The friction of material against my cock and her fingers that pull, then rub up over the tip and down, is all pure fucking torture that’s soaked in pleasure, and I’m on the very edge of everything.
Harder and deeper, I sink into the kiss and she takes and throws it back, hungrier, harder, more carnal than before.
She must be on the very edge, too.
Marlowe moans and starts to convulse, that very edge of orgasm, and I stop, pulling out my fingers.
“Fucker,” she whispers, biting my chest.
I lean down into her again, pressing up against her as I pull her hand from me and let her feel how fucking hard I am. I bite her fingers softly, sucking them a moment. “Get dressed. Your dress is on a hanger. I’ll meet you in the hall.”
“What dress?”
I kiss her one more time and then step back, pocketing the note that came with the flowers. “Just put it on. We’re getting married.”
And then I step outside where the face of a man greets me. Older, heavyset.
Mafioso through and through.
“I hear you’re going to protect my future wife.”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes.” The word is hard to get out. It scrapes my throat raw. “Declan Murphy.”
“Do what you want with her,” he says. “I’m not interested in the girl per se.”
“And what are you interested in?”
“What she can give me.”
“And you are?”
“Milo,” he says. “Milo Marcello.”
Fuck.