by M. O’Keefe
“And I repaid you in blood.” I nodded my head. “That’s your barter and trade system, I just didn’t realize it.”
“You had a choice.”
“Don’t—” I gasped. “Don’t you fucking comfort yourself with that lie.”
Caroline’s tongue came out and touched the middle of her upper lip. “Fine. You’re right. I needed the senator under the control of the Constantines and not the Morellis. He expressed some interest in you and I saw a way to keep his loyalty.”
“Well, that worked out great, didn’t it? For all of us.”
“I didn’t think he would”—Caroline shook her head—“actually hurt you.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” My sarcasm was a goddamn delight.
She blinked at me, stunned, and I smiled at her with all of my teeth. “Why did you have him killed?”
“The senator?” Caroline’s eyes went wide and then narrowed. “Is that what Ronan told you? That I gave him the order?”
I tried to remember the conversation. Had he told me? Had I assumed and he let me believe what he wanted? Caroline took my silence as a yes.
“No, honey, Ronan went rogue on that one,” she said, settling into that old position of hers. I was the child, she was the adult and the world was far too complicated for me to understand.
Fuck. That.
“You’re saying he did it on his own?”
“Apparently your bruises were a step too far for my bulldog.”
“Caroline—”
“Yes. Ronan killed him for his own reasons.”
“Did you order him to seduce me?”
She shook her head slowly, a smile on her face. She was really enjoying this. “Not even I’m that cruel. I imagine he makes the senator feel like a prince?”
Oh, how wrong she was. How clearly she did not know Ronan. But I wouldn’t be the one to inform her. To change her mind. “You wanted me occupied. Distracted.” That was what he told me.
Her face folded into lines of pity. “He lied.”
“Then why…?” I stopped because I didn’t want to hear her speculation. I didn’t actually want to hear Ronan’s name out of her mouth. But the rug was fully pulled out from under my feet.
“I imagine,” she said, “that he took pity on you and your bruises and the way you clung to the corner of every room scared of your own shadow. He always was a sucker for a victim.”
I flinched and regretted it immediately. Showing her that much. Giving her any more of myself.
“Is that why you have a bounty on his head?”
“No. I have a bounty on his head to remind him who he works for.” Caroline got to her feet and I realized I was standing, too. And so the gloves were off; we were done pretending. I was not a child and she did not save me.
“Call it off,” I said.
“Why should I?”
I stepped towards her, not only ready but suddenly longing to do violence to her. To snatch out her hair. To bloody her nose. My muscles clenched with a need for action. For blood. After all she’d done to me, to my family, smashing her face against the desk seemed like the least I could do. She must have seen my bloodlust, barely contained. She stepped back and held up her hand.
“Fine,” she said. “I will remove the order. But he owes me answers.”
“He doesn’t owe you shit, Caroline. You don’t seem to understand that. We don’t owe you anything.”
“That’s remarkably ungrateful of you,” Caroline said, managing to appear hurt by my attitude. Like she was a mother and I was a surly teenager. I felt my temper fraying and surrounded myself with some of Ronan’s icy chill.
“Do you know why the Morellis wanted me dead or alive?” I asked.
“My guess is that it had something to do with the senator and the work he was doing for them?”
“Do you know what kind?”
“The bad kind, Poppy. Oh, they have Morelli Holdings to do legitimate business, but they always have something on the side. Especially Bryant.” She looks almost wistful. “He can’t help himself. No doubt he’ll try to pull Ronan in as well.”
I recoiled at the thought. “Ronan won’t work for them.”
“That you can still be this innocent, Poppy, is proof that I did the right thing trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“I know you don’t trust me. I understand that, I do. But everyone has a purpose. And you were no exception. But everything is different now. Ronan is a Morelli.”
“Ronan won’t hurt me,” I said, sure of that, at least. He’d killed the senator because he hurt me. He seduced me because he’d been unable to stop himself.
If you were hurt, it would kill me.
I wanted to take these three truths and study them, roll them in the sunlight and add them up, but now was not the time.
“You,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not so sure of.”
She grabbed my hands and I was so stunned I let her. “Take everything out of your accounts and leave. For your sake and your sister’s. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Especially not Ronan. Just disappear.”
Leave Ronan? He was the only one who treated me like I mattered.
He’d killed the senator because he hurt me. Seduced me despite knowing it might cost him everything. Married me to keep me safe. My heart lurched forward, straining at all the leashes and chains I had around it.
“Did you know who Ronan was?” I asked Caroline. “In Ireland? Is that why you brought him here?”
“You mean did I know he was the missing Morelli?” Caroline asked and then nodded. Even suspecting it, I barely managed to swallow my gasp of surprise. Caroline was playing the long con and had been for years. “I had Gwen followed. I would have thought the Morellis would have done the same, but when they disown someone, they mean it.”
“Eden Morelli knew,” I said.
“She was always the one to watch for in that family. The only one with a modicum of intelligence.”
“That’s why you brought Ronan here?” I asked.
Something happened on Caroline’s face, like the mask she wore, not just of compassion or kindness but of the total sum of her humanity, fell away. “Was I supposed to leave him, Poppy? A Morelli as a petty thief? A part-time hustler? All that brilliance wasted? When I could raise him up as my own? The perfect trump card.”
I shook my head, disgusted with her. With every bit of her and all the times in my life I believed her lies.
“Now he’s mine. And you won’t touch him, Caroline. You don’t have any power left over him. Send your meat puppet down there and Ronan will kill him for breakfast. And if he doesn’t, I will.”
“You’re not this person, Poppy,” Caroline whispered.
“You don’t have the slightest idea who I am.”
I left without saying goodbye. Without a single other word. Remarkably, I came in here without a purse. Or a coat. No bag. Just myself. And I still walked out of there feeling like I’d shed something. Left something behind. Something heavy and cumbersome. Raj was standing by the car looking nervous. “Everything all right?” I asked when I approached.
“Your phone was blowing up,” he said as I climbed in the back seat. “It was Ronan. I didn’t answer. But then he called me.”
“You told him where we are?” He nodded and winced. I grabbed my phone and called Ronan, hoping I could get him in time before he unleashed a war on Caroline Constantine.
“The fuck, Poppy!” Ronan yelled, answering before the phone even rang. “You went to the Constantines alone? Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine. All is…fine.”
“I’m coming to Bishop’s Landing,” he said. “I’ve got twenty men—”
“Stop. Call off your men.” We pulled away from the Constantine compound, leaving it in my rearview mirror. “I’m coming home.”
CHAPTER TEN
Ronan
This was completely fucking unacceptable. Completely out of bounds. I paced from the window w
ith its view of the city, past the door and the kitchen, down the hall to my bedroom and back. What was needed here, clearly, was a reestablishment of the fucking rules. I said stay and Poppy stayed. Those were the fucking rules. And now, well, there would be punishment, wouldn’t there? On her head. On her fucking head. Going off to the Constantines by herself, like some kind of…what? I didn’t even have the words for this shite.
There was a knock on the front door and I wrenched it open, revealing Poppy and right fucked Raj behind her. Words with him later, to be sure.
“I’m probably going to need a key—” Poppy was saying and I grabbed her hand, pulled her inside.
“Ronan—” Raj started, and I pointed my finger at his face.
“Later,” I said and slammed the door.
“Ronan.” Poppy pulled herself free and took a step back. “I can see you’re upset.”
“Upset?” I shouted and then wished I didn’t. Poppy loved emotion. She thought she was winning when I showed it. And she couldn’t think this kind of behavior would be rewarded. I stepped forward and Poppy stepped back. “I’m not upset, Poppy,” I said in a calm, silky voice thick with my father’s accent when he was deep in a rage. There wasn’t much I could do about that.
“You seem upset,” she said. Scared but trying to be cute. I was not, absolutely not, going to love that. I was not going to be moved by her quivering lips or that fucking red tank top that clung to her breasts. Was she even wearing a bra? What was she doing walking around like that? She wore dark makeup around her eyes that made her look young and edgy and so different from the scared mouse I met so long ago. I’d left a sleeping girl with nightmares and opened the door to…some new creature.
“What did I say last night?” I asked her, and she stepped back again. I followed. One step at a time until she hit the back of the couch. “Poppy, what did I fucking say?”
“Not to go. Not to go anywhere. But, Ronan, I’m not a child.”
“You’re acting like one.”
“Stop it,” she snapped, and braced a hand against my chest. Like she could hold me at bay. I was a million times stronger than her, worlds harder and meaner. “I’m acting like an adult and you don’t scare me.”
I knew how to scare her. How to destroy those rose-colored glasses she wore when she looked at me.
Pain.
I smacked her hand away and she didn’t look so sure of me anymore. But still that chin came up like she was daring me. I stepped back. “Take off your clothes.”
“You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking? You act like a child, you’ll be punished like a fucking child.”
“Ronan—”
“Do it. Or I’ll do it for you.”
She stepped sideways, trying to get out of reach. “You wouldn’t—”
I snagged her around the waist. Too much fucking talking. The tank top she wore was silky and hung from her shoulders by tiny little straps that snapped like string in my fists. She gasped and I got so fucking hard. I snapped the other one and she put a hand to her shirt like a damsel defending her modesty. I’m going to fuck that modesty right out of her. I am going to defile her seven different ways.
“What…” She licked her lips, her eyes wide. Unsure. Scared. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Teaching you a lesson.” I threw her over my shoulder and she shrieked, her hands smacking my back. She wore silly fucking shoes, so I undid them and tossed them to the ground as I walked back to the bedroom where I was going to tie her down until all this shit was done. I tossed her on the bed where she bounced, her shirt torn, her breasts bare.
“Ronan,” she said, scrambling backward, and I grabbed her by the ankle, reeling her into me like a fish. Her pants had wide legs and were made out of linen. “You were scared—”
“You should be scared.” I grabbed the waist and pulled, the button pinging off. She screamed and my cock jumped. I didn’t bother undoing the zipper. I just tore her pants open.
“You were scared. For me.”
“Poppy. Swear to God—”
I yanked the pants off her body, revealing black lace underwear. The breath got knocked out of me. I’d never seen her wear anything like this before. Blatantly sexy. Underwear that demanded to be seen. Appreciated. It was lingerie for a lover and she was wearing it. For me. Bought it thinking of me. Put it on this morning thinking of this. This speechless cataract of a moment.
“What the fuck is this?” I growled, tossing her ruined pants on the ground.
I realized my mistake too late. A man dedicated to hurting her wouldn’t be distracted by a lass’s fucking knickers. The power shifted and the razor’s edge of fear I’d been sharpening in her dulled.
“You like it?” she asked and then rolled over onto her stomach. “It has a bow…”
I saw the fecking bow. Right there at the curve of her ass like she was a present for me. It was pink and made out of ribbon. If I pulled that ribbon, she would be revealed to me. It was so pretty it gutted me.
She was looking at me over her shoulder and then had the audacity to wiggle her ass.
I sat on the edge of the bed and hauled her over my legs. Poppy wasn’t dumb. It took her a second to realize what I was planning and she tried to buck her way off me. I held her down with one arm across her shoulders. My other hand cupped the full curve of her ass. Palming it, my fingers slipping between her cheeks. I squeezed her flesh until she squeaked.
“You want to spank me, do it because it’s fun,” she said. “Not because you have some kind of authority over me and my body.”
“Who says I don’t?”
“Me. And you.” Again she looked at me over her shoulder and I wondered how she constantly had this power. How she took what I wanted and gave it back to me with more. How she took my fear and rage and gave me sexy underwear with bows on it. How was I supposed to live like this?
I moved to shift her off me, to stand. To get space and balance. But she parted her legs and my fingers slipped into the heat and wet between her legs. I groaned, closing my eyes in pain. “I think,” she breathed, her voice small and young and I didn’t know if she was pretending and I didn’t fucking care. All of it worked. The quiver of her pussy against my fingers. The wobble of her tits against my leg. The way my blood hammered through my cock. “I think I like it.”
“You’re a fucking problem, Poppy,” I snarled, slipping my fingers over her clit, making her jump.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be.”
“Yeah, you fucking do. You’re stubborn and you’re foolish and you think the world can’t hurt you and you wear this silly underwear.” I pushed her legs out wide over mine, pulling the lace against all her sensitive parts until she gasped. Maybe with pain. Maybe pretending. I didn’t know and I was too far gone. I was hurting, it was only fair that she joined me.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
“Put you in your place.” I brought my hand down against her ass. She jumped and squealed and her flesh rippled. I did it again, losing my grip on control. On everything. Certainly, on her. I slipped my hand between her legs again as if to make sure she was still with me. She was wet down her legs, and as I circled her clit, she sobbed. I yanked the underwear down below her ass, the red print of my hand satisfying to me on some cellular level.
“You like this?” I asked and smacked her ass again. She cried out, arching against my leg, searching for pressure and friction because she was about to come. “No.” I held her hips down, shifted my leg out of the way. “You don’t fucking get what you want, Poppy. Not until I say.”
“What do you want? Ronan?” She looked at me again over her shoulder, flushed and her eyes blissed out. Wild. “You want me to suck your cock? I will. I’ll suck it so good—”
“I want you to promise not to go anywhere without me again.”
Her eyes narrowed. That little sexy pout of hers vanished. “No.”
“No?”
“I won’
t make that promise.”
I smacked her ass again and she stretched out her arms as if trying to grab onto something. There was no controlling this woman. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with you?”
“You could try trusting me,” she said. “Trust me the way I trust you.”
I rolled her off my legs, her knees hitting the floor maybe too hard, and I worried I’d hurt her. But she stretched the top of her body against the bed, her knees still on the floor, her ass and the bow arched towards me. I pulled off my belt, the leather making a threatening sound that pulled her eyes to me, wide and suddenly unsure. So my brave girl had a limit. Good to know. I toed off my shoes, pulled off my pants; her eyes wide at the sight of my cock. I stroked it, feeling the orgasm barreling towards me, out of control and unstoppable. “Spread your legs,” I told her, and she did, still watching me.
“Ronan?” Oh, the thread of fear in her voice, it made me crazed. “What are you going to do?”
“You said you trusted me.” I was mean and I was pushed out of my head by her. She looked at me a long time as I stroked my cock, come seeping out the tip. I wiped it up with my fingers and smeared it on her ass. I did it again and smeared it against her asshole. Her eyes went wide and her breath caught and I saw her wrestle with fear and trust. And just when I thought she was going to say no. Just when I thought she’d remember I wasn’t the man she wanted me to be, she smiled at me and then turned away, resting her forehead against her hands. She arched her ass and spread her legs. Complete surrender.
Absolute trust. “Just…be gentle,” she whispered.
I fell to my knees behind her. I was too far gone for gentle. For patience. I was the animal she made me. I ripped the underwear off and covered her body with mine. I positioned my cock at the entrance of her pussy and pushed my way inside. My way home. She was swollen and hot and still so tight. She pushed forward, away, and I followed, not giving her the chance to escape. To breathe. She was already coming. I could feel it in her pussy clamping down on me.
Poppy was sobbing nonsense. “Please” and “fuck” and “more.” I braced myself tight against her, riding out her orgasm with her until it faded into twitches and aftershocks and she was limp and slick between my body and the bed. “Again,” I told her.
