“Bedroom. Now.”
“But—”
Cupping her face in my palm, I graze the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip. “I can think of a few things to keep that beautiful mouth of yours busy. None of them includes talking.”
Shock flashes across her face but is quickly replaced by a playful smile and eyes filled with seduction. She’s always responded to this side of me. The side that takes charge, gets a little rough, and demands what I want, which also happens to be exactly what she likes. Her body molds to mine as I press a hard, heated kiss against her mouth.
I pull from the kiss long enough to gaze down into her eyes and lift her up off the floor. My cock stiffens as her hands grip my shoulders and her legs wrap around my body, pressing her heat to my lower stomach. With our eyes still locked, I stalk through her living room and across the hallway to her master bedroom. Once inside, I lower her across the bed, I support my weight above her and lace my hands into her hair again to resume our kiss. The dueling of our tongues and crashing of teeth show the urgency of what we need from each other, and when her legs tighten around my hips to try and pull me closer, I smirk against her lips.
“Greedy girl,” I groan and don’t budge an inch toward her.
“Liam,” she hums her plea for more, arching her back to lift her perfectly perky breasts up toward me.
Dragging my lips from hers to kiss and nip her skin, I trail down her neck until my face buries between her cleavage. Vanessa’s hands run along my shoulders to the base of my neck, and she digs her fingers into my scalp at my hairline, panting my name and I’ve barely touched her. Her spicy citrus perfume wafts into my nostrils, taking my need up a notch and reminding me that it’s been too long since our last time.
My hands drift over, shoving the lace covering her breasts to the side so I can capture her flesh, and the only thing on my mind as my mouth covers the nipple is that her breasts fit in my hands the same way everything about her fits me.
Just right.
Perfect.
It’s no wonder we’ve been fucking each other senseless for years.
I’m just surprised that all these years later, taking her body feels like the first time.
Every. Fucking. Time.
Pulling the bud of her pert nipple into my mouth, I suck, taste and bite while her body writhes beneath me, begging me for more without words but just as loudly, causing my cock to twitch against the zipper of my dress slacks. Vanessa’s so attuned to my body that she reaches an arm down between us and cups her palm over my cock head.
Fuck, I’m so in the moment that my hips roll, grinding into her hand. She finds a way to wedge her other hand between us and gets to work on unzipping my jeans. Normally by now, I’d have her hands pinned above her head to stop her. She knows I take charge of every step when we fuck. But I’ve missed her touch so much that I let it slide this one time. She helps my dick spring free from the confined space inside my boxers, sliding her tiny hand along the thick, firm length. A few pumps of my shaft from the base to the tip and pretty soon her thumb runs over the head and spreads the few drops of precum around. My body is still well above hers, supporting myself on my knees and one hand. Vanessa grips the base and tilts my cock down toward her as she raises her hips up, making full use of my above-average length to position the tip at her slick opening.
She’s primed, and I’m beyond ready.
Running a hand down the side of her body, I grasp her knee and press it to the bed to spread her wide. With one smooth movement, I slip my hand up her outer leg to her ass, grab it firmly, and drive into her hot, wet cunt so hard that she cries my name with the same breath of air that she forces from her lungs.
Fuck. It feels like home, being balls deep inside of her, her tight cunt clamped around me, warm and slick as we both take a moment of reverence and appreciate the sensation without an inch of movement.
Until she whispers, “Don’t stop.”
That’s all the invitation I need, but the urge to fuck her rough and hard is so overpowering, I need her to beg a little. I need her juices coating my cock, and her hips grinding as her body grovels for every inch I’ll piston in and out of her without mercy.
I release her nipple from my mouth with an audible pop and move my head up to hers. “Don’t stop what?” The raspy groan of my question reverberates through the air between my lips and her ear, causing her to shiver.
“Don’t stop, please Liam.”
“How bad do you want this?”
She grips a handful of the back of my shirt, hoping to free her hips so at least one of us can move. But I’ve wedged her into the bed. She’ll only move when I’m good and ready. And fuck, I’m hanging on by a thread for control, but I need her permission just as much as I crave control over her.
“So bad, baby. Please. I need y—”
She doesn’t get the last word out. A sharp roll of my hips gets my cockhead almost out of her opening again, and that’s when I thrust into her hard another time.
And another.
And again, drilling into her core from root to tip.
Vanessa’s panting and whimpering, her face flushed with color and awash with that dizzying, addictive mix of pleasure and pain that I love seeing.
“I can stop whenever you want me to,” I taunt her.
“No,” she half-whimpers. “Please. Don’t, don’t stop.”
I lift her ass up from the bed toward me, stroke for stroke, adjusting the angle as I fuck her hard and deliver what I know are rough impacts to her G-spot. Every. Single. Time.
“Tell me you’re mine. You belong to me.”
Her eyes snap open, and she gives me a strange look. An eyebrow raises. “I belong to no one.”
She does. She has, for a while. I wonder how long she’ll go on denying it. When her inner walls begin to shudder, and her thighs start to shake, I know she’ll cum any second. I lower my lips to the spot on her neck that drives her wild and speed up my thrusts, sucking her skin at the same pace that I’m fucking her. It’s sure to leave a mark, but neither of us cares about that right now. Not when we’re both so fucking close to exploding.
“Come for me now,” I command, burying into her harder, faster, deeper each time until her entire body shakes through her climax, and drives me over the edge moments later. Without letting go of her ass cheeks, I pump every ounce of release deep inside of her, mixing our juices together, connecting us in a way that nothing else can.
Mine.
She’s mine.
I fucking hope Vanessa knows that.
3
Vanessa
The louder than usual sound of water running gets my attention sometime in the middle of the night. It’s not the bathroom sink. It has to be the shower faucet, but Liam knows we don’t have that kind of relationship. We meet, have mind-blowing sex, and then he neatens up and leaves. That’s as far as it goes between us. There’s no spare toothbrush, no extra clothes, no staying overnight, no deep conversations, and no showers.
But he’s in there—showering?
Pulling the sheets around my body, I march over to the bathroom to check it out.
“Liam?” I call out through the closed door.
He doesn’t answer. Which makes complete sense. He’s busy crossing the line and making things a little more complicated on the other side of the door. I pound on the door. After a pause, I open it slightly and am hit by a blast of steamy air. Sure enough, he’s in my shower. Getting way too comfortable.
“Liam?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning up a bit. Want to join me?”
As tempting as the offer sounds, I turn him down, making a point to avoid the urge to check him out. “Uh, not right now.”
Liam opens the clear glass shower door and sticks his head out. “You sure? There’s plenty of room in here for both of us.” He really shouldn’t do that.
“I have a meeting I have to get to,” I tell him.
“At three a.m.?”
“I need my rest. Look, you really should get going once you’re out of the shower.”
He opens the door wide so I can see him from head to toe, his firm body glistening as water droplets spatter his skin. “Get over here and say it like you mean it.”
Liam’s right. The closer I get to him the harder it gets—in more ways than one.
The man’s my weakness, and he knows it.
“I’m fine right here,” I answer because it’s true. Up close I can’t ignore the electric energy between us. I can’t stop myself from inhaling his scent, or saying no to any demand Liam’s raspy baritone voice utters, or looking into his piercing hazel green eyes, or admiring his chiseled face, or staring at every one of his rippling corded muscles, including the one between his legs that I can’t take my eyes off of.
And there it is. The truth is Liam’s my Achilles heel.
After we rock each other’s world, I need him to go. But eventually I let him right back into my bed where he works his magic on me, drawing me in, causing my knees to go soft, my mind to go numb, and my body to get heated and pliable in his arms. He mesmerizes me like a snake charmer with that python between his legs. Except in this analogy, it’s the snake that’s doing all the charming.
What’s worse is that behind his rugged Irish bad boy crime family image, he’s a decent human being.
That’s all the more reason to keep this thing between us casual.
He’s too good for me.
I’m the one who can ruin him.
Again, we don’t quite make it to the bedroom. Before I summon up my will, he tugs the sheets down my naked body and lets it drop to the marble floor. Then he pulls me into the shower with him. A second later, his lips connect with mine, and his fingers reach between my legs, hell bent on delivering another mind-blowing orgasm. Then he picks me up into his arms and drives deep into me over and over again for yet another ride.
I’m a moth to his flame.
Fluttering. Frail. Fucked.
And fucked hard, just the way he knows I like it.
After we’re finished and the explosively giddying moments pass, he lowers my legs to the floor, pours some of my body wash into his hand, and passes the bottle to me like we’ve done it a million times before. He’s even humming a tune.
That’s the problem.
With Liam, every moment is just like this unplanned shower.
Fun.
Energetic.
Effortless.
Dammit. Now our booty calls have to come to an end. What was a casual thing is becoming dangerously close to something more. But I barely date, I refuse to believe in romance, and I’ve sworn off of the prospect of love. I don’t do relationships.
My romantic disposition has everything to do with the woman who brought me into this world, but that’s another story.
Before we end our shared shower, I make a decision.
I’ll wipe his name from my contact list. From all the folders. It’s as easy as that. We have no other strong connections in our lives anyway. He knows my brother, Dylan, in passing, but that’s it.
After he leaves today, it’s over.
4
Liam
Vanessa’s been fighting us since the moment we met over four years ago. At first, I thought it was because of me. My family isn’t of the garden variety. Being the son of an infamous, ruthless Irish mob boss—now retired—is enough to attract all the wrong girls, and cause any upstanding woman to run in the opposite direction.
My father left the life when I was eight. To be more precise, he was pried from it. The stubborn ox was hell bent on remaining a mobster. He ignored the threats from local police, the raids on our house, illegal gambling establishments, and warehouses, and constantly being arrested on trumped-up charges that went nowhere fast. He ignored it all until the FBI applied pressure where it hurt him the most.
They came after my mother and me.
They waited until Pops was out of town and arrested my mother, threatening that they’d charge her with suspicion of being an accessory after the fact to a laundry list of charges. While she was being questioned, they handed me over to Child Protective Services and promised to have me removed from the home permanently. By the time my father returned home two days later, he had no resistance left in him. Family is everything to him. He eventually agreed to turn state’s evidence on Fred Farley, a much bigger fish in the Irish mob out in Boston, but drew the line when they wanted to put us in witness protection.
There are only two reasons Pops isn’t six feet under as a result of his agreeing to be a snitch. First, Fred Farley never made it to trial. He was gunned down outside his home in the middle of the day. The police never solved his murder. Second, the O’Sullivan men have just as much brains as brawn. According to my mother, Pops had an exit plan before I was born, and funneled funds somewhere offshore for years. His near miss taking the stand was enough to cause him to finally tap out, and once he did, he and my mother opened the flagship delicatessen that became a chain of twenty in as many years.
It’s been twenty years, and Pops still has the organized crime label. No amount of time going legit, building wealth legally or keeping our noses clean can change the stigma that follows the O’Sullivan’s.
In Vanessa’s case though, she and I have been seeing each other casually for all this time, and I can safely say it’s not me.
We’re in the friend zone—or friends with benefits—because that’s what Vanessa wants.
It’s all her.
Something from her seemingly pristine past has turned her off of getting close. It’s caused her to erect a wall around her that no man has been able to make it past. But Vanessa doesn’t know me well enough if she believes that wall can keep me out.
Fuck no.
I was made for destroying her walls.
She can fool herself into believing we’re just passing the time, but she’s dead wrong. Now that I know what I want, I’ll demolish that tough exterior one way or another, and once I crack that nut, she’ll know it too.
Vanessa’s mine.
All she needs is a push—no, a thrust—in the right direction.
That’s the thought that resonates in my brain as I get dressed, tell her good night, and make my way home. It doesn’t stop there, pinging across my subconscious as I drift to sleep. It’s the first thing that plays on my mind when I wake up, and goes haywire when my uncle, Craig, phones to tell me that he needs me to join him this afternoon for an important meeting at Wilkes Macmillan—the law firm where Vanessa works.
Later that day, it’s while I’m driving to pick up Craig that something devious clicks together like puzzle pieces in my head.
I know just the thing that’ll persuade her to admit she’s mine.
5
Vanessa
“Vanessa Daisy Worthington, you will get me the Howard addendum and briefs by noon today. It’s not a request.”
Oh no, she didn’t.
My mother did not just call me by my full name with my office door open. It’s bad enough that I’m slaving away as a junior associate at Wilkes Macmillan in the tiniest office on the floor, probably the smallest office known to man. I’m almost sure this was a broom closet before they set it up for me. There’s barely enough room in here for my desk, a swivel chair, the two bookcases in the corner, and two guest chairs for when colleagues stop by to talk about cases. But she has to top it off by humiliating me in front of my coworkers every chance she gets?
Suddenly that job offer from Rigsby, Klein, and Associates is starting to look pretty attractive. Too bad I turned it down. Wilkes Macmillan is the law practice that my maternal great great grandfather founded almost eighty-five years ago. It’s supposed to be my birthright, my legacy if I play my cards right. But butting heads with my mother on an almost daily basis is getting to the point where heading up this firm one day in the very distant future just isn’t worth it.
And I’ve only been working here for
five months.
Pushing off the armrests of my leather swivel chair, I hurry around my desk and brush past my mother to close my office door. Yes, I have to get that close to her because the room is fucking small.
“Can you say it any louder, Diane?” I ask, calling her by her first name as I fold my arms and give her the stink eye from head to toe. Calling her Diane was actually her request. She thinks being called ‘Mom’ in the office undermines her authority, detracts from her credibility, and takes away from her corporate image. “I don’t think they heard you on the forty-seventh floor.”
I don’t want to lose my focus, but as always, she’s perfectly put together. The right amount of style. Short blonde hair, styled and slicked back with a part on one side. Light blue eyes are glaring at me behind thick black lashes. Her oval shaped face and stoic high cheekbones have just the right amount of matte foundation and blush. Cupid bow lips under dark red lipstick applied with scientific precision. Her slender frame is neatly packaged in a navy blue power suit with a white blouse, the knee-length pencil skirt showing evidence of long, athletic legs sculpted through her life-long daily running habit. And the nude colored four-inch pumps. It’s definitely Jimmy Choo, and if I weren’t so irritated by her right now, I’d ask her where she got them.
“I told you to have the Howard Manufacturing addendum and briefs ready first thing this morning,” she repeats as I return to my chair. “You had enough time to prepare them.”
All I can do is shake my head. “I was here for almost the entire weekend, working on due diligence for Poppy.”
“Her pro bono case?” she asks rhetorically, or it must be rhetorical, because it’s the only type of case that longstanding senior partner, Poppy Lovell, has been assigned since I started working here. According to office rumor among the junior staff, that’s what happens around here when you hit eighty-two and won’t retire. “You should know better than to put that work ahead of something I assign. Or do we have to go over prioritization again?”
The Billionaire and the Bad Girl Page 2
