by Katee Robert
She shot a look to the bathroom door. She could tell him she was done and go to the bathroom. She was so primed, it would take a flick, maybe two, and she’d orgasm.
Aiden, the bastard, knew exactly what she was thinking. “If you changed your mind, I’ll respect it, and that will be the end of things between us.”
“What?” She shook her head, trying to think. “Maybe I just changed my mind for tonight.”
“Or maybe you’re trying to cheat me out of your orgasm.” He held her thighs in a grip just shy of bruising. “This is what it means to go to bed with me, Charlie. Either you can handle it or you can’t, but I won’t have you crying foul every single fucking time. So what will it be? Are we done?”
She slammed her hands on the mattress, twisting against his hold. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s the very essence of fair. Decide.”
She ran her hands over her face. Aiden just waited, not touching her further but not letting her move, either. Charlie looked down her body at him. “I want to come, Aiden, please.” She tried a sweet and cajoling tone, and got icy silence in response. Damn it. She flopped back onto the bed. “I must be a masochist, because I don’t want this to stop.”
“I know.” He didn’t give her a chance to curse him. She was too busy moaning as he fucked her with his tongue. Charlie slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Aiden lifted his head long enough to say, “No, bright eyes. Let them hear you.”
Because of the plan, because we’re pretending …
But as she looked at his expression, she wasn’t sure that was the truth. He looked like a man who wanted everyone within hearing distance to know that he was pleasing his woman and pleasing her well.
I’m not his woman.
It didn’t matter as he sucked her clit into his mouth, stroking her with his tongue with the exact same motions she’d shown him earlier in the office. That was all it took. Her back bowed, his name a cry on her lips as she came hard enough to tilt the world off its axis. Her orgasm rolled over her, cresting again and again, hours’ worth of pent-up pleasure taking her to a place beyond thought, beyond worry, beyond mere mortal things.
She slowly came back to herself to find Aiden lying next to her on his side, with his head propped in his hand. He ran one hand over her body as if memorizing every detail. She blinked. “Hey.”
“How do you feel?”
She gave the question entirely too much consideration. “I’m thinking being a masochist might not be such a bad thing.”
Aiden grinned. “It’s a fleeting feeling.” He cupped first one breast and then the other. “We’re not done.”
“You’re joking.” She shook her head. “You have to be joking. I just came harder than I’ve ever come in my life. I can’t do it again.” She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
He cupped her chin, his thumb tracing over her jaw. “Yes, you can. And you will—until I’m done with you.”
“But …” She hadn’t signed on for this.
Except, yes, I did.
She just hadn’t thought that he’d be able to follow through on his promises. I really should have known better. Aiden doesn’t make false promises. Charlie huffed out a breath. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
She waved a hand at his cock, still gloriously hard and straining as if it knew the kind of pleasure that awaited if he’d stop with his games. “You keep playing with me, you’re going to be sporting a truly impressive set of blue balls.”
He guided her leg that was closest to him up and over his hip, opening her completely. “If it makes you feel better, once I’m done with you, if you still want to suck me off, you’re more than welcome to.”
She frowned at him, sensing a trap but unable to discern the shape of it. “That sounds … fair.”
“I’m glad you think so.” He pushed a finger into her, pumping a few times. “Now, remember what I said before—the more you beg for me to fuck you, the more punishment you’ll receive.”
“I won’t beg.”
“Aw, bright eyes, yes, you really will.”
And, God help her but she did.
CHAPTER SEVEN
You look tired.”
Aiden ignored Cillian’s pointed statement—and the implication behind it. He’d known what he was doing when he told Charlie not to stifle her cries, though it wasn’t solely to make everyone believe that they were madly in love. He’d liked hearing his name on her lips and being the reason she lost control again and again.
When he’d finished with her last night, she’d passed out before managing to give him that blow job she was so determined to deliver. Knowing he was responsible for her being in his bed, exhausted from pleasure he’d given her, had satisfied a primal part of him he hadn’t even been aware of before last night.
I’m a goddamn savage in a three-thousand-dollar suit.
He drank down his coffee, though he was wired even before his first cup. Everything was finally falling into place. The end was in sight. He just had to hold it together long enough to see the plan through.
The next stage started now.
He pulled out his phone, earning a frustrated curse from his brother. Aiden spoke to Cillian without looking up, keeping his tone even and disinterested. “I’m ignoring you because you know damn well why I’m tired and you’re fishing for information that you won’t get. We have work to do.”
“Work that involves selling our baby sister to a monster.”
“If you want to look at it that way.” He hated the expression of betrayal on Cillian’s face, hated how little his brother trusted him. There was no help for it. He dialed Romanov.
The man himself answered the phone. “Da?”
“Before we do anything official regarding Keira, you need to understand that there will be negotiations required.”
Romanov sighed. “And you need to understand you have no rights to be making demands of me.”
“Oh, my mistake. I didn’t realize that you’d already dealt with the Eldridges and didn’t need my help.”
The silence stretched for a beat, and then two. “Explain these demands.”
Interesting. He’d expected more pushback. Romanov might need some assistance with the Eldridges, but he could have potentially called in favors with his extended family back in Russia. There were politics there, and he wouldn’t do it lightly, but it was an option.
He hadn’t. Instead, he’d come to the O’Malleys.
Because he wanted Keira.
Romanov wouldn’t still be pressing for a marriage alliance if he didn’t need it desperately. Being spurned by Carrigan had hurt his reputation, a hurt that was only aggravated when his half sister, Olivia, fled the Romanov home and name, into the arms of the O’Malleys. In his world, reputation was everything. Demanding the only remaining O’Malley daughter would repair his damaged status and reinforce his power base.
Maybe he can’t ask for assistance from his extended family, because they think he’s weak. That would explain a lot.
“We will announce the engagement at a party.” A distraction in the carefully planned circus he had put into motion. He needed Romanov focused on Keira and everyone else focused on Charlie so he could make his next move.
The thought that he could be sentencing his sister to an actual marriage with that monster made him sick to his stomach. Not real. I won’t let it get that far. Romanov gave his word, and she’d never choose him. He didn’t let any of his inner feelings into his voice. “I’ll put together something and issue the appropriate invitations.”
“How considerate.” Romanov didn’t sound like he found it considerate in the least. “Don’t think to cross me, Aiden.” He hung up, his words ringing in Aiden’s head for several minutes afterward.
Aiden couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite his plan, he was playing right into Romanov’s hands.
He set down his phone and looked at Cillian. “If you have something to say, say it now. We’ll mo
ve forward as a single unit, so I won’t have you questioning me every step of the way.”
His brother gave him a long look and sank into the seat across the desk. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I don’t like it. You’re putting our baby sister on the line, and if you don’t manage to do whatever it is you’re trying to do, she’ll be the one to pay the price.” Cillian huffed out a breath. “I know the world we live in. I get that you’re doing what you think is best—truly, I do. But how about we stop pretending that you fell so deeply in love with some stranger that you brought her in here and plan to marry her. Maybe Teague and Carrigan—and even Keira—will fall for that. They aren’t here, day in and day out. I am. And I know you’d never let your heart get the best of you.”
His brother was right, even if he’d never admit it. Aiden’s heart didn’t even come into the equation when the O’Malleys were on the line. He managed a brief smile. “Always damning me with faint praise.”
“It’s the truth.”
Cillian had always been too smart by half. He’d covered it up when he was a kid with a reckless streak a mile wide and a string of shitty decisions, and these days he put that brilliant brain of his to use spinning numbers, doing the books for their operations, and managing anything that required the hacking skills he’d been developing since he took over the job. He’d never bothered to analyze Aiden, though.
He met his brother’s gaze directly. This wasn’t the time for softness or kid gloves. He spoke to Cillian as leader of the O’Malleys to a subordinate. “I don’t care what you think of the situation—or of Charlie. You will fall in line.”
“Consider me the very picture of a loyal soldier.” Cillian rose. “But you had damn well keep Keira safe, Aiden. She stopped painting. Did you know that?”
Aiden sat back in his chair, the sheer weight of everything he carried threatening to drive him into the ground. There were a million ways to kill a person that had nothing to do with stopping their heart. He might have scared off his sister’s dealers, but it seemed like he’d been doing a shitty job taking care of her otherwise. In the last few years, she’d gone from being a snarky, flourishing artist to a shell of the woman she was supposed to become. “This will all be over soon.”
Cillian shook his head. “Save the bullshit, Aiden. It will never be over. Even Sloan didn’t escape it, and she ran halfway across the world.”
She hadn’t escaped, but she’d carved out a little slice of happiness for herself, despite everything.
And the information her man provided had been instrumental in Aiden finding the right pressure points to bring Romanov to his knees.
He stared at the desk, the wood polished so thoroughly that it gleamed. Knowing that Sloan’s relationship had strengthened the O’Malleys should have brought him satisfaction, even if she’d gone back into hiding to avoid living in their world. There was no satisfaction to be had, though. He couldn’t bring himself to admit it to anyone out loud, but he missed his little sister.
He missed all of his sisters.
Cillian watched him too closely. “She’s doing well, in case you were wondering. We have a nephew to go along with our nieces. They named him Grady.”
Named for Jude’s dead father, the same way Teague and Callie’s daughter was named for her mother. They were all haunted by the sins of the past and the losses they never got quite over.
It was up to him to ensure that they didn’t have any more names to be added to the list of beloved dead.
* * *
Charlie woke late, her body still aching from what Aiden had done to her through the early hours of the morning. She rolled over and stretched, luxuriating in the feel of the silken sheets against her bare skin. It would be too easy to let herself get used to this. To forget that this was all a ruse to bring down their mutual enemy.
Aiden might want her body, but he was focused on the endgame. She’d be a fool to do anything else.
She sat up. Through all the plans he’d shared with her, he’d left one thing out—what she was supposed to do with her free time. When she’d agreed to this, she hadn’t really thought about much beyond bringing Romanov to justice. It never occurred to her that it would take time. Charlie had never been much good with idle hands, and she didn’t imagine she’d learned that skill overnight.
She usually worked from nine to two at Jacques’s, and then woke late and hit the gym for an hour or two, where she went through her regular Krav Maga training, then worked with newbies, assisting as necessary. There was always a need of sparring partners, and she was more than happy to help out. Anything to make sure the person across from her had the skills necessary to ensure that they never ended up as helpless as she’d been when she was attacked.
But she hadn’t had time to research gyms in Boston—or talk to Aiden about what he expected of her while they played out this scenario.
After showering and throwing on a pair of ridiculously expensive jeans and a flowy tank top, she padded out of the room on bare feet. No guard stood outside the door, so she wandered down the hall, taking it all in.
Last night she’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted to really notice the space she moved through. There was something strange about the hallway, but it wasn’t until she was halfway to the stairs that she realized what it was. Charlie stopped and looked back the way she’d come. No photos. There weren’t any in the rooms she’d been in downstairs, either, now that she thought about it.
Downstairs, she could understand. Her dad might have a scattering of photos from the last twenty-nine years on the fridge, but the few framed ones were in the upstairs hallway. He didn’t take meetings in their house, but some habits die hard, and displaying his weakness—Charlie—went against the grain.
But to have no photos at all?
That spoke volumes about the family that lived in this place.
She turned back to the stairs. What else will I find if I do some snooping? Aiden and the O’Malleys weren’t technically the enemy, but she’d have to be an idiot twice over to take whatever information he decided to feed her without questioning it. Meeting his siblings last night had only driven home what the stakes were—and the fact that the knife in the darkness coming for her might not be held by a Romanov but an O’Malley. Or a Halloran. Or a Sheridan.
Charlie didn’t want to admit that her dad was right and that she was in over her head, but it was sure as hell starting to feel that way.
She walked to the stairs and peered over the railing. Raised voices—Aiden and Cillian—but they were muffled enough that she couldn’t pick out the words. She doubted she could make it down the stairs and to the office door to eavesdrop without their realizing she was there and turning the conversation to safe topics, so she headed toward the back of the house. There had to be a second stairwell around here somewhere.
The temptation to explore the closed doors lining the hallway rose, but she held back. There were two doors—Aiden’s and another—on this leg of the hallway, before it took a hard right turn. Charlie walked to the corner and counted another three doors before the hallway turned again, creating a U shape. Seven rooms … for seven children?
She looked at the room across from Aiden’s and opened the door before she could talk herself out of it. She stopped just inside the doorframe, inhaling a spicy feminine scent. The décor was the very definition of luxury, the big white bed looking soft enough to swallow a person whole, and the dresser along the opposite wall scattered with expensive-looking jewelry and perfume bottles.
The decorations were too … understated to belong to Keira. She didn’t know much about the other sister—Sloan—but Charlie bet this room had belonged to Carrigan. From Liam’s brief family history, the woman hadn’t lived here in almost two years. And yet her room looked as fresh as it would have if she’d just stepped out this morning.
“What are you doing?”
Charlie didn’t jump, but it was a near thing. She glanced over her shoulder at Aiden, noting that he star
ed at her and pointedly didn’t look around the room she stood in. It didn’t matter that he gave nothing away with his expression or body language—the information was as clear in what he didn’t do as what he did. So much baggage there. “I was curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
She snorted. “And satisfaction brought him back—which isn’t quite the same kind of warning.”
“Funny.” His tone said he found her anything but. He stepped backward, a clear demand for her to join him in the hallway. That was all she needed to confirm the room had belonged to Carrigan.
Charlie closed the door softly behind her. The move left her close enough to touch Aiden, but she hesitated, not sure where they stood after last night. He’d driven her to ecstasy more times than she could count … but he’d never kissed her.
Makes sense. Kissing is far more intimate than sex when it comes right down to it.
Being logical did nothing to dull the sting—and neither did knowing she had no right to be hurt. He wanted her body. He didn’t want her. Which should suit her just fine. She liked the way Aiden filled out a suit, but she couldn’t pretend there was a path that ended with them together. Dishonored or not, she was a cop in a long line of cops, and he was a mob boss who wasn’t suddenly going to go straight.
She needed to remember that.
“Snooping?”
She shrugged, doing her best not to stare at his mouth. Just sex … Right. “I got bored. I’m not used to sitting on my hands.”
His green eyes softened, just a little. “I have just the thing.”
Or maybe she was imagining things.
“Oh? More shopping?” She didn’t need or want more, and if he suggested such a blatantly bullshit activity, she’d have to start some trouble on principle.
“Hardly.” Aiden shook his head and turned, waiting for her to fall into step next to him before he walked down the hallway in the opposite direction from the stairs. “You met my sister last night.”
“Which one?” But she knew which one he meant as they took first one turn and then the next. “Keira.”