Of course, she hadn’t actually agreed to my other terms, but when I guided her out of the tea room and toward my waiting car, she didn’t falter.
Didn’t utter a peep.
Just climbed into the vehicle, neatly tucked her knees together, and waited for me to get in beside her.
Like the well-oiled team my chauffeur and car were, they set off the minute I’d clicked my seatbelt.
The privacy screen was up, and I knew how soundproofed it was—not because of technology, but because Samuel knew not to listen to any of the murmurs he might hear back here.
And if he was ever to share the most innocent of those whispers he might have discerned? We both knew I’d slice off his fucking ear.
This was a hard world. One we’d both grown up in, so we knew how things rolled. Samuel had it pretty easy with me, and he wasn’t about to fuck up this job when he was so close to retirement. If he kept his mouth shut, did as I asked, ignored what he may or may not have heard, and drove me wherever the fuck I wanted to go, Sam knew I’d set him and his missus up somewhere nice in Florida. Near the beach, so the moaning old bastard’s knees didn’t give him too much trouble in his dotage.
See?
I wasn’t all bad.
Rapping my fingers against my knee, I studied her, and I made no bones about it.
Her face was tilted down, and it let me see the longest lashes I’d ever come across on a woman. Well, natural ones. Those fucking false ones that fell off on my sheets were just irritating. But as with everything, Aoife was all natural.
So pure.
So fucking perfect.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
She was a benediction come to life.
I wasn’t as devout as Aidan Sr. would like me to be, but even I felt uncomfortable thinking such thoughts while sporting a hard-on that made me ache. That made my mental blasphemy even worse.
“Why did you let him touch you? Was it for money?”
I hadn’t meant to ask that question.
Really, I hadn’t.
It was the last thing I wanted to know, but like poison, it had spewed from my lips.
Who she’d fucked and who she hadn’t, was none of my goddamn affair.
This was a business deal. Nothing more, nothing less. She’d fuck me to make sure I kept quiet, and I fucked her so I could revel in the copious curves this woman had to offer.
Simple, no?
She stiffened at the question, and I couldn’t blame her. “Do I really have to answer that?”
I could have made her. It was on the tip of my tongue to force her to, but I didn’t really want to know even if, somewhere deep down, I did.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you?” I asked instead of replying.
Her nostrils flared. “To keep silent.”
I nodded and almost smiled at her because, internally she was furious, but equally, she was lost. I could sense that like a shark could scent blood in the water. This had thrown her for a loop, and she was in shock, but she was, underneath it all, angry.
Good.
I wanted to fuck her tonight when she was angry.
Spitting flames at me, taking her outrage out on me as she scratched lines of fire down my spine as she screamed her climax. . . .
I almost shuddered at how well I’d painted that mental picture.
“When you’re ready, you have my card.”
“Ready for what?” she asked, perplexed. Her brow furrowed as she, for the first time since she’d climbed into the car, looked over at me.
“To make another tea room. I’ve had them move all the stuff into storage.”
She licked her lips. “I want to say that’s kind of you, but I’m in this predicament because of you.”
A corner of my mouth hitched at that. “Honestly, be grateful I was the one who came knocking today. You wouldn’t want any of the Five Points’ men around that place. Half that china would be on the floor now.”
Her shoulders drooped. “I know.”
“You do?”
“I pay them protection money,” she snapped. “Plus, I grew up around enough Five Pointers to know the score.”
That statement targeted my curiosity, hard. “You did, huh? Whereabouts?”
Her mouth pursed. “Nowhere you’d know,” she muttered under her breath.
“I doubt it. This is my area, too.”
She turned to me, and the tautness around her eyes reminded me of something, but even as it flashed into being, the memory disappeared as I drowned in her emerald green eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why do you think?” I retorted. “You’re a beautiful woman—”
“Don’t pretend like you couldn’t have any woman under you if you asked them.”
I wanted to smile, but I didn’t because I knew, just as Aidan had pointed out to me earlier that day, that Aoife wasn’t exactly what society considered on trend.
She’d have suited the glorious Titian era. She was a Raphaelite, a gorgeous and vivacious Aphrodite.
She wasn’t slender. Her butt bounced, and when I fucked her, I’d have some meat to slam into, and her hips would be delicious handholds to grab.
If I smiled, I’d confirm that I was mocking her, and though I was a bastard, and though I was enough of a cunt to blackmail her into this when it hadn’t been necessary—after all, before I’d told her who I was, I could have asked her out and done this normally—there was no way I was going to knock this glorious creature’s confidence.
“Some men like slim and trim gym bunnies, some men like curves.” I shrugged. “That’s how it works, isn’t it?”
Her eyes flared at that. “But Jenny—”
“Would you prefer she be here with me?” I asked dryly, amused when she flushed.
“Of course not. I wouldn’t want her to be in this position.”
I laughed. “Nicely phrased.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Leaning forward, I grabbed her chin and forced her to look at me. “It’s supposed to mean that you can fight this all you fucking want, but deep down, you’re glad you’re here. Your little cunt is probably sopping wet, and it’s dying for a taste of my dick. So, simmer down. We’re almost at my apartment.”
And with that, I dipped my chin, and opening my mouth, raked my teeth down her bottom lip before I bit her. Hard enough to make her moan.
***
Aoife
The sting of pain should have had me rearing back.
It didn’t.
It felt. . . .
I almost shuddered.
Good.
It had felt good.
The way he’d done it. So fucking cocky, so fucking sure of himself, and who could blame him? He’d taken what he wanted, and I hadn’t pulled away because he was right. My pussy was wet, and even though this was all kinds of wrong, I did want to feel him there. To have his cock push inside me.
Jesus, this was way too early for Stockholm syndrome, right?
I mean, this was . . . what was it?
It couldn’t be that I was so horny and desperate for male attention that I was willingly allowing this to happen, was it?
Fuck. How pathetic was I if that was true? And yet, I didn’t feel desperate for anything other than more of that small taste Finn had given me.