Chapter 18
Lined up on the road with two other cars, amid a cloud of fumes from burnt tires, I grimaced down at the grotesque figurine that replaced my standard gear handle.
With a snarl, I wrapped my hand around it.
This erotic plastic woman, with her hands both down and up her dress, was indisputably the only woman I’d ever felt so fiercely uncomfortable holding in my grip.
I had to admire my little stalker’s panache.
She planned this and distracted me, while someone messed with my car, yet I was more irked that she relied on someone else to trick me rather than the fact she’d gotten one over me.
I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel.
Had it been the fucker waiting for her in that SUV?
“Go!” one of the drunk spectators on the side yelled and dropped his arm.
We took off in a rush of roaring engines and squealing tires.
My vision sharpened. My heart pumped harder and faster.
Everything else zoned out but the drive.
The slits in the leather around the steering wheel felt deeper and more pronounced.
Cars skirted close, almost kissing mine, and that edge of danger electrified me.
Too soon, the race was over. By the time I pushed on the brakes, the thrill was gone. It had barely been worth the gas spent.
One car kept on going, taillights disappearing around a bend in the road. The other squealed around in a U-turn, its engine popping, and tore back down the street like a scalded cat to the start line.
I veered my car around the bend of a business entrance and back onto the road. My knuckles grazed over my lips where mo síbhean’s teeth had dug in, a little reminder of the pain and pleasure she wrought in my life.
The whir of sirens dragged me out of the feeling, back to the dark street I coasted on.
Blue and red lights lit up the distance, headed my way.
Silhouettes swarmed the street. Headlights lit up on both sides of the road before loping forward and fully into view.
One after another after another, cars piled onto the opposite lane, picking up speed, honking, rumbling, and roaring away.
People inside yelled into the wind. Loud, punchy bass music thumped.
Arms waved at me from windows and truck beds as vehicles whisked past, the cops hot on their heels.
Jesus fecking Christ. This shite certainly had me questioning my life’s choices at thirty-five.
A female silhouette crossed the street from a copse up ahead, tight jeans hugging a luscious arse, and her thick curls swiping along the lacy back of her bustier that fit like a glove over her tight stomach. Now what was my poisonous little fairy doing? In the dark. Alone.
Headlights dimmed, I drove around the back of the small one-story building she’d disappeared around and parked parallel to the parking bumpers.
Just as I exited the car, two people rolled atop one another from the other side of the building.
A third followed, a metal pipe in hand. I hadn’t clocked who was in play yet, but I fitted my brass knuckles on my non-dominant hand and flipped open my karambit knife.
The one with the pipe swung down, missing the scrappy fighter on top’s head by mere inches.
That same person slammed a fist into the person above them, propelling them backward, and swiped the legs out from under the pipe holder.
He went down hard, while the person on the ground kicked up and landed on their feet in an impractical pair of wedged heels.
I smothered a grin and leaned against my sedan to watch the show.
My fairy knocked them down like a hardcore enthusiast. Her form needed a little work, probably because of the heels, and her arms lacked some strength, but a fire burned in her that couldn’t be faked.
It now made sense how she tackled that dealer a few days ago.
My first assessment of her was proving correct.
She was a conundrum, the sort of intriguing that didn’t line up with the women I knew.
Equal parts defiance and compliance, while never completely showing her hand.
She was beautiful, feisty, and not the least bit fearful.
It intoxicated my senses, and watching her fight in heels…
even a dead man got hard for a lot less.
She faked right, dealt a knee strike to one foe, an uppercut to the second, then grappled onto the first and twisted his arm around his back. When a third man stumbled around the building, the distraction cost her. The second man threw a punch at her jaw. Her pained cry shot me to my feet.
I jumped into the fray before she landed on her back.
I stabbed and slashed from the top of the man’s sternum to the bottom of his ribs, then dealt a hook and cross to her second attacker.
When that didn’t quite knock the fucker out, I stabbed up through his chin.
The third got one slice across the throat.
“I had it handled,” she grumbled, back on her feet, dusting her knees off.
“’Course you did. Until you didn’t.”
Her glare was almost adorable, except for the reddening of a bruise across her cheekbone and a bloodied lip, cracked down the middle. Red flared over my vision. My hand was on her face before I realized I had moved, and my thumb swiped through the blood on that lip I knew intimately.
“Does it hurt?”
She frowned, her gaze flicking between mine.
Under the dimmed headlights, frosty pools of molten silver and cobalt swirled in her eyes.
Uncertainty shone in their depths. For once, she wasn’t completely composed.
It made her softer, sweeter, almost too much so. The perfect contradiction to her fight.
“No.”
I nodded to restrain myself from diving in to nibble on that swelling lip. “Who were they?”
“No idea.”
“Was it just these three?”
“There are three more on the other side.”
“Three?”
“What? I can handle myself.”
“Wait here.”
She didn’t, not that I expected her to. As I wiped my knife, ready for round two, she trailed after me around the building’s corner.
“I know you O’Learys aren’t big on respecting the rules, but could you limit the killings? Dealing with the authorities is not something I planned during my stay here.”
“No.”
“Wonderful,” she grumbled.
Arms crossed, she watched without flinching as I dealt with the three other eejits who’d thought it a good idea to jump one lone woman.
Except there was a fourth man, knees to the ground and slouched over the footwell of the front seat of an opened Lexus LX I hadn’t seen from the road.
I strode toward him, but she blocked my path.
“Leave him.”
I wasn’t leaving any witnesses. She grabbed my shoulder as I stepped past her.
“He’s with me. Leave him alone.”
Now that she mentioned it, his monochrome ensemble with slim tapered joggers didn’t match the other thugs’ oversized hoodies and baggy jeans. Not to mention his balaclava. This must have been her accomplice. The man who toyed with my car while she stole my attention.
“Perfect. I always teach a lesson to those who touch what’s mine.”
She tugged me back by my shirt and twisted me around, then shoved me into the wall.
“I said, leave him.”
“Let’s be clear.” I tapped the face of my knife against her chin. She didn’t recoil or wince, and that just made her more interesting. “You’re intriguing, síbhean, but I don’t follow your orders.”
A sharp prick pressed against my zipper, and I hissed as the pressure increased.
“Learn.”
She shoved a miniature knife against my dick, a sharp little thing no longer than a knuckle, but effective. A steady thrum of adrenaline pulsed into my veins, bolstered by the tiny claws she hid in that outfit.
“You keep surprising me.”
“You keep underestimating me.”
“This game isn’t one you’ll survive.” And that was a shame. This enthralling fairy awakened my body and mind like little else did these days.
“We won’t know that until we try.”
I cupped the back of her head. “You like tempting death?”
“I like seizing what I want.”
My lips curved up. “So do I.”
My mouth crashed into hers, and it was everything I had no place needing.
Explosive, pulse-wrenching, and gut twisting.
Her lips were soft compared to her verbal decisiveness.
Her mouth was pliable in a way she wasn’t.
In this, she bent. She submitted. Her lips gave way under mine, and it was sinful with a taste of copper mixed in.
Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I dragged her in closer, my erection spurring me on.
The far-off blare of sirens, lumbering of engines, and buzz of building generators died down beneath the fumbling of our breaths, the rustling of our clothes, and the patter of our shoes as we shuffled around each other.
Everything wavered with haziness, except this pulsing need to have her, take her, and dominate her.
My brass knuckles and knife clattered to the ground as I lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around my waist. She was the perfect height, her body sculpted to meet mine.
The warmth of her core pushed up against my cock between our jeans, the fabric tugging up and down as we moved, like nothing else existed but us.
There was just this moment and the feel of her clutching embrace, the building ache in my balls, and her delicious moans that I swallowed between breaths at each thrust of my hips.
This time, I didn’t shove away from her. I sought more.
Just one night, I promised myself. One night to eject her from under my skin. Once was permitted.
With every strangled gasp she made, I ground into her harder.
I kneaded the perfect roundness of her rump.
My hands sank into it as they delved lower and lower down her backside until that taut, thick seam between her pant legs scraped against my fingers.
I rubbed it into her, exactly where her tight entrance would be, and I swallowed down her little whimpers.
Mine. They belonged to me. Just like she did. For now.
I rolled my hips harder and faster against her body and imagined us against this very wall with no clothes between us.
It was something I hadn’t allowed myself to think about or have in a very long time.
She chased what I gave and tossed her head back with a heady groan.
The arteries in her neck pulsed. Her nails dug into my back and held on to me for dear life.
I was close, the rush growing, and greedy for fucking everything.
When she crested her peak with a sharp gasp and sudden stop in the grind of her hips, I reached down to her waistband and slipped the button of her jeans free. A hand clapped onto mine.
“What if I say no?” She panted against me.
“Fuck.” I really hoped she wasn’t serious after that display.
“Aww,” she drawled. “I didn’t realize I got you this heated up.”
“You know exactly what you’ve done, woman,” I growled.
“Did I really manage to break the great Cillian O’Leary’s stony demeanor in one hour?”
“I’m about to break you in.”
“Not here. Not with all this…”
She swept a hand over the mess behind us I’d forgotten. It seemed to be a pattern for us. Fuck if I cared right now, with my balls aching to high heaven and back.
“At least have the decency to take me to the car.”
I pinched her chin. “Next, you’ll be asking me to wine and dine you. Is that it, síbhean? That why you’ve been following me?”
“You don’t seem like the candles-and-roses type. I doubt you have the heart for it.”
“You’d be right, but if you give me your name, I’ll give you just about anything you want right now.” For emphasis, I pressed my hard shaft between her legs.
“How lecherous of you.”
“Aye, that’s your doing.”
“Then call me Alice and have your wicked way with me.”
Her gaze was expectant as she said it in that delectable accent of hers.
I repeated the name, tasting it. “Alice. Is there a last name?”
A strange expression broke across her face before disappearing just as quickly.
“Marine.”
“Alice Marine. It’s too sweet a name to suit you.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, and her legs went around my hips. “So now that I’ve caught myself a fairy…”
I twisted us around to sit her against the hood of the SUV, but not before I realized that her accomplice no longer lay where we’d left him. In fact, there was no sight of him at all. She was a cunning, mischievous fairy indeed, keeping me busy and preoccupied.
“A very, very naughty one at that. What do I do with you? You might need some caging.”
“Don’t press your luck.”
My hand drifted to her throat, lifting her chin. “Or maybe I kill you now and save myself the trouble.”
“Is that your answer to everything?”
“It certainly simplifies things.”
She huffed. “Seems to be more work and cleanup. Look at all this. Blood, bodies, and evidence everywhere. It’s a forensic investigator’s dream. Knocking them unconscious would have been more practical.”
“Aye, but shite craic.”
“Men and your gore. There’s never a peaceful solution with you.”
“Is that your aim when you sell your chemicals to the highest bidder? Peace?”
A sly smile lined her lips. “Touché. Well then, come on, let’s move the bodies.”
“That’s my line, doll.” And not at all what my dick wanted.
“Go ahead, claim it. It doesn’t change what needs to be done.”
“You like having the last word, don’t you?”
“If not, what do you think my line should be?”
I swept a few strands of hair out of her face, the teasing glint in her eyes captivating under the clouded moonlight. “Help me. Save me.”
She chuckled. “Not even close. It seems you haven’t learned much about me at all.”
“No?”
“No.” Her voice turned sultry as she leaned closer. Her nails scratched a path down my face and neck. “You wouldn’t want me meek either. You want a strong woman, someone who pushes back. Someone who challenges you and keeps you on your toes.”
“What makes you think you’re her?”
“The way you came for me. The way you kissed me, mari chéri. The way you’re holding me now.
” Her hand cupped my groin, my cock straining against my pants, and gave a playful squeeze.
“And this. You want me, even though you don’t think you should.
You’re fighting yourself. And here’s the secret.
You’re going to lose…because I won’t let you win.
Because what my line is and the only thing I want is simple.
‘Pay attention to me. See me. Want me.’ I bet I’m willing to go further to get that than you are to stop it. ”
“You’re wrong.” The lie tasted bitter, and we both knew it.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
She shoved me away and sashayed to the first body and bent over to grab its arms. I swore she did it on purpose to test my control. Her body made a perfect ‘L’, ass in the air, hair cascading off her shoulders, and I swallowed back a groan.
“Are you going to stand there or help?”
“You truly are something else.”