Filthy Desire: A Mafia Romance (The Dirty Kings of Vegas Book 4)

by Frankie Love

  Liam’s eye glints straight past him and wanders over me, stroking every inch of me. From my feet all the way to my eyes, then slowly all the way back.

  I feel like I’m being unwrapped.

  He pauses on my face and twinkles with a look that’s like, Well, hello! before he allows Jack to guide him to the wide, carpeted stairs.

  My tits are perky and my panties are drenched. And my buds are all swollen and buzzing. All three.

  “If it’s a girl you want,” Jack is telling Liam, “Just say. Tell me whatever you have a craving for. Not Tegan, though. Look all you like at our little mousey there, but don’t touch. Tegan is family. Well, she’s adopted. So hands off.” He touches Liam’s arm. “Besides, I have plans for her.”

  Liam stops dead and looks down at Jack’s hand on his forearm, then back up into Jack’s face.

  Jack snatches his hand away like it’s scalded. Liam turns slowly to look back at me. His pale eyes are hard. They shine like diamonds. The two men turn the corner.

  I quiver inside and melt.

  He’s more than twice my age and he looks like he could eat me alive. I try to tell myself that would be terrible.

  If I was still a practicing Catholic girl, I know that I’d be going straight to Hell for the thoughts I’m having. They’re beyond sinful.

  Or just for how filthy wet my panties are now. They make it hard for me to walk back to the kitchen.

  With the loaded tray, I’m crossing the hallway when I catch sight of Aaron, Jack’s eldest, slipping through a door. The sight of him sets me on edge.

  Glasses rattle on the tray as I take it into the den. Liam O’Malley gives my over-stuffed assets another slow once-over.

  The two men sprawl in the big armchairs. Liam looks into my eyes with a respectful and courteous nod. I’m not used to chivalry. Dimples poke in his cheeks.

  Jack tells Liam, “Tegan is a stray we took in. Out of kindness. But she’s a lucky girl. She’s destined to marry my favored son, Aaron.”

  Liam watches me. I return his gaze as steadily as I can. Inside I’m trembling.

  Liam’s voice scrapes and drawls. “Maybe Tegan can make up her own mind.”

  The glasses rattle again as I set the tray on Jack’s carved table.

  I serve Liam his drink, and I try to return his gaze. I study him, head to foot and back. Like he did with me. My visual tour of his body gets stopped at his pants. A huge ridge lifts and slowly bulges, pointing at me.

  A jolt shakes me deep inside.

  I don’t dare look at Jack. And I can’t keep staring at the front of Liam’s pants. It twitches again. My feet shuffle and I stumble.

  The whiskey I’m serving Liam splashes out of the tumbler and all over his pants. I reach for a white linen napkin to wipe him before I realize what a bad idea that is. Still hot, flustered and befuddled, I limply hand him the napkin.

  While I shakinly pour Laim another shot, Jack laughs.

  “You see? She really is a rescue pet. But we’ll nurse her into shape.” And he tells me, “Thanks, Tegan. Leave the glasses and the tray. You’d best head back to the kitchen. You’ll be safer.” His laugh erupts again. “We all will, too.”

  Liam’s eyes have not left me once.

  Fumbling with the door, I almost stumble again, struggling to get myself out of there.

  I hurry back to the cold, sterile kitchen.

  Annoyed with myself, I lean against the kitchen counter for breath. I shouldn’t beat myself up about how my body responds—it’s just the effects of excitable hormones. Chemical fireworks and fizzes—it’s physical. Nobody can help that.

  It shouldn’t make me a slave, though.

  Still steadying myself with one hand against the sink, I fill a glass with cold water. I can’t even find the energy to get ice. Greedily I glug the whole glass down, almost spilling it.

  Then I hear the voice behind me. A cold feeling trickles down my spine. I didn’t hear him come in. Could he have been here all the time?

  “Thirsty girl.”

  Aaron. Six foot four of entitlement and rage, carying scatter-gun adolescent resentment into his late twenties.

  “We should see what we can do to help you there.”

  He would be okay looking if his face weren’t fixed in a storm of grudge and blame.

  I turn slowly to face him. My ass rolls against the cabinet. Pressing back when I see how near his grin is.

  “Shocked are we, little mousey?” His hot breath makes me wince as he leers down at me. “Stunned at being suddenly alone. In close quarters with a big, hard cock?”

  I know the way to deal with a bully is to face them down. Better still, knock them down. I wouldn’t have the strength to do that to Aaron O’Leary. Not even if I could hypnotize him first.

  He moves nearer. Close enough that I couldn’t even get a swing at him. If I put all I had into driving my knee into his balls, I would only jam my thigh between his. That would make him think I was gagging for him.

  If I was a smart girl, I would let him think I was into it. Let him take it that way. Go with it. Wait and hold back. However long it took.

  Then smash his balls.

  Or bite off the end of his cock. Fucker.

  But I can’t do it. I haven’t got the grit or the strength. Not enough to go through what it would take to reach that position. I couldn’t do it. A botched move would only make it worse.

  That shows them you’re weak. it empowers them.

  “Aaron, don’t.” It’s feeble, but it’s all I’ve got. I say it with enough force to deflate him, though. He hesitates. Takes half a step back.

  But then he rallies. “Acting prim and pure now, are you, mousey? I can’t wait to see the shock and pain in your face when I screw my hard, fat cock up your ass.”

  Reflex takes over. I jab my knee up as hard as I can and I whirl my fists at him.

  His grin splits wide as he overpowers me.

  Chapter Four

  Liam

  I came out for a glass of water and a moment away from Jack’s lying face. Sounds of a struggle come from behind the kitchen door. I turn the handle extra quietly and and enter fast.

  Jack’s son, the lumbering Aaron, has Tegan held by the wrists. Her face reddens as she struggles. I can’t see his face, but I know the type well enough. He’s the type of man who might amuse himself pulling the legs off a spider.

  Jack obviously invested his ambitions for the future in this overgrown brat. He’s in for a lifelong chain of crushing disappointments.

  Spoiled brutes like Aaron are all too common in the life. A man works hard, makes something of his life, then he wants to give his children the advantages he feels he missed out on. But it’s a total waste if you don’t teach them gratitude first.

  I drop my voice, hard and low. It rasps in the tiled echo of the kitchen.

  “You’re embarrassing yourself, Aaron.” The lunk hasn’t even got the spatial sense, the awareness to know how close I moved up behind him.

  He half turns and sneers. “You’re a guest here, old man. Cool your beans.”

  I can’t stop a laugh at that. “You’re nearly a man, Aaron. You should act like one and show some respect.”

  His face clouds. Not a pretty sight. “Get the fuck out of here. Warm up some fucking milk. Find yourself a wicker chair and a blanket.” Aaron’s lip curls back.

  I chuckle. The rumble is like a firecracker in a tin box. “Do you need help getting up?”

  “What?” Aaron cocks his fist, turning to swing.

  I slam my forearm into the side of his neck. The punk drops like a sack.

  I look in Tegan’s eyes. Inside, I’m on fire. Raw energy charges me up. I have to divert it.

  She’s twenty at most. I can’t let myself go near her.

  Even knowing how much it would piss Jack off, it’s out of the fucking question.

  And she’s too lovely for what’s in my mind. I want her in the filthiest ways. I haven’t thought about things like that since I l
ost my lovely, dirty-minded Maria.

  I let my eyelids drift closed, slowly. Reach a hand to Aaron on the floor without looking at him. I can feel his petulant snarl. I don’t need to look in his reddened face.

  Her scents are in my head. My pulse hammers. Her lovely breasts heave and her lips are wet. When her chin tilts up, her pale neck stretches and my cock thrums.

  Aaron scowls at the hand I offered him, but his head weaves and he sways as he tries to get up. He slips back onto his ass. That makes him even angrier.

  For this moment, I feel like I’m her protector. Her hero. That’s what the look in her eyes says. But the thoughts rising in the back of my mind are so filthy.

  I cannot be thinking like that. Not about a girl her age. She’s pure. Maybe totally. If I start to think that way, I know I’ll want to act. And then, nothing can stop me.

  Aaron scrambles and stumbles to his feet. I shrug at the glare in his eyes. His face bunches tight, all hurt rage. An angry, wounded mutt.

  I narrow my eyes. He snarls and drags his sorry ass out of there.

  We’re alone in the kitchen. Her eyes bat.

  It feels too quiet.

  She looks down. Holding her thumb. “I should have apologized.”

  “What for? Don’t even think about it.”

  “Your suit. I’m…”

  I laugh. “God gave us dry cleaners. You gave them business. All’s right with the world.”

  Then I ask her, “Are you okay?”

  She nods. Her smile lights a charge in me. I have to get out of here now, or I won’t leave her at all.

  She breathes, “Thank you,” softly. And she reaches out. When her hand touches mine, I feel a bolt of lightning struck us both. I can see she felt it too.

  I’m turning to get out of there. Then she stretches up to kiss me.

  I grab her. Hold her. Feel her soft curves pressed against me. Grip her hair and pull her to me. She feels like heaven.

  Her body presses and molds to mine. My tongue meets hers. They twist and explore each other. It feels like I just got home.

  I have to stop before this goes too far. The girl is probably a virgin. She’s too young. Or, more to the point, I’m too old for her.

  As I pull back, she says, “Thank you. My silverback bear.”

  Leaving her in the kitchen could be the hardest thing I ever did.

  I call Gavin before I turn in. “How’s your room there?”

  He’s in an Air B&B that’s practically across the street.

  “Room? I’ve got a massive apartment here, stuffed with gorgeous antiques.” He asks me, “How’s yours?”

  “Nowhere near as nice by the sound of it. You’ve seen the size of this big old house? I’ve got a room right at the top that was probably meant for a servant. This whole place has zero style. Jack has obviously come into money, but he hasn’t bought any taste yet.”

  “Met anybody curvy with strawberry blonde curls?”

  I chuckle. “Mind your fucking business, Gavin.”

  All night, I still feel her. Every part of her that touched me. My hands remember her. And my cock throbs for her. I can taste her, still.

  As I undress, I brush my suit to my nose. Savor every faint trace of her.

  Finn Connolly waits for me next day, in Boston’s south shore district in an empty bar at the back of the Molly Malone. Finbar, as he sometimes styles himself, nurses a cold Guinness in the gloom between the dreamy slats of morning sunlight.

  Finn looks at home on the unvarnished wood bench, sat by the bare wood table. He sips at his black Guinness and reads from an actual newspaper. He looks for all the world like he could be asleep.

  You’d be making a mistake if you underestimated Finn.

  He hears me from along the benches, all the way from the far end of the long bar. He doesn’t show it till I’m just a step away.

  A killer I would trust with my life. That rare thing, a great-looking man who’s quiet. No arrogance, not full of himself. A top-class operator who’s happy with his work and is never scheming after the throne.

  Finn is like the fourth son I never had. I don’t undersatnd why some Coleen hasn’t got a rope around him yet, but I guess he’s happy as he is, just burning beds.

  He gets to his feet like a prizefighter.

  “Liam, you old fucking fox,” his soft, musical brogue brings back memories. “Have they still not caught you yet?”

  “And they never will, Finn. As long as they don’t set you on my trail.”

  “You know I would take them straight up the wrong creek. What can I get you?”

  “I’ll join you for a Guinness.”

  “And a Bushmills malt for company?”

  I accept his hospitality. Finn raises his hand. He lifts a couple of fingers to make signs to someone in the dark of the bar.

  “Finn, how’s your mammy?”

  “Oh, she’s grand, Liam. And she’ll be glad to know you were thinking of her.”

  “I remember she keeps about the most welcoming table in all of Beantown.”

  He smiles. “Oh, she’d never let you get away before she’d put a few pounds under your belt.”

  “Best stews in Boston.”

  “I must bring you around while you’re here.”

  I tell him, “I’d love that.” And I mean it.

  A pretty young redhead brings our drinks, and Finn tells me what I need to know about the business O’Leary has been doing. And all the problems.

  Bad dope, short measures, deals broken. As I suspected. I’m still surprised, though. Jack is a scheming, scamming weasel of a man, but he’s not stupid. Something doesn’t add up.

  “And there’s the other thing,” Finn tells me. “The prescription drugs.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s the new sideline, Liam. Different customers, different business. A lot of people work that side of the street.”

  I’m fuming. “It’s a totally different world of illegal. Different laws, different enforcement agencies. Jack is insane dragging us into that.” Finn looks at me, questioning.

  I explain. “It puts us in the frame for corporate, copyright and intellectual property laws.”

  “There’s no jail time for corporate violations, is there?”

  “No, but it opens us to investigation. One trademark case could expose us to search and seizure of all kinds. It could wreck us from here to Vegas and L.A., in a heartbeat.”

  “You know your business, Liam. I thought you would take that part as the good news. It’s easy to see why you’re the head of the family and I’m the dumb grunt.”

  There’s isn’t a dumb bone in Finbar’s body. But I let it go. “So. What’s the bad news?”

  “You’re selling duds. They’re not even knock-offs. You’re peddling useless chemical shit with fake OxyContin labels.”

  Back at Jack’s house, he catches me on my way in. His eyebrow twitches and he’s moist over his top lip. “I heard you had a dust-up with Aaron.”

  “Yeah?” He can see I’m not in the best of moods.

  His voice softens. “He’s my boy, Liam. I’ve got a lot of hope resting on him. You’re a father. You understand.”

  I tell him, “If one of my boys spoke to a woman the way Aaron did, they’d get a lot worse from me than that punk got.”

  He opens his palms. “Look, the boy doesn’t always express himself the best ways.”

  “So many kids today, Jack. Bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect their elders. Terrible behavior in public.” I look him in the eye. “Know who said that?”

  Jack frowns, wary.

  I give him a smile. “It was Socrates. About two and a half thousand years ago.”

  “No shit.” He’s puzzled.

  “I think he blamed the parents.” Still holding his eye, I tell him, “So do I.”

  Chapter Five

  Tegan

  I’ve managed to stay out of Aaron’s way all day. I won’t be able to keep it up forever, though.

&n
bsp; When I hear Liam return, my heart jumps. Dumb, I know. Even if there was anything between us like I imagined last night, he would just have his fun, take a quick tumble, and I’d be left here with Jack. And Aaron.

  God, but the tumble would be so worth it. I would give anything, if I had anything to give.

  If Liam only knew the thoughts and fantasies I have burning in my mind, he would be disgusted.

  I should keep away. But I can’t. I just can’t. The low rumble of his voice sets me off. I’m fizzing inside like a box of fireworks with all the fuses lit.

  That kiss still burns on my lips. When he held me, I felt like I’d been lit up for the first time ever. I want him to crush me. I want him in me. Everywhere. I want to taste every part of him.

  I know it’s wrong to feel the way I do. Especially for a man more than twice my age. Feeling how wrong it is, a guilty twist all the way down to my core only makes the wanting beat harder.

  I hear him tell Jack that he’s going up to his room. That he’ll see him in Jack’s den.

  “One hour.”

  Telling Jack what to do. In his own house.

  Damn. I want this man so bad, it’s making me double over.

  I take the back stairs. Up to the top floor. Where Liam’s room is.

  Clenching inside, I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I don’t even know what I’m planning to do. I get to his room before he does. And I let myself in.

  I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t be here. It’s all so wrong. I should get out of here. Quick. Before he arrives.

  Get away and get a hold of myself. Fast. Before I can think.

  I yank the door open.

  He fills the doorway.

  His eyes drill into mine.

  My thighs tremble and my knees shake as I back up, and he strides into the room. I’m hanging on to my black skirt. Looking around. Searching for a way to escape. I don’t want to get away. But I know I should. I must.