Her back arched, giving me more access, and as I bit the tip, she released a shaky gasp, her breath stalling in her chest for a handful of seconds before she released a keening moan. It powered through my senses, even more delicious because I knew she was trying to keep quiet but was finding it hard.
Thanking God Seamus’s room was on the other side of the apartment, I watched her come, felt it, reveled in it, as I let her fly free. With each pulsation of her pussy around my shaft, I was a goner, and I only held on because every thrust I made had her drawing in air like she was a drowning woman searching for oxygen.
When I moved to her other nipple, biting down a little harder, no teasing, nothing but need and want merging together as my balls drew up tight, she came again but she struggled in my hold, her arms bucking against me, wriggling and writhing against the wall in a way that had me exploding into her.
As my cum drenched her, I groaned, letting go of her nipple and burrowing my face into her throat, biting her there as I moaned out the fucking relief that came when I was inside her, when I was allowed to let go, to merge with her.
Nothing beat this feeling.
Nothing.
No one beat her.
She was mine.
No longer my filthy little secret, but my woman. At my side. Where she should have always been.
Twenty-Three
Declan
I peered at Conor, then down at the files he’d handed me.
“You shitting me?”
He sniffed. “When have you known me to shit you when it comes down to business?”
I rolled my eyes. “All the fucking time?”
His lips twitched. “Well, this is different. You’ve paid nearly one and a half million to this fucker. I ain’t about to play you around anymore. You were a kid. We all make mistakes.” He pulled a face. “I know I sure as hell did.”
“What? Breaking into NASA wasn’t a highlight of your misspent youth?”
“Oh no, that was the best fucking day of my life. I’m talking about not fucking Janie Petersen.” He whistled. “She’d have had my balls in a vise, and I’d have loved every minute of it.”
“Do we really need to hear about how you seriously need a dominatrix to keep you in line?” Brennan groused.
I smirked at him. “I can just see Conor in a gimp suit, can’t you?”
“I’d rock it, just like I rock everything.” He blew on his nails, making me wonder how the nerdy fuck always managed to look cool no matter what he did.
I’d hate him if I didn’t love the shit out of him.
“You seen this?” I asked, waving the file at Brennan.
“Course. Wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”
“True.” I tipped my head to the side as I stared in the rearview mirror. “Tail free.”
“Not just a pretty face,” Conor commented, making me shake my head as I laughed. “Better than Brennan, at any rate.”
“You drive like you belong in an insane asylum,” Brennan grumbled.
Because I’d already heard this three fucking times today, I grumbled back, “Look, as much as I love the matinee, I have places to be. People to see.”
“Yeah? Like who?” Conor sniped, giving me the side-eye.
“My woman?” I retorted.
“Yours, huh?” He hummed under his breath. “Proposed to her yet?”
“Nah. I don’t need to, do I? She has to know it’s in the cards. What with a man who makes you look sane behind the wheel for a father.”
“Every woman needs the romance, bro,” Conor retorted, shaking his head at me like I was a lost cause.
Goddamn nerve.
Dude’s longest relationship was with his right fucking fist, and here he was, giving me shit?
“He’s right,” Brennan confirmed. “You should propose. She’d dig it. Just because she’s not all girly girl doesn’t mean she wouldn’t love all the cutesy shit. In fact, I bet she’d really love it.”
My brow furrowed. “You think?”
“Yeah. I do.” Brennan nodded. “You got a ring picked out?”
“Well, yeah, but I was just going to give it to her when we were ready to get hitched.”
“On the day itself?” Conor shook his head again. “Declan, I swear to fuck, for a guy who loves all that tragic romance, all the arts and stuff, you’re clueless, aren’t you? Let me guess. You want to get married in front of a justice of the peace?”
“Don’t see why not.” I shrugged. “We’re both private people.”
Conor scowled at me. “We’re a private family, doesn’t mean things don’t have a time and a place.”
“I refuse to go through what Eoghan did,” I argued. “Hell, I went through all that shit so he didn’t have to! I’m the one who had to prop Inessa up because he was chickenshit. If anything, he should go through it for me.”
“Nah, Inessa meant jack to him back then. Aela matters to you.” Conor pursed his lips, eyes narrowed like he was deep in thought. “In fact, I tell you what. I’m going to plan your service. You don’t have to do shit, just turn up on the day at the place and time when I tell you. I bet she loves it.”
I glared at him. “What the fuck do you know about this shit?”
“Doesn’t take a goddamn degree,” he retorted, holding out his hand. “We got an agreement?”
“So long as it’s not that whole dog and pony show like Eoghan had to deal with.”
Conor snorted. “Bro, their ceremony was all for show. This isn’t.”
“Isn’t it? Gotta make Seamus legit before you get me shot again,” I groused, waggling the file he’d handed me in his face.
“Well, okay, if you want to think of it that way, then do.” He hitched a shoulder. “Not gonna affect me.”
A breath gusted from between my lips as I conceded, “Okay. Go for it. But I get to take full credit with Aela.”
“That’s it,” Conor joked. “Start married life off the right way—with a lie.”
My nose crinkled, so I reached up after I shook his hand, scratched it, and flipped him the bird. “But I’ll tell you when and where—when I’ve made a decision.”
He just grinned at me, then pointed to the file. “Now. As you so rightly said, I gotta get you shot.”
“This just seems insane to me,” I replied, my attention averted. “Caroline Dunbar can’t be behind the blackmail. She’s too much of a stickler for the rules.”
“She’s always had a boner for you,” Conor argued. “Ever since Jimmy D.”
“How the fuck she knew you were behind it, I don’t know,” Brennan rumbled, his body angled toward the front of the building we were watching for signs of life.
If that bitch had a tail on us, we had one on her. We knew every move she made, and if she took a piss or went for a shit, then we knew about it.
That was why we were waiting for her to come home.
This afternoon, when my brothers had burst into my office at the warehouse I managed, both of them looking like they’d found a treasure map with an ‘X’ marking the spot, then had reeled off the tale of how Conor had discovered exactly who the blackmailer was, the day had long since spiraled out of control.
I wasn’t even sure what we were doing here.
So I said as much. “What are we supposed to do? Confront her?”
“Yeah. Of course,” Conor grumbled. “You think I tracked that account through a gazillion goddamn VPNs and IPs and spent a week solid tracing it just for you to carry on paying? You owe me the ten grand you were going to give her.”
I griped, “That’s it. Remind me why I didn’t get you involved before.”
He sniffed. “You’re a dumbass, that’s why.” Then he heaved in a breath. “Of course, I know it’s because we never stuck up for you as a kid, so you didn’t trust us. But I think you trust us now, so that’s something.”
I tensed up. “Course I trusted you. We’re kin, ain’t we?”
“We are, but when Seamus stuck up for you on Sunday? Well, man, i
t just rammed it home how we never did that when Da used to give you crap about liking museums and shit, you know?” His shoulders wriggled. “Then I thought about all the time you were paying that bitch hush money, and it fit that you didn’t think you could trust us with the truth. But you trusted us with Seamus and Aela, so I knew shit had changed.”
My own shoulders weren’t just wriggling, they were up by my ears.
“That true, Dec?” Brennan asked softly.
“Maybe,” was all I said a few minutes later after the silence grew too thick for me to deal with.
Fuckers knew how to get me to talk.
I cleared my throat. “It’s old news.”
“Nah. The history is always part of the present,” Conor stated too sagely for my liking. “We’re here for you now, and we’re going to make the bitch pay.”
“You swept the car for bugs, didn’t you?” I inquired drolly.
“Duh,” he rumbled. “I think we need to get in there, tell her we know what her game is, and if she’s going to threaten you then we can threaten her back. I can easily show the Feds how I traced the bank account.”
“Stalemate,” Brennan chimed in.
“Exactly. I love it when a plan comes together.” Conor rubbed his hands together.
“Until she calls our bluff. I don’t want to go to jail—”
Brennan snickered. “Like you would. The director’s in Da’s pocket, Dec. Fuck, you know that. You ain’t going nowhere.”
Unease whispered through me. “You don’t know that.”
“What? You want to kill her?” Conor queried, like he was asking if I wanted ketchup with my burger.
“Might have to,” I answered with a sigh, reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose. “I don’t want to, not with the shit it will stir, but you never know with her. She’s a fucking slimy bitch.”
“That she is,” Brennan agreed. “She picked the perfect job for someone like her. A pig can never be trusted.”
I nodded, totally on board with that. “Just like her father,” I added.
“Yeah. Just like Jimmy. Fat fucker,” Brennan agreed.
“Seamus would say you’re being fattist,” Conor pointed out. “Hey, Dec, did I tell you how much I love your kid? He’s fucking awesome.”
I grinned. “You think so, huh?”
“I do.” He cut me a look. “Did you talk about what he wanted me to show him the other night?”
Brows lifting, I replied, “No. I don’t think so. He’s been quiet since school started for real. What did you show him?”
“Sweet fuck, tell me you didn’t explain the birds and the bees to him. He’ll never get his leg over if you did,” Brennan mocked.
Hiding a laugh when Conor scowled at him, I questioned, “What was it, C?”
“He wanted to learn about the family.”
“What about it?” I asked warily.
“Whenever he searched the O’Donnellys, he kept getting the wrong information—mostly because it’s part of my job to make sure that people get the wrong information. So I pointed him in the right direction.”
Brennan heaved a sigh. “I swear, Conor, you’re a brilliant idiot. Why would you show him that shit?”
“He needs to know.”
Dread filled me, but then, there was no point in dreading it. What had he just said? History affects the present… I didn’t want Shay to know about the family’s roots, but he had a right to. But it sure as hell put a slant on why he’d been quiet recently.
“Wait, you mean he challenged Da knowing what he does about him?” And he’d called me ‘dad’ afterward too.
“Yeah. Swear, that kid’s got brass balls,” Conor remarked with a grin, and because I’d thought that about Shay too, I couldn’t disagree.
“Fuck, he sure does,” Brennan agreed. “Thought Da was going to lose his shit when Seamus put him in his place.”
My lip quirked to the side. “Was definitely the best entertainment I’ve had in a long while at the Sunday roast.”
“You really hate it, don’t you?” Conor asked. “Being at home? Being around the folks?”
I shrugged. “I love them, but they don’t get me. They don’t have to either. I’m a grown man.”
“Yeah, but—”
Before he could say another word, the deep throb of some straight pipes rattled down the street.
“Fuck, I hate Harleys,” Brennan groused. “Why do they have to be so loud?”
“It’s a fallacy, actually,” Conor intoned, in know-it-all mode. “They say that if the pipes are loud, ongoing traffic will hear them, but the sound from the exhaust goes straight out of the back end. All it does is make them go deaf prematurely—”
“And piss pedestrians off,” Brennan grumbled.
As the bike approached, I tilted my head to the side, recognizing that it wasn’t a Sunday rider on the back of it.
“Biker,” Conor confirmed.
“No tags,” I murmured.
“Does there need to be? Nearest MC to us is the Sinners,” Brennan pointed out.
“He’s not wearing a cut.” I lifted my cellphone and as the biker drove by, I snapped a photo, full frontal and a real beauty, then immediately sent it to Conor, whose own cell buzzed as he received it.
When the guy got off the bike and swaggered over to the thin house where Caroline Dunbar lived, a house that in no way looked as though she was spending the ten grand I’d been sending her every month for a decade, my brows rose high. When I cast a glance at Brennan and Conor, saw they were equally as surprised, the three of us settled in for the long haul.
We were curious now as to what the fuck was going on and what exactly Dunbar had gotten herself into.
AELA
When I took a seat at the Plaza, I peered around the fancy hotel, impressed despite myself.
I’d been able to afford to eat here for a long time, but I just never had. Now, I was here for a different reason.
Afternoon tea.
And I’d prefer to stick pins under my nails.
Still, the place was nice. A massive chandelier hung suspended over a gleaming antique central table that was loaded down with seasonal flowers. It sat atop a rich Turkish rug, which lined the perimeter of the room. The walls were like something from an Austen movie—that strange kind of gilded paneling—but what I loved the most was the overhead dome that let in the meager light from a crappy New York day.
It made the place like a greenhouse, which was fitting considering the name—The Palm Court. There was a stand with flowers on it above the shelving units of the bar, but more impressively, there were a huge pair of palms that dwarfed the servers flitting about.
Mostly I loved how the table I was seated at was mirrored, and it reflected the intricate metal lacework of the dome without me having to tip my head back to gape at it.
A little too rich for my blood, I’d never have selected this as the place where I’d like to meet Aoife and Inessa, but hey, this was their suggestion.
I’d never been a ‘brunch with the girls’ kind of woman, mostly because I’d always been on the move. It made it hard to make friends, especially ones you had a standing date with. Of course, there was the debacle with Caro, but seeing as she liked me for who I knew, and not what, I dismissed her entirely from my memory banks.
Still, when I’d received the text from Inessa this morning, I’d been grateful to be included. Surprised, but grateful nonetheless.
With Declan back at work, and the apartment all to myself, I was left in my makeshift studio, working. Not that I was complaining, because I was busy making the preliminary sketches for Seamus’s portrait.
I’d decided I’d give Lena his and Declan’s portraits together, and then gradually work my way through the brothers.
I knew it was a way of softening her up, and I also knew that if she did soften toward me, Aidan Sr. would stop giving me so much shit whenever we met up.
Sunday dinner could have gone better, what with Seamus calling his gr
andfather out for being a homophobic prick—
“Aela!”
I smiled at Aoife when I saw her wading through the crowd with one of those baby car seats in hand. She plunked him on a chair, made sure he was stable, then bent down to kiss my cheek. I hadn’t expected that, so I jerked back in surprise, but then stilled when I felt the soft brush of her lips against my cheek.
“Sorry, I didn’t expect that,” I said dryly, leaning over to give her the same treatment.
She beamed at me. “It’s okay. I just—” Her smile was infectious. “Well, I wanted to give you a proper greeting.”
I knew my eyebrows had to be kissing my hairline at that. “Any reason in particular?”
Her smile morphed into a grin. “For daring not to go to confession.”
Ah.
I rolled my eyes. “Aidan Sr. nearly had a conniption, didn’t he?” Things had derailed after the homophobic prick thing, that was for sure.
“You know he’s mad when Lena tells him to walk it off in the garden.” She raised her fist, lifted it over the table, and laughing, I bumped it with mine.
“What’s the fist bump over?” Inessa asked, approaching the table, looking more put together than any eighteen-year-old I knew.
Hell, I’d been a mess at her age. A single mom who’d upended my entire world to protect my kid, but she was so seamlessly elegant I was envious.
She wore a simple black sheath dress, a shearling coat, heavy leather boots, and carried a Gucci bag. She tied it together with a pair of sunglasses in her hair, which she had to be using to keep her blonde locks out of her eyes because it was grim as anything outside.
Aoife, on the other hand, looked a lot more normal. She wore a pair of skinny jeans, a flowing t-shirt with a flamingo on it, a simple brown leather jacket, and some loafers.
Just like me, they wore Kevlar like it was an accessory, but I was definitely underdressed in my gypsy skirt, shitkickers, and tee, but that was purposeful. I was an anarchist, for Christ’s sake. Eating at a place like this was bad for the rep.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 32
