The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  “My brother does,” she automatically answered.

  Interesting. “And you?”

  The young woman paused. He shot her a side glance. Cleopatra chewed at the tip of her finger, and indecision raged in her eyes. Again, it occurred to him . . . for Cleopatra Killoran’s bold displays and unwavering confidence, there was still a vulnerability to her. It was far too easy to forget that the snarling, hissing hellion was, in fact, a young woman. Perhaps that was why he even now spoke in depth and at length with Killoran’s sister about the Hell and Sin. What else accounted for trusting her in this way?

  “I . . . I don’t know,” she finally said, revealing an unanticipated hesitation. “My brother would certainly say so.”

  “I don’t care what Killoran thinks,” he said bluntly. “I’m not asking his opinion. I’m asking yours.” A marvel, in and of itself. He must be going mad. There was nothing else for it.

  She gave her head a frenetic shake. “I can’t answer that.” She looked about, and then she settled her stare upon his ledgers. “Not without knowing your profits.”

  So, she was of a similar mind frame as Ryker, Calum, and Niall, that some profit could be sacrificed for philanthropic good. Who would have ever expected it of this woman?

  “It’s enough I’ve shown you my plans.” A far too dangerous allowance he’d made. “I’ve no intention of discussing my profits—”

  “Or lack thereof,” she mumbled.

  “—with you,” he said loudly over her tart reply.

  “I’m not interested in your books, Adair.” By God, she was fearless. “What your numbers are or are not hardly indicate how successful your club is or will be. Your plans, however, reveal more than enough about the vitality of the Hell and Sin.”

  His hackles went up. “You’d challenge the might of my club,” he said on a silken whisper, facing her squarely so that she had to crane her head all the way back to meet his gaze. “Our hell is different than yours.” The Hell and Sin and Devil’s Den had begun the same, but ultimately, they’d evolved, becoming places that powerful peers visited and lost fortunes at. The Devil’s Den, however, had surpassed them in growth through its offering of prostitution.

  “No truer words were ever spoken than those,” she said with her usual arrogance. “Do you know what your problem is, Adair?”

  “That your brother burned my club to a pile of ashes?” he retorted, longing for a fight that would restore them to their proper places as hated rivals.

  To the lady’s credit, she didn’t rise to that bait. “Your problem is that you and your family don’t know what type of club you want to be.” She turned up one hand, and with their bodies positioned as close as they were, that action brought her palm brushing against his chest. His pulse leapt at the unwitting touch. “Is it a fancy place like White’s and Brooke’s where only fancy lords come to play?” Cleopatra lifted her other palm, the one marked with a D. “Or do you want to be precisely what you are . . . men of the streets who offer those vices we know about to lords who wanted a taste.”

  By nothing more than the sheer nature of enmity that had forever existed between their gangs, he wanted to throw counter-protestations in her face . . . to point out that they were nothing alike—in any way. In this, however, Cleopatra Killoran had surely spoken the truest words to ever emerge from her plump red lips. “Our clientele is not your clientele,” he said finally. That decision they’d undertaken long ago when they’d first purchased the Hell and Sin, before his brothers had married ladies of the ton.

  “We know precisely what we are and the clients we serve. You are the ones who don’t.” She touched her gaze on the fine furnishings belonging to Ryker and Penelope. “The Devil’s Den caters to men who come to sin and are comfortable in doing so. You”—she gesticulated wildly as she spoke—“don’t know if you want to cater to the nobs or be part of the streets.”

  Her words flummoxed him. Given her next diatribe, with Cleopatra’s quickness and rapier tongue, he wouldn’t ever want to be caught in a knife battle with this one.

  “You design your fancy club . . . in St. Giles.” With irreverent fingers, she scooped up the stack of plans. “If the lords want a White’s, they’ll go to White’s. They want Brooke’s, they’ll go there. That’s not what the Hell and Sin is, and it isn’t what the Devil’s Den is, either. The names alone say as much. If you’re looking to give them a fancy club, then you’d be better off designing an altogether different plan for a different club, in an altogether different part of London.”

  Damned if the young woman’s logic didn’t make sense, too.

  “Not that I believe this is necessarily the club you’ve got in mind for your patrons,” she said, casually waving that sheet. “But even if it’s got a hint of the layout here, you’re in trouble of your own making, Thorne.” She slapped the page down decisively.

  His mouth fell open, and he quickly forced it closed. By God, she’d realized that. “Are you always this astute, Cleopatra?”

  She hung her head slightly, that telling gesture a mark of Diggory’s response to faulty missteps. “Not astute enough if I failed to realize you were in the room I’d entered.”

  For the first time, he wondered what her life had been like as one of Diggory’s whelps. He’d not considered . . . until now—until seeing that D upon her hand and her dropped shoulders—that she also might have known suffering.

  His gut clenched. Or she could be as deceptive as the man who’d become Diggory’s second-in-command—a man so much like him that he’d inherited all as though he were a firstborn son.

  Don’t be fooled by her downcast appearance and seeming innocence. The fact he’d caught her snooping in this room, and just fielded too many questions from her, was proof that he’d be wise to watch her far more closely than he had this day.

  Adair took her by the lower arm, encircling it in his palm. She gasped and made to wrench free. “Why did you tell me this?” he demanded gruffly, tightening his hold.

  The young woman puzzled her brow.

  He drew her closer so the walls of their chests brushed and she was forced to tilt the long column of her neck back to meet his gaze. “Pointing out errors, making suggestions.” Adair dropped his head down, shrinking the space between them. “Why should I believe there’s a thing real in that offering?” It was a question he asked as much for himself.

  Did he imagine the hurt that sparked in her revealing eyes? If so, it was gone as soon as it had flickered to life. Through the glass lenses he’d cleaned a short while ago, Cleopatra glowered at him.

  “Un’and me, ya jackanapes,” she hissed, giving her wrist another tug.

  He gave another light squeeze, and that instantly quelled her. Detecting her faint wince, he gentled his touch. “Despite my brothers’ and their wives’ trusting nature in letting you share a roof with us, I’d be a fool to trust your motives, Cleopatra.”

  She jutted her chin up mutinously, and that slight angling brought their foreheads colliding. “Then go ahead an’ build yar sure-to-fail hell. ’elp yarself along to your demise.” For Cleopatra’s remarkable composure, her greatest tell was the lack of mastery over her practiced, cultured tones.

  “I’ve offended you,” he wondered aloud.

  Cleopatra slammed the heel of her boot on his bare foot, and a hiss exploded through his teeth. The spitfire pounced, shoving her spare elbow against his rib cage. He grunted, and his grip slackened at the well-placed blow. She slipped around him.

  “Hellion,” he gritted out, reaching for her.

  A furious cry climbed to the rafters as he wrapped an arm about her waist and brought her back against him. She kicked and flailed with the same desperation of a person fighting for their freedom from the constable. “Ya bloody bully,” she spat, breathless as she wrestled against him. “Ya brainless, witless—”

  He brought his mouth close to her ear, relishing far too much her spirited show. “Rather uninventive of you, love,” he taunted.

  She stil
led, and then with another shriek, she renewed her struggles. Bucking and writhing against him, she fought for her freedom, and just like that, all his mirth fled as a wave of desire slammed into him. The surge of lust was momentarily crippling.

  “. . . useless, cock-less . . .”

  Except . . . blood surged through his shaft, and he sprang hard against her lower back.

  He swallowed hard; his breath came hard and fast.

  Cleopatra ceased her struggles, and he gave thanks for small favors. Then—

  “Let. Me. Go,” she spat, bucking against him.

  I am lost.

  With a groan, he spun her around and covered her mouth with his, swallowing the tide of inventive curses escaping her. He slanted his lips over hers, devouring the satiny-soft flesh.

  Cleopatra went taut against him, her lithe frame so stiff she could splinter in his embrace. A half moan, half whimper left her. Reaching up, she twined her arms about his neck and, pressing herself against him, met his kiss.

  And he, who’d always feared and despised fire, embraced this conflagration between them. Adair filled his hands with her buttocks, anchoring her close. He kneaded the perfect contours and, not breaking contact with her mouth, continued his search. Adair worked his hands over her: down her trim waist, the narrow curve of her hip. Then parting her lips, he searched his tongue around the moist, hot cavern.

  Their raspy groans melded as one. He reached between them and found the modest swell of her left breast. Through the fabric of her gown, he molded it against this palm. How perfectly she fit within his hand. His tongue mated with hers in a battle for supremacy he was content to lose. Hungry to know all of her, he sprang her breasts free of her modest dress and cupped her without the hindrance of the garment.

  She tossed her head back. “Adair,” she cried out breathlessly.

  The sound of his name on her lips fueled him. Gathering her right leg, he brought it up about his waist, twining that sinewy limb around him. He guided her back against his desk and, reclaiming her lips, swallowed the breathy sounds of her desire.

  Cleopatra twined both her hands about his neck and dragged him down closer, a woman in command who knew what she wanted, and his ardor burned all the greater that she’d been transformed into a gasping, pleading temptress in his arms.

  She is a siren and I am ensnared . . .

  Through the thick fog of lust consuming him, that truth registered, and he pulled back. He ripped away from her as horror penetrated the madness that had driven back his judgment.

  Cleopatra sagged back on her elbows. Glasses askew, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, she had the look of a well-ravished woman.

  My God, I kissed Cleopatra Killoran.

  She blinked slowly; the cloud in her eyes slowly lifted as she met his gaze. All hint of desire receded under the full weight of her ire. “Ya needn’t look so horrified,” she retorted. “It . . . it was just a kiss.” That mocking rejoinder was countered by the tremble there, and the unsteady way she got herself back to her feet.

  Unable to form a suitable mocking retort, he retreated several steps. “You aren’t to come here again,” he said, needing distance from her. Frustration with himself, and this inexplicable hold she had over him, made his words come out more sharply than he intended.

  For a long minute, he believed she’d strike him. Little gold specks of fury glittered brightly in her eyes. And for an even longer moment, he wanted her to. He deserved a facer. Then she marched off, brushing violently past him.

  “Cleopatra,” he called out as her fingers found the handle.

  She stalled, but she made no move to turn around.

  “I don’t want you wandering these halls at night,” he ordered. “Are we clear?”

  “Go to hell,” she spat.

  She’d taken his orders as an insult. Guilt knotted in his chest. She didn’t know he wanted her gone for his own sanity. Regardless, it was safer not engaging her, letting her form whatever erroneous opinion she had.

  Letting herself out, she pulled the door shut behind her with a barely discernible click.

  What in blazes had overcome him? He slammed a fist on the desk so hard, the ledgers leapt from the force of that movement. It only brought his attention to the design plans he’d pored over with Cleopatra. She’d raised valid points in terms of the layout of the hell, and her questioning seemed innocuous. Only she was a Killoran. Since Adair and his siblings had freed themselves of Mac Diggory’s clutches and established a fortune and future of their own, they’d earned eternal enemies in that gang. Through countless criminal acts carried out against Adair’s family and his gaming hell, he knew better than to trust her. Knew better than to desire her . . .

  A knock infiltrated his tumultuous thoughts—a hard, strong, powerful one that marked it different from the waiflike Cleopatra. “Enter,” he called, swiftly straightening.

  Ryker entered. His keen gaze did a sweep of the room, taking in everything. “I observed Killoran in the halls.”

  Killoran. It was, of course, the young woman’s surname . . . but there was a detached coldness that no longer fit with the spirited minx he’d held in his arms. “I sent her to her rooms,” he said as his brother entered the room and shut the door behind him. Ryker had been watching after the newest houseguest. After his exchange with Cleopatra Killoran, Adair had no right to any annoyance at having his responsibilities questioned. Adair concentrated his efforts on righting his piles.

  “You sent her to her rooms? And you didn’t see fit to personally escort her there?” Ryker asked.

  Adair briefly stopped in his tidying.

  He’d been tasked with looking after Killoran’s sister, and yet here he’d stood instead, sharing the building plans for the Hell and Sin, letting her inside that world, and then nearly taking her on his desk. “It won’t happen again,” he finally said, that reassurance laced with a double meaning. His brother could never know. It didn’t matter that Cleopatra’s kiss had said she was no virgin. It mattered the gang she belonged to, and the spell that had blotted out all logical hatred for her.

  “Carelessness—”

  “Kills,” he cut in brusquely. “I know the damned rules.” He, Ryker, Niall, and Calum had established the very guidelines for survival as boys. “I won’t forget.”

  “See that you don’t,” Ryker commanded in gravelly tones. “My family lives here.” Recently a father, Ryker, who’d always been overprotective of his kin, had developed a singular intent to look after his loved ones.

  “I will not make the same mistake,” he assured.

  With a nod, Ryker let himself out. Abandoning any hopes of sleep for the night, Adair, in a bid to set Cleopatra from his thoughts, claimed a spot at his desk and evaluated the most recent design plans for the Hell and Sin.

  His family and his club were everything . . . he’d do well to not, as Ryker said, let a Killoran threaten either.

  Chapter 8

  The following day, Cleopatra didn’t leave her temporary chambers. She rose, dressed, and took her meals—or at least accepted the trays—and remained closeted away.

  But her exile was not a result of that frosty warning issued by Adair the evening prior.

  Seated cross-legged on her bed, she stared at the doorway.

  “I kissed him,” she whispered, and the horror of that admission being spoken aloud for now the twenty-sixth time did not blunt the shame of it.

  She, Cleopatra Killoran of the Devil’s Den, had kissed Adair Thorne, proprietor of the Hell and Sin Club. Not only had she kissed him, she’d panted and pleaded like a bitch in heat. And despite her scorn and disgust for the women she’d witnessed who made fools of themselves for a man’s touch, Cleopatra had wanted more of his embrace.

  Groaning, Cleopatra dropped her head into her hands. She’d vowed to never give herself the way the whores in her club did. Those embraces were, at best, lust-crazed responses from women without any self-control; at worst, they were acts of desperation. And Cleopatra had tired of
desperation long, long ago.

  Yes, she was a woman of logic, reason, and sense who’d never part her thighs for any man.

  But how very close you came last evening . . .

  Cleopatra cringed. On a desk no less, like one of the fancily dressed whores employed at the Devil’s Den. Yet, it wasn’t her body’s response to him that curdled in her belly like spoiled milk. She’d actually enjoyed being with him. For the first time since she’d learned that she would be moving out of the Devil’s Den and giving up the only life she’d ever known, she’d been at ease.

  Adair Thorne wasn’t a fancy lord, or even like the rough-talking guttersnipes turned guards inside her brother’s hell. He’d spoken freely to her and requested her opinion on business matters.

  It was surely those reasons that she’d forgotten herself and returned his embrace.

  Of all the wonders of the world, it had been bloody Adair Thorne to break the haze of desire and restore order to her upended world. And she was grateful for it. “It was just a kiss,” she muttered. She wasn’t a delicate lady. Why, it was simply by the grace of a God she didn’t truly believe in that she’d not been divested of her virginity long ago. Nor would she ever be one of those wilting misses.

  In the world she’d been born to, a person assuaged one’s wants where they could. If one was hungry and there was food at hand, one ate. If one was thirsty—be it whiskey, ale, or water—one drank. If one had an itch between one’s legs, as the prostitutes had often referred to it, then one had it scratched.

  Cleopatra, however, hadn’t had an itch or wanted anything scratched. Judging by the whispers and giggling she’d overheard through the years, the whole business of bedding a man had seemed onerous and uncomfortable. Then Adair had put his large, callused hands all over her, and the ache between her legs had proven why a woman took a man to her rooms: reasons that didn’t solely have to do with coin . . . but rather, a wicked yearning.