Chapter 10 Marlowe #2
The car pulls to the curb and I look up at the familiar building that I’ve only been in a few times before Mom put a stop to me living there.
“Why are we here?” I can’t control the trembling, or the stupid runaway thought that he did this just for me even though I’m sure it works for him in some way.
“My people spent the day putting the luggage in there and they set up some things. We need a home base for the protection detail, one that makes you look accessible but also protected. It’ll draw out only the most rabid of fans.”
He pauses, his expression darkening. “Also because someone sent that necklace to the hotel we stayed in last night. And no one should have known where we were.”
“Who?”
“That hotel doesn’t have regular surveillance, but Torin set something up for us. A girl, looking scared, left it. I imagine she was paid. Skinny, twitchy. The type who won’t remember who hired her. She’ll remember the money and her high, but that’s about it. Useless to us.”
I stare at him, heart thudding. “How do you know that?”
“My brother Seamus questioned her.” He motions for me to open the door.
I don’t. “How did you get the key from my mother?”
“I have my ways. It’ll get her answers if I can have you contained and safe and able to look into things.”
There’s something about how he mentioned Mom that sends a shiver through me.
Does he trust her? She’s a viper, but she knows how to make the business flourish.
She was a business genius who came up from nothing.
As a kid, I snooped around and found some old shit they have hidden in our Southampton house.
It confirmed that Daddy is the money, the one with the controlling holdings.
Which is why she’d never do anything to him.
If he dies, it all comes to me. So she’s got good reason to want him alive.
She cares about reputation, so I’m her golden tiara. Rich, well-bred, and educated in all the right and proper ways, involved in the performing arts, even if she had to buy my position.
“So…she handed the keys over?”
“She sure did.”
I want to ask about the bird, if he buried it or just tossed it. I hope it got a nice send off. And then I try to stop thinking about it as I follow him inside and up to the apartment.
He unlocks the door. Stops me before I walk inside.
“Molly,” Declan says somberly, “this is no way for you to treat tradition. You’re my fake bride, this is our fake home. We need to do it right.”
And he swings me up into his arms and crosses the threshold, sending everything into a spiral inside me. I’m flying, falling, soaring.
“Put me down,” I whisper. But I really don’t want him to.
“No.” He kicks the door shut and dumps me on the sofa, pulling off his tie and half climbing on top of me. He leans in and brushes my mouth with his.
My lips cling to him, even as I try to push him away. He’s the enemy in deep with my mom as her spy, and yet my need for him is insatiable. It’s like his essence has seeped into my DNA.
So I kiss him, the brushing of lips morphing into something more. So much more. There’s a part of me that wants to goad him into fucking me again, and at the same time, I want to send him spinning across the room, singed by my biting rejection.
“I can’t tell if you want me, Molly girl, or if you’re trying like hell to fight me. And the thing is we both know you can fight me all you want but you’ll never win that battle.”
“I hate you.”
He kisses my chin, my throat, sucking on my artery as I grab his shirt in my fist.
“Yeah,” he says, eyes glittering as he raises his head and looks at me. “I know. Two-way street that. Just like the desire. And that’s why you won’t win. Hate me, fight me, but you’ll lose because you want me.”
“Gobshite.”
He smiles at my use of the word, his hand slipping under my shirt, then up to toy with my breasts over the Lycra bodysuit. Each brush of his fingers sends sizzling desire rushing through my every cell.
He stops, his fingers creeping lower to skim my leotard. They dip beneath my sweats to rub between my thighs, his thumb whispering over my clit. He pinches it lightly and I squeal.
Declan looks at me. “I’d gag you again. There’s a lot of fun to be had with light bondage and keeping you quiet, but it also cuts me off from the pleasure your mouth can give me.”
He runs the edges of his silk tie over my pussy lips, the tickle an almost unbearable tease.
“So, I think I’ll do this instead.” He sweeps up my arms, tying my hands together with it, and then pushes them above my head before sinking down to kiss me long and slow.
I’m on fire, my skin, my blood, my bones. Every bit of me. Everything buzzes and sings and I want him inside of me.
It doesn’t matter that I said last night was it. I want this. Whenever I can get it.
He’s a conundrum, and I know everything seemingly nice he’s done is to manipulate me into a place where I’m his prisoner. One Mom doesn’t have to think about anymore.
But right now, I don’t care.
I turn my head, breaking the kiss. I try to raise my knee at him, but he moves fast, pushing my leg down and leaping out of the way of it. “Naughty brat.”
“Fucker.”
His eyebrows shoot up at the snarl in my voice. “Molly, Molly, Molly. Attitude.”
“I’ll show you attitude,” I shoot back.
“I wish you would. Preferably attitude with you on your knees and my dick in your mouth.”
“Never again.”
He laughs. “Never say never.”
Declan makes no move toward me, in fact, he’s looking at the window, like there’s something more fascinating out there.
Fury burns hot, and I swing around, placing my feet on the floor. I try to bite the tie free but it’s too tight.
I charge him and he moves. “What the fuck?”
He walks to the window, fixated on something outside, so I follow.
“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, Declan. So just untie me—”
“Fuck!” He spins, and topples me to the ground, right as the window explodes around us.