Chapter 12
TWELVE
Chantal
Lochlan’s mouth closes over my upper lip as his large hands frame my face.
Suddenly we’re kissing.
I’m drawn up against him as he sucks hard, and shock echoes through me.
His hunger is visceral, his aggression equally as intense. His tongue darts out and swipes at my lips, demanding entry that I have no choice but to give him.
I’m so flustered that this man is kissing me, what else am I supposed to do?
It’s an out-of-body experience. It’s as if my consciousness has been detached from my body and is on the sidelines watching everything go down.
Lochlan Callahan has seized hold of me and pressed his lips to mine as if he just couldn’t help himself.
Meanwhile, I’m frozen and letting it happen.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel his kiss—the rough texture of his beard up against my soft, round face and the warmth that floods me from the inside. His long, moist tongue as he plunders my mouth with urgent strokes.
…lashes that I can barely keep up with as I process my shock and the fact that my captor has once again crossed a line.
He’s once again put me in a situation where it feels like I’m fighting for my life. I’m trying to swim against a current that only comes back stronger, and suddenly I’m drowning.
Lochlan’s all I can feel, taste, smell. He ensconces me to the point it’s as if he’s taken over me.
My hands raise up to push him back by the chest. Some form of resistance or protest.
I might have a thing for older men, but I draw the line at psychotic Irish gangsters who kidnap women and make them do manual labor!
But when my hands come up to the hard planes of his chest, instead of pushing back, I’m twining fingers in the fabric of his shirt.
The heat he’s poured into me burns hotter, a fire that’s been ignited, and I don’t know how to put it out.
A whimper escapes my throat as he backs me up against the bookcase in the corner, and the shelves quake around us from the forceful impact.
It doesn’t seem to faze Lochlan at all. He locks fingers around my long braids and yanks my head to the side, making room for the greedy hot kisses he places on my jaw and then throat. He travels his way down, breathing raggedly, lips torching a trail as he goes.
My mouth hangs open as he finds a sensitive patch of skin and sucks away.
I squirm against him in the corner he’s tucked me into, still so damn flustered my body’s acting on its own accord.
My fingers grip at his shoulder and then slide into his dark, wavy hair. I hook my thigh around his waist, very much aware of how I can feel the growing bulge in his pants.
Even more aware of the fact I let myself gyrate against him, reveling in how large and hard it feels.
All while he drags his mouth along my throat and his hands wander to squeeze my breasts.
It doesn’t matter that the hideous beige jumpsuit serves as a barrier. Lochlan’s touch is as hot and crushing as his mouth. He palms them as if he’s been waiting for the chance.
As if he loves how my big titties fit so perfectly in his equally big, rough hands.
I cry out at how good it feels to be touched so unapologetically. In a way that feels so primal and desperate, like he can’t hold himself back.
“Ohh yes,” I chant breathlessly, fingers still deep in his hair. My hips rock against his. “Just like that.”
But what’s supposed to be me finally giving in—and voicing that out loud—turns into the abrupt wakeup call Lochlan needed.
He goes still against me.
For a few suspended seconds, neither of us moves. His breath comes hot and ragged against my throat, hands hovering on my breasts, body coiled tight like a spring about to snap.
Then he wrenches himself away so fast, I wobble back against the bookcase.
“Get out.”
I blink, dazed by the command. “But what—”
“I said get out!” he barks, his eyes cold and dark. “Go straight to your room and don’t come out ’til you’re told. You got that? GO!”
I flinch at the volume of his voice and scurry out of the room faster than even Sorcha. I do as I’m told, quickly rushing from his office on the ground floor and up the two flights of stairs to my room—the only sanctuary I have in this house from hell.
Hours later, it’s nighttime and I’m still buzzing after what happened between us. I lie in bed staring at the gross water-stained ceiling and replay the kiss approximately seven thousand times.
Is it possible to be both disgusted and aroused at the same time?
For me to be turned on by what happened—in some sick, confusing way—but also irritated and repulsed that I let things get that far?
The kiss between us was… a lot.
Lochlan Callahan himself is a lot.
He’s like a force of nature unto himself. He’s a category-five tornado that sucks you in, and it’s impossible to escape from.
I didn’t stand a chance from the moment he grabbed me and crushed our lips together.
I’ve dated my share of guys—usually wealthy, older, polished. Wall Streeters and politicians, and successful CEOs.
The kind of men who relish the chance to dress up in a suit and tie and eat five-thousand-dollar caviar at Manhattan’s latest hotspot.
Basically, Greg LaMalfa in various forms.
…basically Dad in various forms.
My relationships have always been tepid and transactional.
The older men understood how lucky they were to have a cute, fun, classy woman like me on their arm, and I understood how to play my role too.
I knew they would only be available at certain times and, no matter what, work and their status always came first.
I didn’t want it any other way.
My parents’ marriage was perfect in the eyes of the public—the typical charming politician and his smiling tagalong of a wife—but the reality was a lot less appealing.
Mom was in love with Dad, and Dad was in love with his career.
Right down to the end. Right up until she took her last…
I draw a shuddering breath and block out the rest of my thought.
The point remains that Lochlan is not my type. Absolutely the fuck not.
So why does my pussy throb when I think about how his mouth felt on mine? How his hands felt groping my breasts and how even his hunger felt so intense it was like he lit me on fire?
I lay awake for hours into the night and still don’t have any answers.
In the coming days, it’s not the first time I’m left awake at odd hours. It seems after what happened between us, Lochlan returns to his tried-and-true tactic of tormenting the hell out of me.
More psychological warfare to make me suffer.
My schedule becomes completely unpredictable. Some mornings Sorcha arrives with breakfast on time—fake eggs, rock-solid toast, and a glass of cool tap water I guzzle down. Other mornings I wait for hours, stomach cramping with hunger when nobody comes at all.
Dinner’s pretty much the same. Sometimes I’m delivered a meal (usually soup or a plain ham or turkey sandwich), and other times they keep me waiting until nightfall.
Some nights I’m not given dinner, left to practically starve.
But that’s not even the worst part. I’ve grown used to the hunger and weird meal schedule. It’s everything else that starts to get to me.
The other dead mouse I find under my bed that makes me scream so loud one of Lochlan’s masked guards—the tank-sized guy with only one eye—comes to check on me.
My days range from more back-breaking labor around the house to never-ending boredom trapped inside my room, left to agonize wondering whether Simone, Dad, and the others have forgotten about me.
It’s depressing. It’s more demoralizing than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Even worse than that time Bergdorf’s put me on a waitlist for a Kelly bag that ended up going to some crypto bro’s girlfriend who probably can’t even pronounce Hermès.
One afternoon I’ve finally had enough when Sorcha and I are clearing out a storage closet that reeks of mothballs and sewage.
“He’s doing this on purpose,” I say flatly. My face scrunches up as I pull a dish rag from a shelf that’s so old and dried it’s hard like wall plaster. “He’s trying to drive me crazy.”
Sorcha hesitates, then nods. “Mr. Lochlan can be... difficult.”
“Difficult is forgetting to put the toilet seat down. This is psychological torture.”
I toss the disgusting rag into the trash bag nearby and shudder at how gross it felt to touch something so filthy and old.
My hands may never be the same. Once so soft and moisturized, they’re now dry and cracked. The acrylics long ago fell off, and the rest of me isn’t doing much better. From my fuzzy-rooted braids to my aching, un-massaged feet, I’m a mess.
Even my little acts of rebellion—the fashion statements I’d been making with the beige jumpsuit by altering the neckline and adding a scarf around the waist—have lost their appeal.
Who gives a damn when I’m held hostage by an Irish mobster who torments me and then kisses me all within a week?
As if sensing my growing misery, Sorcha for once decides to keep the conversation going instead of me. Usually I’m the one nudging and prompting her to speak.
Today she takes pity on me.
“I was poor back home. There were years when we didn’t even have running water,” she says, sorting through a stack of old mail envelopes. All of which she tosses in the trash. “I came here with my boyfriend thinking life would be better. But it was still bad—honestly, even worse than before.”
I frown, glancing over at her. “What do you mean?”
“My boyfriend… he wasn’t a good man. He had a bad temper and wasn’t very kind to me. He knew I was stuck and didn’t really have anywhere else to go.”
“By not very kind, do you mean…?” I ask, trailing off.
She nods, avoiding my gaze. “Anyway, I was about to be deported. My visa was up, and it was hard because, either way, I was going to suffer—staying with him or going back home. Neither option was a very good one.”
I can guess where this is going, though I remain quiet and let Sorcha finish.