Chapter 23
Composure and indifference were my shields against the world, and she broke through them as if they were paper-thin. Every moment with her gave me a high I longed to cling to forever. I was the moth to her flame, and I willingly flew closer to her heat, fully aware how this ended.
An inferno rushed through my veins with every breath, every touch, every kiss I coaxed from my emotional síbhean.
She sucked my tongue. I nipped her lip. She humped my leg.
I shoved her back on the bed and ground my erection against her, from thigh to hip bone, my piercing stimulating the start of a high.
Her nails scratched up and down my back, and one of her legs wound around my thighs.
“Ruin me, Cillian. Please, I need it.”
Ruin me. The words echoed. Ruin me, Cillian.
I recoiled, pushing up over her. She might as well have said “Kill me, Cillian,” because it wasn’t the shadows of rapture I saw on her face but traces of vomit from digoxin and helleborin poisoning, and a motherhood knot branded along her cheek and over a singed eyebrow.
I swept a hand down my face.
“What’s wrong?”
Her fingers wrapped around my bicep. The touch burned, and I twisted away. The room spun as I hyperventilated. The sheets swished behind me, the mattress dipped, and the warmth of her body crowded me.
“Tout va bien,” she soothed in my ear. “It’s alright. You’re alright. Why didn’t you tell me you get attacks too?”
Numbness crept up from my extremities, the best defense I had, as her fingers slipped into my hair, but I caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Trust me. Let me. You’ll feel better.”
Eyes scrunched shut, I bobbed my head because I was a fucking masochist. This had to end, but I wasn’t ready for it to.
Her nails scraped over my cranium in circles.
Every pass stole another ounce of tension.
Two minutes in, she had me in the palm of her hand.
She could’ve taken a gun to my head, and I would’ve happily let her.
Her nails ran down to my nape, the touch turning to soft pressure.
Rougher and rougher, the lower her fingers went, then full hands kneaded down my spine.
Her lips ghosted over my shoulder blades, and I drowned in her scent. My cock strained against my boxers.
She massaged my trapezius muscles, her forehead pressed to my nape. Her breath skittered down my skin, leaving behind little sparks of electrical charge.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
What was there to say? She awakened a part of me I’d thought long dead, yet I couldn’t fucking have her. One night with her hadn’t been enough, and she needed to go before I did something I’d regret, but damn it, it wasn’t what I wanted.
A wry chuckle escaped me. “Do you ever ask yourself if anything we’re doing even matters?”
The responding press of her mouth to my throat was nearly painful with the restraint it took not to move. It was punishing and lashed me with a reality I wasn’t ready to admit.
“Sometimes.” She laid her head against my shoulder.
“I spent years creating and nourishing my businesses. Now I’m successful, rich, and still in my prime.
I should be happy, but it has always felt like something is missing.
As if I’m empty, here”—she reached over to tap over my heart—“like I’m performing the motions required, but there is no substance to it. ”
Her words hit me with the force of a freight train. My teeth gritted, and my nostrils flared. I lay back down and dragged her with me, her head against my chest.
“Happiness is simply the precursor to pain,” I muttered.
“How perfectly cynical of you.”
“Everything can get taken away. Better to cut out the disease before it spreads.”
“That’s not living,” she whispered, tracing the tattoos on my pectoral. “People need more than that, you know. I know exactly what I need, but it’s always out of reach. Does that make sense?”
I rested a hand behind my head and glared at fluctuating shadows overhead to stop myself from looking at her. “More than you know.”
“But I’m not giving up. I’ve decided to obtain it, and I will. There’s no withdrawing, not when I’m this close.”
“And if you can’t? If it doesn’t depend on you?”
“If I can’t, then I’m not trying hard enough, or it’s not worth doing.”
Those words stuck with me as her head grew heavy and she fell asleep against my chest.
She deserved to live and achieve her goals, and I’d make sure she would.
Alice’s camera still transmitted, up in the corner of the room, right where she’d placed it. I stared at it.
The Love Knot Killer somehow always knew when an O’Leary entertained a woman. We’d found cameras, then disabled them. We’d found bugs and gotten rid of them. Yet, no matter what we did, the killer just knew.
For once, I found myself hoping she breached my privacy again.
That she hacked into that camera and saw tonight for what it was.
Innocent kisses and a hug, nothing more.
Not a second sexual bout. Not a reason to kill the woman lying across me like she belonged.
This woman felt like she was mine to hold, protect, and care for, but I couldn’t keep her if I wanted her alive.
My phone buzzed, skipping across the furniture. Four in the morning flashed on the screen, and I still hadn’t slept a wink.
“What?” I whisper-yelled as I untangled myself from Alice.
“Our bar on Broadway got broken into, boss,” Smiles said. “There’s lots of broken shit. The bar top’s been flambéed. Bastards went after the piping, flooded the damn place. They left you a message too. A personal one.”
“Who?”
“Sosa’s men.”
I rubbed my tired eyes. “Fecking eejits.”
Sosa was going to get himself a war if he kept this up.
“Good news though. We caught two.”
“Bring them to the Back Door and start working them.” It was what we called the basement of the O’Leary boxing gym.
“Already on it. You want to inspect them or the bar first?”
I looked down at Alice’s sleeping form. I rubbed at the building ache over my heart.
“Bar. I’ll be on my way in thirty.”
I sat on the bed and slid my fingers through her hair splayed across my pillow.
I had to let her go for now, but I’d keep an eye on her.
Any other man who touched her, I would guillotine their fingers one by one.
She was mine, whether she realized it or not.
I imagined my cock inside her, my seed buried deep, as she writhed around me, lost in the throes of pleasure.
I dreamed of etching her scent under my skin, with her lips tattooed across my neck.
The moment I got rid of the killing bitch, Alice was coming right back where she belonged: in my life and in my bed. This was just a temporary setback.
We had a lead now. It was only a matter of time until we knew exactly where and who LK was. I just had to deal with the cartel bullshit first.
I dialed my baby brother.
“Liam, I need a favor.”
“It’s too fucking early. Why’s everyone calling?” He groaned. “I was hoping Smiles butt-dialed me.”
I pulled on a pair of pants. “Cartel hit one of our businesses.”
“Oh. Well, shit. Anyone hurt?”
“No.” Smiles would have stated otherwise. “Intimidation tactics, my bet.”
He yawned. “You need me there?”
“I want you here.”
“Where’s here?”
“My place.”
“You need to give me more than that.”
I scraped my upper lip with my teeth. “I have someone here, and I—”
“Sorry, wait, what? I think I’m still half asleep. What did you say? Didn’t quite hear you.”
“Don’t act the goat.”
“You have someone in your apartment? Now? You? At this hour?”
“That’s what I fucking said.”
“Are we talking about a man or a woman?”
“Just get your bleeding arse here.”
“A woman, then.” He whistled. “Twice in two days? You suddenly that sick of your hand?”
“Liam,” I growled.
“What? You’re always lecturing me. In this case, I might not be the next one causing trouble.”
“I need you to be here when she wakes up.”
“Just kick her out. What do you need me for? Unless…this the same woman you spoke of? The one you assigned Shiner’s team to?” My silence said plenty. “Jaysus. After what happened to the stripper? You doing this on purpose, that it? To draw LK out?”
I sighed with exasperation.
“Fine. Keep your secrets, but this woman better be made of gold to get me up this early.”
“Feed her when she wakes up, then escort her out.”
“Oh, that it? And where will you be, o captain, my captain?”
“I have to handle the bar.”
“A task you could easily delegate if you wanted to.”
I ignored him. “Be civil with her. Polite. Nice. None of your usual tricks.”
“Oi, no lady has ever complained.”
“Just keep your fucking hands to yourself. I’ll also need you to oversee the changing of my locks and the handover of apartment security.
They’ll be installing new software and reviewing the network to prevent any cyber intrusions.
You’re not to let her back inside and careful of her sweet-talking. ”
“That mean you fell prey? Have you met your match, brother?”
I hung up and finished getting dressed, but not before taking a last gander at the woman in my bed. Everything about her called to me, and my chest tore open with each step away from her.
I messaged Cranwell.
Cillian
Alice Marine.
Keep her safe for me. I’ll owe you.
Cranwell
DNA came back negative, not that you asked.
Don’t get smart with me.
She better not be LK’s next victim.
That’s on you, not me.
I squeezed my phone, hating that truth, but it was exactly why I had to let her go.