I pursed my lips. “That’s where you’re wrong. I finally managed to clear the building today. By next month, we’ll be breaking ground on the Heights if everything goes according to plan, and you butchering our architect—” My words were interrupted by some noisy sobs and more piss puddled on my fifty thousand dollar rug. “—then that’s going to drag shit behind, isn’t it?”
Sometimes, when Aidan was like this, you had to explain things to him rationally. Almost as if he were a boy.
As he processed my words, he began to slow his pacing, until finally, he demanded, “Why didn’t one of you dipshits remind me I needed the architect?”
Jr. snickered. “Pa, there’s no reminding you your fly’s down when you’re in one of your mads.”
Shit, that was true. Aidan’s mads, as his wife called them, were infamous, but it was a little too close to the line for Jr. to be making jokes at his Pa’s expense.
In one of his lightning swift moods swings that were coming more and more frequently these days, Aidan tipped his head back and roared at that.
Then, as we all chuckled because the bastard had one of those infectious laughs that you couldn’t help but laugh with, he raised his gun, which was tipped with a silencer, and shot the architect in the leg.
The scream was muffled by the gag, but it still went through the air, as did the scent of more piss and shit this time as the guy let everything loose.
“That’s for not getting the right permits,” Aidan informed the bound man. “And that’s for thinking you could jerk me around.”
❖
Aoife
“Aoife?”
It was Finn’s voice, but I was too freaked out to even look outside the closet. One of his shoes was digging into my left butt cheek, and I swear, I felt like my chest was absorbing my legs through osmosis I was so tightly squished in the space, but that didn’t mean I was about to leave the relative safety of this little haven I’d made for myself.
Of course, havens never lasted forever.
The brisk clip of Finn’s expensive shoes against the marble tiles sounded loud to me, and I braced myself for him to open the door.
I didn’t want him to.
I wanted to stay in here, pretend like I hadn’t come to the attention of the Five Points, but that was futile when he opened the door and was staring down at me as though I’d just discovered the way to Narnia in here.
“They’re gone.”
My stomach twisted. “Did he kill that man?”
“Do you really think you should ask me that question, little girl?”
If my stomach had twisted before, now, it went diving into a somersault.
“No. I shouldn’t be asking that question. No, I know it’s the most stupid question I could ever ask, but seriously, I don’t know if I can stay in an apartment with a dead body.”
He snickered. “And you think I could?”
At his amusement, I glowered up at him, squinting when I saw that perfect fucking smile that made my ovaries do a happy dance.
I gnawed at my bottom lip before I whispered, “I don’t know, do I? It’s part of business for you.”
He pursed his lips at that, those morsels of sin that made me think of kissing him, of drowning in his mouth. “Well, many may consider me a monster, but I’m not a fucking freak. The man walked out of here. With help.”
“Aidan Donnelly let him go?” I’d have reared back, but there was no space to move.
“He does have reason, sometimes. Especially when there’s a profit to be made.”
I knew better than to let a whisper of judgment pass my lips, but in my mind, I was sad for Fiona. Sad because she’d never have imagined her boy was involved in these kinds of doings, and if she’d known, it would have broken her heart.
“What is it?” he ground out, making me wonder what he’d seen in my face.
“Nothing. Just a cramp,” I lied, and he tutted then leaned down, grabbed my hands and hauled me to my feet.
Immediately, I staggered as one foot went numb.
Even as he went for me, I wrapped my hands around his waist and hugged him tight.
“I was so frightened,” I whispered, and I didn’t know why I made that admission of weakness to him when I couldn’t to anyone else, but it was the truth.
The unpalatable truth.
A ghost of a kiss came down on my head, and then he rested his chin against my crown, and sucked down a sharp breath. “I wouldn’t have let him harm you.”
“N-No, maybe not, but if he’d have caught me . . .,” I let my words trail off. He’d been right earlier. The last thing I needed was to come to the attention of the ringleader of the band of not so merry men.
“No need to fret about that now,” he hummed under his breath, and it drove me crazy because I didn’t know why I was responding like this—with relief and wonder and comfort.
His arms gave me something I’d never felt before.
Mom and I had loved one another, but we’d just never been all that tactile. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I’d kissed her goodnight or goodbye. We didn’t even hug all that much. Fiona had been more affectionate, I guess. Yet, to settle into this man’s warm arms, to feel safe when he was the reason I was in danger in the first place was the height of lunacy, but it was how I felt.
It’s weird but sometimes, without even knowing it, you find yourself back on a path you should never have left.
As crazy as it sounded, I had a feeling that Finn and I had been destined to meet all these years later.
Maybe it was a feeling in my blood or maybe it was just my fright from earlier talking, but somehow, as wrong as the reasons were for Finn’s bringing me here . . . This felt too damn right to ignore.
Chapter Six
Finn
The feel of her in my arms was like nothing I could have imagined.
I’d seen pictures of her before today. Enough to pique my curiosity and ask for more. The two original pictures Jimmy had taken for me had been like an entree. Then, I’d had to head back for an appetizer.
Dessert would be on the cards, shortly, but after the clusterfuck that had just gone down in my living room? It felt good to hold onto something that wasn’t stained or tainted by my life.
No, there wasn’t a dead body out in my salon, but there were blood marks on the rug, sofa, and floor. As well as piss and goddamn shit stains.
Aidan’s team would be coming shortly, and I knew they’d get rid of any evidence, making my apartment so clean, only the memory of coming back here and seeing how Aidan had infiltrated my home would linger.
Still, as I tugged Aoife closer, I told myself it was for her benefit. Not mine.
She was right to be scared.
From her profile, a profile I intended on adding to, I knew that she’d been raised in Five Points’ territory. But then, that wasn’t hard considering how big our territory was, and growing.
The Irish Mob might be dying out in other cities, but in Manhattan and New York? We had the biggest presence in the nation, mostly because we had the capital.
Aidan Sr.’s daddy, as well as the man himself, had purchased a shit-ton of land back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Old buildings that had been ready for demolition back then, warehouses and big plots of land where factories had once pumped out pollution as well as the products they created.
Little by little, we’d been transforming the neighborhood with our version of housing projects, and as a result of the gentrification of the area, we’d also improved our demand.
Living in the city wasn’t exactly good for the soul. It was a ‘work hard, live harder’ kind of place, and without something to make that easier to handle, it was a shitty place to be.
Ever since we’d cleaned up the area, taking up half our territory with elegant skyscrapers that were filled with bankers and traders, socialites and bored wives who sat on charitable foundations, our sales of cocaine and speed had shot through the roof.
A molly to com
e down, some pot to mellow you out.
The best part of it?
The dealers lived in.
It was like a fast food service. You didn’t have to drive anywhere to get your hit, you just got in the elevator and got off at the appropriate floor.
Even though I knew they were good for business, I hated drugs. Always had. The brothers and I’d had a best friend back in school who’d overdosed. Some fucker had spliced his baggy of coke with weed killer of all things.
We preferred the legit side of the biz, but I’d admit to getting a kick out of supplying the city’s finest residents.
So, with our territory taking up so much space, it was no wonder Aoife knew to be scared of me as well as the rep of my Family.
The beast inside that had urged me to bring her here, to my home, to my bed, reared its head again.
It was a metaphorical beast.
The creature that had helped me shoot out kneecaps, deal drugs even when I loathed everything they stood for, when I’d slept on the streets those first few weeks when I’d run away from home . . . it was that fire inside me that kept me going, kept me fighting, struggling for more.
Well, now, that beast wanted Aoife.
Anyway I could fucking get in her.
My adrenaline was high after brushing against Aidan. Handling him sometimes was like taking a leap out of a plane. Restful it was not. But I knew exactly what would help burn off my edginess.
I moved my hands down from her hips and cupped her ass through her black jeans. When she jolted at my touch, I half hid a smile in her hair as I drew her hips against mine until I had a nice rhythm and she was rubbing against me in a way that had my cock standing to attention.
She didn’t roll her hips back though, not until I left one hand there and grabbed her loose hair in a makeshift pony tail with the other, winding it around my fist as I’d dreamed. Then I dragged her head back so that I could press my mouth to hers and plunge my tongue between her lips.
I was under no illusion that she was still feeling the fright that had her hiding in my wardrobe of all damn places, but I didn’t care.
I wanted her.
I needed her.
And I always got what I wanted.
When she didn’t kiss me back, I grabbed her lip between my teeth and dug down again. She hissed but, interestingly enough, didn’t try to pull back. Considering that was instinctive, I had to wonder why she hadn’t. Then, I wasn’t left to wonder much longer because, finally, her hips began to roll against mine.
The move was edgy. Unpracticed.
I didn’t care, though. It just felt too fucking good to have some friction against my cock that wasn’t thanks to my own fist.
I released her lip and she, in turn, released a whimper. That sound lit me up inside. It was keyed to everything about me that was instinctual. Like the caveman part of me had just woken up by triggering that atavistic side of her.
Fuck, I was speaking bullshit, but this was just so beyond normal for me that I didn’t know what the fuck was happening. I simply knew that from her unskilled movements, I could goddamn climax.
I pulled back from her and put space between us. She looked confused, her eyes wide and hungry, her lips parted as she pulled in ragged breaths. Her tits jiggled, and I wanted nothing more than to have my cock pillowed between those delicious mounds, and to have her naked on the floor, all of her glorious creaminess out on display.
“Strip,” I grated, and she jerked at my tone. Narrowing my eyes at her when she didn’t move, I bit off, “What the fuck are you waiting for?”
She jumped again, her tits bouncing with her, and then she reached for her camisole. As was the way with women, she crossed her arms in front of her, grabbed the hem, and then lifted it over her head. And what that simple move did to her tits had my tongue feeling too heavy for my mouth—I could have panted at the sight of all that flesh just waiting for my touch, my teeth.
Her hands were shaking as she reached behind her to release the snap of her simple, white cotton bra. There was no artifice about her, nothing that screamed she was a politician’s fancy piece of ass. When she undressed, she didn’t make it into an art form. A dance. She was utilitarian with her movements, and fuck, if that didn’t get me even hotter.
As she dragged the tight jeans down her legs, revealing a pair of mismatched panties from her now-discarded bra, her bottom lip quivered as she hooked them down, too.
When she toed out of them, standing there before me like something from a Renaissance painting, I couldn’t contain the growl as I snarled, “Get on my bed.”
With a little squeak, she hurried over to the bed, and her fear? Fuck, it got me hot.
I usually fucked women who knew the score.
Who knew what they were getting into when they got into my bed.
Some women? They liked the bad boys. They liked thinking they were fucking someone who knew what it was like on the other side of the tracks. Some of them probably had husbands who came home every night at six and kissed them goodnight while making love to them in their double bed.
That wasn’t me.
They came to me for a fuck, and I fucked them. Using them as much as they used me.
But Aoife wasn’t like that, and maybe that was why she got to me so fucking much.
I watched her ass jiggle as she retreated to my room, and when she planted herself on my bed, her skin clashed with the blue comforter, and it made her look like one big bowl of peaches and cream that I wanted to lap right up.
My mouth watered with need for a taste, but instead, I stayed the bastard I was and murmured, “Spread your legs and show me your pussy.”
Her eyes widened, a whimper escaped her, but God love good Irish women, she obeyed. She parted her thighs, slipped her hand between her legs and showed me her pussy.
I looked at her for endless moments, our gazes trained on one another until I broke it, broke the stare to grab a chair from the side of my dresser. I dragged it over to the foot of the bed and took a seat before the show in front of me.
“Are you Catholic, Aoife?”
She blinked at me. “My mom was. I was b-baptized.”
I tilted my head at that. “Do you go to church?”
“Sometimes.”
“When was your last confession?” I half-mocked.
She swallowed. “About five years ago.”
I tsked under my breath. “Do good girls touch themselves, Aoife?”
I didn’t know why I was asking the question but fuck, it made my cock pound and from the sight of her dilated eyes, I knew she was wound up tighter than a spring, too.
“It’s a sin,” she half-mewled.
“I know. That’s why I asked.”
I reached over, pressed my hand above hers and began to move her fingers. As we moved them together, she whimpered, her eyes fell closed, and her lips parted.
“That’s a sin, Aoife,” I told her gravely, watching the slick lips of her pussy, seeing the juices that were gathering there.
I couldn’t believe how wet she was.
I’d known, when I walked into her teashop, she was attracted to me. I’d known that I could have gotten her here, in this room, with no coercion whatsoever. But that she was here, despite my coercion, and that she was dripping onto my coverlet like I’d been tongue fucking her for the past thirty minutes?
Well, it had me reaching down, unfastening my zipper and pulling my cock through the fly. The relief was instantaneous, and I gripped my shaft as we both worked her sweetly wet little cunt.
Her head moved from side to side, slowly at first, slowly. Then faster, faster, until it became a thrashing motion. Then, just when her thighs tensed, I pulled my hand back.
This time, her head shot up, and confusion and fear and panic threaded together in those emotive emerald eyes of hers. “W-Why did you stop?”
Because I’m a bastard?
I didn’t say that, though, just motioned at my cock. Her eyelids fluttered at the sight, but what
was all the more delicious was the way her skin turned bright pink like it had back in her tea room.
“Roll over and rest your neck against the edge of the bed.”
She looked confused, her brow puckered with uncertainty as she moved. Her submissiveness satisfied something in me, pleased some integral part of me. But what made me fucking burn was how, when she moved, and her thighs rubbed together, she paused, dipped her head to moan at the sensation, then like she’d been drugged, carried on with my orders.
There was something about her that got to me.
It was like she hadn’t done this before. Like her body wasn’t used to these sensations, but I knew that to be bullshit.
Was this all an act, then?
Fuck, if the thought didn’t infuriate me.
I wanted to snarl at her to hurry up, but she was already in position. Her head tilted back against the side of the bed so that I could dip my shaft into her mouth when I wanted to.
“Spread your legs again,” I directed. When she’d obeyed, I murmured, “You can touch your hungry little cunt, you can even come, but you have to take everything I give you. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but I knew, deep down, that she didn’t. What the fuck?
With her hands between her legs, I muttered, “Make your mouth wet, work up some spit, and when you have enough, open up for me.”
Though she frowned, she did as bid.
When I sank my cock into her wet, slick mouth, I almost shot off like I’d pushed into her cunt.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
I swore at the ceiling as I gazed up at it, I cursed at the picture she made when I began to thrust my dick into her greedy mouth.
Fuck.
She took me so perfectly.
Like she was made for my cock.
I was slow at first. I wasn’t packing a ten-inch hammer, but I was above average, and I wanted to make sure she was comfortable. Then, when we both worked out a rhythm, when I saw her body relax, her features flush, every part of her getting off by her touching herself, as well as the way I was fucking her mouth, I began to move faster.
Screw You: A Screwed Duet (Five Points, Hell's Kitchen Book 1) Page 7
