by Shara Azod
“Go ahead, kitten,” Shannon whispered to Shay. “Ask your questions.”
Probably shouldn’t have asked her to do that. Without missing a beat, Shay opened her mouth and blurted, “What are you on?”
Okay, not exactly tactful, but apparently Shannon was amused given the rumble of a chuckle she felt against her back more than heard.
“I ain’t no druggie n—” Definitely South Boston, but “Bubbles” was wise enough to catch herself. “I’ve been working a couple of jobs.” She shrugged as if that shit was believable. “I’m just tired is all.”
Right, and Shay was the Virgin Mary.
“Cool. Take your shoes and socks off and spread your toes.” Strippers made their money off their bodies. In Shay’s opinion, Bubbles wasn’t so far gone she didn’t care about her appearance, so Shay was willing to bet the tracks were between her toes.
“Is she serious?” Bubbles demanded, looking past Shay to Shannon. “Who the hell is she?”
“The person conducting the interview.” Back was the cold, dispassionate voice. Shannon’s tone conveyed he could give a shit about anything happening right now, though somehow Shay knew that wasn’t true. No matter how bored he might appear, Shay knew she was being judged. “If you want a position in one of my houses I suggest you show the person with the power to say yes or no the proper respect.”
Now the mountain Mickey’s eyes bulged out of his head. There were muffled protests of some kind from the woman in a chair—
Wait, there was a woman tied to a fucking chair in the corner with what looked like a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth. Why the hell hadn’t she noticed that before? Skinny, but not anything like the addict standing in front of the desk. The woman looked…well, foreign. And pissed—her eyes shot daggers at Shay. For some reason that just pissed her off. Like she had anything to do with the bitch being tied up. Just because she was damned tired of—well, life—she flipped off the tied woman, then turned her head back to the druggie.
“Look, I know you saw the line of women waiting,” Shay snapped, feeling froggy. God, it felt good to pretend she was old Shay, just for a little while. The man just seemed to goad her inner street girl.
“Fuck this. I don’t need this shit.” Druggie turned and attempted to flounce off, only she tripped over her own feet and stumbled a little before righting herself.
There was a small silence as soon as she slammed out of the office, Mickey at her heels. Oh, damn, did she go too far? Daring to turn her head to look at him, Shay saw Shannon regarding her quietly, but there was still no expression on his face. She tried to scoot off his lap, just a little bit, but his arms locked her in place. Totally unexpectedly, he rubbed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.
That wasn’t a touch a man gave to a hooker, prostitute or call girl. That was a lover’s caress. Maybe not a wife or a girlfriend, but it was something reserved for the person a man was truly intimate with, and that wasn’t always the woman he was with in the open.
“This might go a hell of a lot faster than I anticipated.” He spoke as though talking to himself, though she could understand every word. “Something tells me this life isn’t as new to you as your little dossier claims, and I am not referring to hooking as you well know.”
Yeah, she was real clear what he meant, and she could’ve kicked herself in the ass. The last thing she wanted was for this man to find out who she was. If South Boston had any plans on an alliance or even doing business in Mattapan, which hadn’t been the case in the last twenty years, she was one juicy peace-making pawn. No matter how much Shannon O’Shea turned her on, she didn’t know this man, and she damn sure didn’t trust him. Everyone who lived his life was a criminal and you couldn’t trust a criminal, not even one you’d known all your life. She’d found that out the hard way.
“You’re not going to tell me who you are, are you?” He may have asked, but Shay knew that he knew the answer.
“Sunshine,” she responded, “I’m nobody from nowhere.”
“You know I’m going to find out, don’t you?”
Right. She hadn’t chosen South Boston to get lost by accident. There were no open lines of communication with her neighborhood. All he would find out was rumor and innuendo. It wasn’t like the men looking for her would ever dream to look for her here. They would waste time scouring Roxbury, West End, maybe even Cambridge.
“There’s nothing to find,” she lied without blinking. The thing about lying is you had to find the truth in the lie—that way you could speak it with complete conviction. There was nothing he needed to know, nothing that affected him and his in any way. In essence, there was nothing for him to find.
“So you say, sugar.” Turning back to the pile of folders, he pitched the one on the woman who’d just left in the small barrel by the desk. “Are you ready for the next one?”
Shay turned back to the matter at hand, but she kept the warning in the back of her head. If he even looked like he was beginning to unearth her secrets she needed to be gone. Best to come up with an escape plan now. Being unprepared had almost been her downfall; she wasn’t about to get caught up again.
Chapter Three
Twenty girls was more than enough for one night. Really, it wasn’t, but Shannon had about all he could take.
“Send the rest of the girls away, Mickey. Tell them to come back tomorrow at noon.” But then he glanced at the woman who’d fallen to sleep on his lap. “Make that six in the evening.”
There was no way he was going to be done exploring this creature that had wandered into his life by noon. Maybe by six he would’ve fucked her out of his system. He doubted it, but he was damn sure going to try.
“Magpie?” Mickey spoke for the first time tonight, nodding toward Magda. He was a man of few words, literally. Magda was also asleep, or pretending to be. No doubt she had watched the interviews avidly, really to report to Paddy the first chance she got. Not that Shannon gave a shit, but having snitches in every aspect of his life rode his nerves hard. The quicker he weeded out Paddy loyalists the better.
“Take one of the room and leave her tied near you. You can pick one of the girls if you like.”
“Not here.” Mickey shook his head, but that was all he offered by way of explanation. He walked over, untied Magda, hefted her over his shoulder and trudged out of the room without another word.
Shannon sat for a moment looking down on the woman he held. Sunshine, his ass. Not only had she never been any kind of pro, she’d never been a stripper or a mistress or anyone’s side chick. This was a woman who was used to running shit—she knew her worth and demanded others treated her as such. Oh, she had tried to be all compliant. There were times when, questioning the women trying to get into a house, her vast knowledge of running whores shone through. In fact, he was willing to bet she could straighten out the Arsenal, organize the bookies, and work out a schedule of goods coming off ships with Kieran, all without breaking a sweat.
So she wasn’t knew to criminal life, even though she hadn’t ever worked the ground floor. For one thing, she was educated. A Boston girl for sure, but one that had either some college or a degree or two. So what the hell was she doing here, trying to become a pro? Her hands were soft and smooth, telling him she wasn’t blue collar, but there was a toughness about her. Plus she saw things he hadn’t in some of the applicants. Drugs was an easy call on the first girl, but she’d spotted a girl on the run from an abusive relationship, a chick with mental issues not obvious until she started to probe, two girls trying to hide from the cops, and four underage girls trying desperately to be older than they were. There were a lot of other little problems she found, leaving the grand total of women hired at twenty, less than a third of what he needed. But the hires were quality.
The thing that nagged at him, that he couldn’t quite shake, was the fact she could spot chicks who had possibly been plants for his father. Not that she knew what she was doing, but she seemed to be sensitive to people who didn’t smell quite r
“There’s something off about her, but I can’t put my finger on it,” she’d said, musing out loud more than talking to him. “She was too perfect, like she was from central casting or something.”
Not how he would put it, but the same sentiment.
Who was she? It was entirely possible she had been sent by Paddy, some kind of catnip trap to weaken his resolve. But Shannon was having a hard time believing that. Paddy was plenty street smart, but he wasn’t smart enough to plant someone like Sunshine into the heart of Shannon’s operations. First of all, the old man thought the Arsenal and the pharmacies were where Shannon planned to build up. Gambling and protection were as they always were—nice but not really raking in the big bucks.
Nope. There were enough guns on the streets of South Boston. More money to be had shipping elsewhere anyway. And the pharmacies needed to be regulated a hell of a lot better. Too many mothers and fathers had been turned into walking zombies off the shit Paddy had been pushing. There used to be a code—you didn’t shit where you ate. Paddy shat where he ate, slept and fucked. Working girls were often the most loyal workers. Their business was providing a vice that would always be in demand—pussy. From here, he could run everything. And this woman could help…
Fuck no! What the hell was he thinking? If there were a brain cell in his head, he’d have hustled her on out the doors five minutes ago. This was trouble he didn’t need.
Ah, shit. Who was he kidding? It was trouble he’d bought the moment she stood in front of him, eyes flashing a challenge. Before she had removed her dress to reveal an hourglass figure that made him pant like a boy seeing his first pair of tits he’d wanted her. Wanted to accept that unspoken challenge and make her beg for him, scream for him. There was no way Paddy could’ve known what his reaction would be to this dark-skinned beauty, because Shannon hadn’t known until the moment he laid eyes on her. Besides, Paddy was a prejudiced son of a bitch, burning bridges with every other ethnic group in Boston, leaving the neighborhood dangerously isolated when it came to things that couldn’t be done in the light of day.
Who the hell was she? And why had she just curled up in his lap like a damn cat as soon as she started to get tired? Like she had every right to just abruptly stop interviewing and fall asleep. And he’d let her.
Yeah, the best thing for him to do was send her packing. Only, when he stood with her cradled in his arms, he headed toward the back stairs to the top floor where he’d been staying for a while. He didn’t even attempt to put her down until he was at what had become his bed; even then he only left her long enough to lock them inside the room that had been converted to resemble a decent-sized studio apartment.
There were a thousand damn good reasons not to do what he was about to do. Didn’t stop his hand from reaching down to release the front clasp of the bra that had been taunting him all damn night, pushing up those full brown globes that were her breasts. Daaamn. Luscious, beautiful breasts spilled free, bouncing a little as he freed them from their restraint. Circling his finger around one dark areola, he stared at Sunshine’s face, willing her to wake. He wasn’t going to take what she wasn’t willing to give, and she couldn’t very well give while she was asleep. But he would touch, squeeze and play until she woke up, seeing as she had allowed it when she was sitting on his lap.
Thank Christ he didn’t have long to wait. Her eyes flickered, then slowly opened. She didn’t say a word, didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. In fact she moved ever so slightly into his touch.
“It’s time for your audition,” he whispered roughly, pinching down on the hard peak of her nipple.
“Are you going to audition all of us who made it through the interview process?” The little knowing smile she gave him told him she was teasing, but he didn’t like the implication.
“Maybe,” he shot back, lowering his head toward her chest. He had to taste; the way the skin surrounding the nipple puckered, pulling tight, led him to believe that her breasts were sensitive. He really wanted to test that theory. Plus, he didn’t want her to see his face. The woman was far too perceptive for his liking.
There was no maybe. None of the other women did a damn thing for him. That in itself wasn’t unusual; he spent a lot of time in whorehouses, so he was used to the scantily clad women all over the place. Most of the girls had tried to come on to him at one time or another. The worst thing he could do was fuck anyone in his stable. He wasn’t a corner pimp; this was a business. Backstabbing, jealous hissy fits weren’t prices he was willing to pay for some ass.
But this woman—he would risk it.
As soon as his mouth made contact with the soft, heated skin of her breasts he knew without a doubt this woman wasn’t going to one of the houses. He was keeping her. For a little while anyway. Just long enough to figure her out. For now he had to feast.
Damn, she smelled like spring in the fucking country! As soon as his lips closed around a stiff nipple, her hands clutched at his hair, her fingers curling against his scalp, her arms attempting to pull him closer. She was delicious. While he feasted, moving from one nipple to the other, he ran one hand down the generous contours of her body. Her figure was fucking perfect. Not one of those skinny bitches who looked as though they were starving, not fake or plastic-looking, either. Squeezing her pliable flesh as he languidly made his way to the warmth between her thighs to cup her sex he reveled in her fullness. So wet, so ready, so fucking sexy. He could feel her heat, feel the dampness soaking her panties. The need that had been building all night was reaching a crescendo; the room smelled of raw lust. She whimpered a little, thrusting her hips up to try to force his hand down harder against her.
“Poor baby,” he crooned, lifting his head so he could watch her reaction. There was no acting, the naked urgency all over her face. Pushing her panties to the side, he slid a single finger down the seam of her slit, careful not to touch her clit. Back and forth, he moved his finger, using her own juices to ease the friction. She tried to buck, swivel, even grasp his hand to move him inside. He responded with a quick, hard smack against her exposed cunt, making sure his palm landed directly over her clit, then resumed his leisurely exploration as if nothing had happened.
“Please.” The hushed gasp was more panted than spoken. “Fuck, don’t play with me.”
Generally he didn’t allow women in his bed to make demands. He didn’t like talking at all. But this woman—God, the sound of her voice almost had him coming in his pants. “Don’t you worry, little Sunshine. I promise I am going to give you everything you need.” That name was going to have to go. Later. Much, much later, he’d put some thought into it.
Removing his hand he gave her pussy another quick smack before moving to pull down her panties and toss them on the floor. Sliding down the bed so he could be face-to-face with his next feast, Shannon spread her thighs, placed her feet flat on the mattress and leaned back. Shit, she was perfect! That pussy was waxed, not shaven, all smooth and edible looking. The puffy lips of her labia seemed to beg to be kissed.
“Don’t move, sugar,” he warned, “or I’m going to make you pay. I just want to look at you for a second.”
Ah, hell, he wasn’t going to be able to hold out. Not looking at her shimmering slit, coated with juices he was dying to taste. Damn sure not when she was looking at him like he was her favorite dessert. And there was no way in hell this woman was any kind of a hooker; and he damn sure wasn’t going to have any degenerate slobbering all over her. There would be no fucking her out of his system tonight. With a defeated little groan, he buried his head between her spread thighs, taking a long, slow swipe at her honey.
“Fuck, baby, you taste so damn good.” He was going to have to have a taste at least once a day for a good seventy years or more.
He dug his tongue deep, savoring every drop, every pleasured groan. Why the hell had he waited so long to do this? The heat between them was crazy hot; he’d been a fool not to claim her before now. It took the threat of someone man enough to actually take her away to get him to see how much he wanted this, needed it. He loved the way her hips ground down on his mouth, the tug of her hands in his hair.
Moving up, he sucked her clit into his mouth, flicking at it with his tongue while he sank two fingers deep into her quim. Her taste was exquisite. She was spicy mixed with sweet, a perfect combination. He relentlessly drove her higher and higher until her body started to tremble, then he backed off and blew against her quivering cunt. Mother fuck—he could actually see the pulsations. His dick was so fucking hard he was humping the bed like some kind of freak.
Putting a distance between them was the only way Shannon could pull himself together. Her scent was soft and sweet, beckoning him to take another taste. Damned if he didn’t, finding himself lowering his face right back between her thighs. Pulling her legs open wider, Shannon swiped his tongue against her slightly parted vaginal lips, flicking her clit a bit before retreating. This time his tongue stabbed deep inside her honeyed center as he used his fingers to lightly pinch her clit.
“Yeah, yeah, just like that,” Sunshine cried, rocking her hips against his face. “God yes. Oh God— Oh fuck!”
Hell yes, the sound of getting her off was the best thing he’d ever heard. And he couldn’t seem to get enough of her sweet cream. Every lick made him want more; every time she came made him want to force her to come again. Like a big old cat, he swirled his tongue all around to experience every nuance. He sucked, used his lips to pull on her labia, then finally thrust two thick fingers inside.
“Fuck! Yes!” Letting go of his head, her nails clawed at his shoulders, her body moving to get as much as she could.
Damn, he loved the way she rode his fingers! Her sweet pussy sucked him inside, holding him in a grip every bit as tight as a closed fist. It was going to be one hell of a tight fit, but he was down for the job. When her breathing started to get erratic and her movements more frantic, he gently bit her clit, sending her so far over she screamed, her body convulsing wildly.
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