Ruthless: A London gangland romantic suspense novel ( The Bailey Boys Book 3)

by PJ Adams

  “Freddie was one of the good ones.”

  “In the world of a man who breaks a friend’s nose because he loves him.”

  “Fair point.”

  They ate in silence for a time, the only noises the clack of cutlery on plates and the howl of the wind outside.

  “It was brave of you,” he said. “To come here. You knew what I was like and yet you still came here in the hope you’d find Freddie.”

  “You were not what I expected.”

  “And what was that?”

  “A monster. A beast. A ruthless gangster. That is what they said of you. Instead, I found a man who has lost a lot, and given up even more. A man who plays the piano when no-one can hear, and even knows of a single Lithuanian composer. A man who walks alone when all he wants is to be with the people he loves. You are not the man I expected.”

  She dipped her head. The food was good. The company... strange. Unexpected.

  Complicated.

  It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I want to more than I trust myself with.

  How was she to take that?

  It was just a line. Anything more than that and it became too... complicated.

  §

  There was no dessert, and they laughed at that, at how just one course was plenty for him to have taken on, given his low level of culinary skills and experience.

  They had drinks instead, a glass of port for Maggie, and a Scotch with an unpronounceable name for Owen.

  He told her of his childhood in the East End, of what it was like to grow up in as normal circumstances as possible even as awareness grew that the activities of the adults in his life were anything but normal. How it was an everyday thing as a seven-year-old to sit in the dark corner of a pub while his father and Fearless cut deals with the scariest of men. For his father to come in late at night with his face swollen and blue and blood all over his clothes. A world where violence was part of the everyday backdrop.

  She, in turn, told him of her own violent father, a figure of fear who only occasionally showed love. Of arriving in England and getting abuse on the street when people heard her accent, and landlords who turned her away because they wouldn’t have ‘dirty Poles’ and she should go back where she came from.

  “Well,” he said at one point, leaning forward on the table and cradling his glass in both hands, “this is a proper cheery evening, isn’t it?”

  They talked instead of Spain. Of his brother Dean’s place, the New Duchess, down on the Costa del Sol. Of how at least the middle Bailey Boy might actually have made a clean break from the business, against everyone’s expectations.

  “What will you do?”

  “I will call the number you gave me,” she said. “I will see if your cousin can direct me towards Alfredas. I will take it from there.”

  He nodded. “If there’s anything I can do...?”

  “Thank you.”

  She stood from the table, took her plate and cutlery to the dishwasher and then was surprised by his hand on her forearm.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t have to clear up. I’ll do it.”

  “I...”

  She waited. He was so close, his hand still on her arm.

  She was sure he would kiss her, but he did not. He had done that before and it had not gone well, she had fled... That must be what stopped him now, even as her face tilted up.

  He may be a monster.

  He may be a ruthless gangster.

  But he was trying, very hard indeed, to be a gentleman, too.

  §

  What is it that makes you bed a man like Owen Bailey?

  She knew his reputation. More than that, she had seen those flashes of the old him, when the darkness had turned to something wilder.

  She knew he was a man who had hurt many people. Whose business had been hurting people, no matter what he might claim about having had standards.

  He was the man she feared her brother wanted to become.

  And yet, there had come that tipping point, when she had gone from being here to get what she needed to being here because she needed something else altogether.

  The point where she had realized he was fighting an inner battle to be that perfect gentleman, to respect her and not pressure her as once he would have done.

  Where she had realized that she must be the one to give it that extra push.

  To raise herself up onto the balls of her feet, to reach up, take a fistful of that open shirt so that he had to respond, had to lower his head to meet her.

  Had to kiss her again. Those hard lips against hers, the scrape of his beard. The initial hesitancy, the sense that he might even pull away, that he might not want this after all.

  And then... the hand stealing up to cup the back of her head, the lips pressing harder, the tip of the tongue pressing, parting.

  She pulled away, gasping for air – not from any need but more for... punctuation, interruption, a literal breathing space.

  His eyes searched her face, as if trying to read her.

  She knew he was not an uncertain man, and yet now, around her, he hesitated, seemed unsure.

  Was that an artifact of his current circumstances, hiding here from the world, or was it only how he was with her? A caution inspired by wanting her too much...

  His free arm looped down around her waist, his hand on the small of her back, pulling her hard against hm.

  His body was lean, firm, his arousal unmistakable against her midriff.

  It had taken Maggie to seize the initiative, to take them past that tipping point, but now she gave herself up to him, a man who was used to having, to possessing, to controlling.

  Under the pressure of his body, she stumbled back, catching herself on the kitchen table, coming to half-stand, half-sit against it.

  His lips dragged across her cheek, along the line of her jaw, the roughness of his short beard inflaming the skin in a way that both lit it afire and intensified every touch.

  She clung to him, hands sliding inside his jacket, exploring the hardness of the muscles across his chest, his ribs, his back.

  Parting her legs, she hooked one foot behind his calf, arched her back and pushed herself against him. She needed to feel that hardness again, feel it pressing against her just so.

  Her skirt rode up as he forced her back onto the table.

  She heard the clatter of cutlery, dishes being swept aside.

  She leaned back onto her elbows and his hands were on her, one sliding up inside her little top, cupping a breast through the lacy fabric of her bra, squeezing.

  Her own hand moved down to the waistband of his pants, her fingers hooked in behind the belt and drew him against her.

  Where seconds before she’d been thinking about the complications of wanting someone you should never have, now was all about the moment, the sensations of his hard body against hers, the way he moved, the way they both moved together...

  Her fingers slid deeper behind the waistband of his pants, found a thickening of hair, a sudden hardness – the base of his shaft. A fingertip pressing.

  Oh my!

  Even as she fumbled with his belt and buttons, using both hands now, urgent, he was pushing at her top, sliding it up to reveal belly, ribcage, the delicate lacy cups of her bra.

  Roughly, he hooked thumbs under the cups of that bra and pushed it up and her breasts spilled free.

  He dipped his head, kissed the space between, suddenly delicate, suddenly slowing, the touch of his mouth a mere butterfly patter on sensitive skin. Lips brushing sideways against that perfect, smooth surface. Up over the swell of one breast to its peak, the sudden electric sensitivity of the areola as the tip of his tongue skated across, flicked back and caught on the nipple and she gasped, tensed, pushed herself up against him.

  As he sucked her into his mouth – a delicious wet tightness enclosing her nipple, a hard flick of tongue across it, a scrape of beard on the sensitive skin around the areola – she managed to free enough of his buttons to reach in,
find his hardness, fold her hand around it and tease it free of his pants and shorts.

  She pulled on his length, allowed her hand to slide up to the swollen head and back down to the base again, taking in its size, its hardness, its animal twitch and throb as she held him.

  Guiding him against her, where her skirt had ridden up, she pressed the head of his manhood against her mound through the flimsy fabric of her panties.

  Savored that meeting of hard and soft, the way her sex yielded to the contact. The delicious tremor deep in her groin when his shaft ground against her clit.

  He thrust against her until she felt the weight of his balls against her pussy, the base of his dick grinding hard, and that tremor stole through her again, up through her abdomen.

  Her body was alive. On fire. The steady flick of his tongue on her nipple, the pressure of his shaft and balls against her.

  He drew back, and she released him, pulled at her panties, tugging them aside.

  Reached for him, found that stunning shaft again, pulled him back in until the head pressed at her labia, parting the lips of her sex.

  One thrust, and he slid the length of her slit, gliding over her clitoris until his balls were against her again.

  He drew back, and it was almost too much, the intensity of the sensations.

  She still had her hand there, and now she pressed him against her, stilling him. Rolling her hand from side to side, his hardness against her wet, pliable heat.

  He lifted his head, and those dark, dangerous eyes fixed her like a rare trophy to the table. He eased his hips back until the head of his dick was against her opening, pushing just enough for her to feel that breathtaking sensation of parting, of being forced open.

  He paused, holding himself there, suddenly their only point of contact apart from the press of her inner thighs either side of his hips.

  He pushed. Almost imperceptible at first. A slight increase of pressure, a greater yielding as she opened to him, as he pushed inside her.

  So slow and intense!

  At first just the tip, then the whole head, and then more, more, pushing slowly until half his length was inside her, more, and then... his balls heavy against her, the hardness of his pubic bone against her clit, her legs being forced even farther apart as he pushed himself against her.

  She had never felt anything like this before.

  She had been fucked and she had made love.

  She had found many ways to reach orgasm. Fingers, tongue, a leg against her in just the right way, penetration, fast and slow.

  She was no prudish virgin.

  But never...

  Never had a man fixed her with his look, taken entire possession of that moment and done this, pushed so slowly that everything was amplified, so that every tiny tremor inside her was more powerful than any touch a man had given her before this moment.

  Kept pushing until he was fully inside her and still pushing, until he made her feel so full as she had never been full before and that tiny budding of pleasure deep in her abdomen had blossomed and expanded and she had realized he had taken her all the way to the peak with that one, slow, utterly delicious thrust.

  She clung to him, arms around his back and legs wrapped around his waist like honeysuckle.

  She cried out. She groaned. She did not know all the noises she made, only that her chest and throat hurt from doing so.

  She felt the tightening of her orgasm, clenching around him repeatedly, ebbing slowly but still intense.

  He held himself deep in her, until that pulsing had passed, then lowered himself to her again, his face to hers, his mouth, the kiss tender, a sweet, post-orgasm kiss that eased her down from the heights and simultaneously restarted things.

  He started to thrust, drawing himself back until he was almost clear and then pushing, long and slow, as if savoring every sensation.

  “I...” She couldn’t let him go all the way... They had to be safe... “I’m not...”

  He met her look, nodded, slid deep into her again.

  Buried his face against her neck, kissing and pressing, pulling back and thrusting.

  She could sense the tension growing in him, the urgency, knew this would not last long. She put a hand to his head, fingers buried in his hair. Her other hand to his back inside his shirt, fingers clawed, nails dragging.

  She started to roll her hips, matching his rhythm. Tipping her pelvis up to meet his thrust and then tilting, tightening the dragging sensation inside her as he pulled back.

  She didn’t know if he’d understood as she’d thought he had. Wasn’t sure that even if he had he would act on it.

  And then, she felt his whole body tense, his back arching as he threw his head back and cried out.

  Felt that sudden rushing, emptying sensation as he pulled clear, and when he pushed again his shaft slid up against her pussy, sliding over her clit and across her smooth mound.

  She reached down, slipped a hand between them, pressing his shaft even harder against her just as she felt it throbbing, pulsing and then a surge of wet heat between them as he came, a spurt of semen spitting up over her rucked up skirt and across her belly.

  He pulsed again, and there was more wetness, and now she clung to him, pulling him tight with her legs around him, his shaft softening, molding itself against her contours, still pulsing and she felt... an answering tightening of her own, a lazy echo of the orgasm that had taken over her senses a short time before. An aftershock, and then an easing, a slumping of two bodies against each other, on the hard, uncomfortable surface of the table that they had not even noticed was uncomfortable until now, as they paused, gasping for breath, eyes finding each other, slowly catching up.

  As they eventually eased apart, him straightening, drawing away from the wet smear between them that he had made, giving her a hand to help her straighten too, becoming again the gentleman he had tried to be before.

  12

  I tried not to. Believe me, I did.

  I tried to resist.

  She didn’t need me. Didn’t need this.

  I tried to tell her she should just go. Take Ronnie’s number on that scrap of paper I’d given her, go back to wherever it was she stayed in Tidingham, make that call and get on with her life.

  I’d had a million girls like Miglë Petrauskė. Young, attractive, drawn to something in me – the air of success, the glamour of danger, the alpha-male bullshit.

  I’d had them, used them, moved on.

  But no. In truth, no. There had never been one like her. One who came along at just the right time to save me, who reached toward something deep inside me. I’d never known anything like it, an attraction that both drew me irrevocably and drove me away because it was so unlike anything I’d known, anything I could risk.

  That moment when she’d made to leave. When we’d had our occasionally intimate and occasionally awkward dinner and she’d stood, started to clear the table and I’d stopped her with a hand on the arm.

  A hesitation, and I just couldn’t relinquish that contact, and she’d tipped her face up towards me and it was so damned perfect. When it had taken every grain of strength in my body not to take her into my arms because she didn’t need a bastard like me, but...

  Her pale gray eyes, so close I could see the darker flecks in the irises, the delicate curve of lashes, emphasized by a hint of make-up so subtle I hadn’t realized she was even wearing any until now. The cluster of tiny freckles across her cheekbones. Those full lips that I had kissed once, and never even dared hope I might kiss again.

  I started to straighten, to pull away, and then she reached for me and I was powerless before her.

  Totally fucking powerless.

  §

  Afterward, I cleaned her.

  I took a small hand-towel to that creamy trail I’d left across her smooth belly. Took her skirt and wiped it clean.

  I hadn’t anticipated anything like this, was not prepared. No condoms in the house, and she had not been prepared either, a good Catholic g
irl she later told me as we lay in each other’s arms.

  “You go to church?” I asked, surprised, although I probably shouldn’t have been.

  “It’s what you do,” she said. “What we do.”

  “Confessions will be interesting next time.”

  We’d gone to my bedroom, stood before each other in the dim light, reached tentatively for clothes that had been pulled back into place, straightened, smoothed down. I took her top and pulled it away over up-stretched arms. Dropped it on a chair and let my hands come to rest on her sides, the spread of her ribcage. Felt the rise and fall of her breath, the small-animal flutter of her heart.

  Moved my hands down and that’s when I remembered the skirt, the mess; found the buttons and the zip, eased it from her and went through to the bathroom to wipe it clean before coming back with that small towel.

  I dropped to my knees before her, put a hand lightly on her abdomen, felt thick dampness starting to dry and wiped at it with the towel. Found those tiny panties and hooked fingers inside, pulled them down across her thighs, her calves.

  I kissed her on the belly, a drag of lips and teeth, and breathed in the salty musk of our sex.

  Moved my mouth downwards to more smoothness, new contours, the wetness of my tongue finding an answering wetness.

  And later... later.

  Lying in each other’s arms, her head on my chest, an arm drawn up across my thighs.

  We’d talked forever, of childhood and past lovers, of coming to a strange country, of lost parents, and brothers who could be all kinds of frustrating. We’d talked of Norfolk and this house and the sea, and life in such a very traditional English seaside town as Tidingham, with its pier and fish and chip shops, its crazy golf and its quaint little park.

  We’d talked of just about everything apart from this. Us. How we could possibly move on from a night that should never have been.

  Some time in the night she got up to use the bathroom and I watched through half-open eyes as she moved about the room, slender and pale and utterly, utterly beautiful.

  §

  And in the morning she had gone.