by Evie Hunter
A long, slow lick the length of her pussy was his response. Niall raised his head ‘You’re not stuffy, just uptight, and I plan to fix that.’
‘Oh.’
‘But first, I have more questions.’
Sinead closed her eyes. Was he never satisfied? ‘Ask them, but I’ve told you everything.’ Except about Lottie, but that wasn’t something she was going to tell him. Not ever. If he found out that she had concealed Lottie, he would presume she had lied about everything else.
Another slow lick followed by a puff of warm breath against her clit. This was a deliberate seduction. Niall wouldn’t stop until he had extracted every piece of information he wanted.
‘What happened to your mother?’
She tensed and received a sharp tap on her thigh.
‘Eyes on me, Sinead. Focus on me and tell me the truth this time.’
‘She died just after my dad left us.’
It had taken her years to discover the truth about her mother. Her grandmother had managed to build a wall around her past when they took her in. They meant well, but …
His touch changed to soft reassuring strokes, tender caresses that both soothed and inflamed her. Oh, he was good, better than good.
‘So everybody went away?’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Within twenty-four hours she had lost everyone she cared for.
‘But you were a brave girl and you worked hard, maybe too hard, trying not to think about them?’
Sinead swallowed the lump in her throat. She couldn’t explain why she was so driven to win, any more than she could explain Lottie. When she was on stage, the scared part of her switched off and she was free. She craved success and approval, but Lottie could destroy everything she had built.
‘Sinead,’ his voice dragged her back to him.
‘Yes.’
‘Poor baby,’ he murmured against her heated core.
The vibrations of his voice added another layer of awareness. It was too much. More kisses, more licks, the exquisite pleasure of his mouth on her clit, sucking, licking, tormenting. Without warning, the sensory overload of the past hours tumbled her over the edge of a precipice, into a fast and furious orgasm. Breathless and helpless she lay on the quilt, shaking as she rode the last waves of pleasure until they ebbed away.
‘See how good it can be when you tell the truth? That’s all I want from you, Sinead. Nothing more.’
He pumped his finger slowly into her and her muscles tightened around him, straining to push her over the edge again.
‘I can’t,’ she protested. ‘It’s too much.’
Niall silenced her with a kiss, taking her mouth with a slow passion that built to a relentless demand. She squeezed her inner muscles around his fingers and he laughed.
‘I’ll say when it’s too much. Trust me.’
Removing his fingers, he returned his attention to Hermione’s toys.
His wicked smile should have warned her. He plugged in the large white massager and switched it on, rolling it against her inner thighs. She tried to close her legs against the insistent vibration but she couldn’t. Each pass brought it closer to her clit, but it never quite got there.
‘Please.’ She didn’t care that she was begging. He had to let her come.
The rounded head of the wand brushed her clit and pinpricks of electricity shot along her nerves. She was close. So close.
He took the wand away, moving it down her legs and along her abdomen. Everywhere but where she needed it so badly. She arched her hips and clenched her inner muscles around the toy, but it wasn’t enough. ‘Let me come. Please, Niall.’
‘You’re sure you want to?’
‘Yes. God damn you. Yes.’
His next kiss was soft against her mouth. She raised her head from the pillow demanding more. Thrusting her tongue against his, roughly taking his mouth, biting at his jaw, raking him with her teeth.
‘Kitten’s got her claws out.’ He pulled away from her, but the flare of heat in his eyes was unmistakeable. She wanted him. Needed him. Why didn’t he just –
He placed the wand against her and turned up the intensity. Sinead didn’t bother to disguise her moans of pleasure. Helpless, she was swept up by a tsunami racing for shore. ‘Oh, Niall. Oh god. Oh, Niall.’
Everything stopped. The machine was silenced and she could hear nothing but her own ragged breaths and her pulsing blood ringing in her ears.
‘Where is the stone?’ his voice was calm, matter of fact. He might have been asking her about the weather.
‘Please,’ she wailed, thrashing as wildly as her bindings would permit.
‘Tell me where it is?’ His seductive murmur came against her ear and she turned her face to him.
‘I don’t know. I tell you I don’t know.’
Niall moved away. He switched on the wand again and drew lazy circles with it against her abdomen, venturing close to her throbbing flesh but never close enough to give her the satisfaction that her demanding body required. Mindless with need, she raised her hips, begging him to give her some relief. Urgency built, this time more quickly than before.
She clung to the pinnacle again, pleading for the tiny shift that would take her over. Her body was slick with sweat. She could smell the perfume of her own arousal. She would die if he didn’t let her come.
‘Where is the stone?’ Niall asked again and this time she couldn’t refuse.
‘Roisin has it.’
The sharp vibrating intensity of electricity came directly into contact with her clit and she screamed as the wave of pleasure crashed to shore, obliterating everything in its path. Every nerve in her body was wracked by a flood of sensation that reduced her to a mindless, quivering heap. Pins and needles raced along each limb. Even her mouth numbed. Floating, she was aware of Niall unfastening the straps around her ankles and his hands massaging the muscles of her legs before rolling her onto her front.
He placed a cushion beneath her hips and positioned himself between her still-trembling thighs. He fisted a handful of her hair and with a single thrust he sheathed himself in her slick core.
‘Mine.’ His possessive grunt almost sent her over the edge again. It was too much, too soon. Her traitorous body told her differently. She arched back into his pistoning hips. She could die right here now from sheer pleasure.
Niall’s body curved over hers, his mouth finding her neck, his teeth biting down on her tender flesh, marking her as his. She had never wanted anyone as much. Never known what it was to crave, to hunger for another’s touch, until him.
‘Yes,’ she cried out as he withdrew almost completely and slammed home again. With disbelief, she felt another orgasm building. She couldn’t come again, not after everything that had happened this afternoon.
His harsh thrusts increased in momentum. She revelled in the edge of pain that each one brought. He pounded into her, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He couldn’t last much longer. Like tinder beneath a match, her senses caught alight in a blaze of pleasure that coursed through her blood, reaching every screaming nerve ending.
‘Niall. Niall. Niall,’ she breathed his name like a mantra each time he slammed home.
His hand in her hair only served to remind her that she was his. She was helpless and she didn’t care. She wanted this, gloried in his rough possession. Fireworks exploded behind her eyelids and she fell into another vortex of pleasure.
Yelling her name, Niall followed her home.
When she came to, he was still covering her like a warm male blanket. She inhaled the scent of his musky arousal and licked at the sweat on the arm that lay unmoving on the pillow beside her face. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him. She never wanted to be anywhere else, except in his arms.
‘Love you,’ she whispered as her eyes drifted closed.
What the fuck? Niall’s eyes, which had been drifting closed, opened abruptly. What had she just said?
Sinead had just said that she loved him.
; He allowed the knowledge to fill his head. She loved him. She loved him.
Until he heard the words, he hadn’t realized how much he had longed for them. It seemed an age, even though it was only a couple of days, since he had realized that Sinead was his perfect mate.
He didn’t believe in that ‘Eyes meeting across a room’ or soul mate nonsense. But every so often, two people just balanced each other so well that it seemed they belonged together.
Look at his friend Flynn and his fiancée Summer. On the surface, total opposites: the silent Ranger with the ability to blend into the shadows and the socialite who was the heart of every party. But when they were together, you could see the bond between them. They weren’t at all alike, but they balanced each other. Of course, they still had some royal rows, but you could see them looking forward to the making up even when they were fighting.
Seeing them together filled Niall with envy. They had what he had always wanted, and had resigned himself to never having. He had resigned himself to being alone.
He grinned into the darkness. Well, not entirely alone. His size and appearance always attracted women. Hell, it wasn’t his fault that so many civilians were out of condition. All of the Rangers looked good in comparison, and they all carried themselves with a quiet confidence that attracted women. The trouble was, none of them were women who were in for the long haul.
They wanted someone to protect and care for them. That came naturally to Niall, but he had never been into the Daddy Dom thing. He wanted an equal, and had never found one.
Until now. Until Sinead.
She was as focused as he was. As good at getting her own way. She was used to being the smartest person in the room and took it for granted that she was always right. He must challenge her to a game of chess sometime. Maybe strip chess, just to make it interesting.
He’d like to see Sinead starting off all schoolmarm prissiness and stripping down to reveal that knockout body.
Niall loved the idea that he was the only one who knew what was under those god-awful clothes. He scowled. Apart from that little French bollix. He ignored the fact that he had admired Bertrand’s fortitude until he discovered he had been Sinead’s lover. She was twenty-seven. Of course she’d had lovers. He had no right to object. But something inside him snarled at the idea of any other man seeing her the way he had.
He just hoped Bertrand had a tiny dick and was a lousy lover.
Niall wanted to be Sinead’s lover. He wanted to stand beside her and say, ‘This is my woman.’ He wanted to show her off, to watch her turn other men into putty.
The trouble was that he didn’t trust her. Oh yeah, he burned for her. He wanted to make love to her, to drive her wild with passion. He wanted to lavish pleasure on her. He wanted to torture her until she begged him to fuck her until she saw stars.
He had seen the pain in her eyes when he asked about her family. She couldn’t fake that no matter how talented a liar she was, but she was still holding something back. Sinead had been lying to him from the moment they met. He knew that. She was still lying. He couldn’t trust anything she said. Not even when she said she loved him.
The pain made him clench his teeth against that knowledge. Sinead snuggled deeper into his embrace, and he lay in the darkness. He would make the most of now. He knew it couldn’t last.
28
‘You have to let me go to the St Pierre. It’s the only way I can prove it. Once you see Roisin, you’ll –’
‘No,’ both men chorused.
‘It’s too dangerous,’ Andy explained. ‘We still haven’t tracked down Hall. You’re safer here. And we have to bring you back to Geneva today. You are due in court this afternoon. Now, put on some more coffee, I’m starving.’
She glared at his retreating back and contemplated poisoning him. It didn’t matter how pretty he was, he was still a bloody sexist. But she wanted to eat, too, so she headed for the kitchen. She put a pan onto the hob, melted some butter and cracked four eggs into it.
Niall was already at the laptop, his brow furrowed as he concentrated on the latest reports. Sinead sighed. She had to convince him to let her go to the St Pierre. This might be the last chance she would get.
The grill had turned her slice of bread to golden toast. She scraped a thin layer of butter over it, wishing she had some of her usual low-fat spread, and put on two slices of Niall’s gluten-free bread to toast.
‘Any chance of some breakfast?’ Niall called.
‘Yes, oh divine master,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘I heard that.’ His eyes crinkled with laughter. ‘You can practise saying it again later.’
Men! She wasn’t sure which of them was the most annoying. She stirred the eggs, adding a large shake of black pepper and a dollop of cream. The coffee hissed and she turned the heat off under it, then snatched the toast from the grill just before it burnt.
She buttered it briskly, dumped the eggs on it and set the plate in front of him. He dug his fork into the eggs without taking his eyes from the screen. It was him she should have poisoned. Sinead poured herself a coffee and nibbled her toast. The eggs did look good.
‘There’s a report from Reilly about an unconfirmed sighting of Hall outside a hotel in the Marais. Can you check it out today?’
‘Sure,’ Andy said as he poured a second cup of coffee and added a lump of brown sugar.
Sinead sat back in her chair. So much for company. She might as well be invisible. ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ she announced. ‘And it’s your turn to clean up.’
She took her time, washing and conditioning her hair, oiling and buffing her skin. She hated the thought of having to appear in court, but at least she could make sure she looked good.
When she came back, the table was still littered with the debris from breakfast and Niall was hunched over in his chair. Sweat beaded on his face. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Andy lifted his head from Google maps. ‘Wow, boss, you look like shit.’
‘Feels like a gluten reaction.’ Even his voice was rough. ‘Can’t think what, though.’
Her mind raced, checking over what she had cooked. ‘I toasted your gluten-free bread. I know I didn’t mix it up with my bread.’
Niall was pale. ‘Did crumbs get onto it?’
She mentally rewound her breakfast preparation. ‘I used the same knife to butter your toast and mine. There might have been a few crumbs.’
‘Fuck,’ Andy said.
‘I didn’t know. I didn’t think that … it was just a few crumbs.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Any sort of cross-contamination would be enough.’ Andy was about to add something when Niall made a dash for the bathroom.
When he came out, he was ashen. He grabbed the painkillers and popped two. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Sinead told him. ‘You can barely walk in a straight line. Go to bed and sleep it off.’
He glared at her, and she tried not to feel guilty. ‘I can do whatever is necessary. I have to get you to Geneva.’
‘I can get the train. I’m a big girl.’ When he nodded curtly she realized he must be feeling really bad.
‘Right now, what’s necessary is that you go to bed and recover. No point killing yourself.’
She held her breath and was surprised when he nodded again and headed for his room. She was right, he wasn’t walking completely straight. The rattle of the shutters being closed indicated that he was settling down to sleep.
She should have remembered from the night at the café. How could she have been so stupid? ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.’
Andy put his arm around her. ‘I know you didn’t. I have to go out, but I’ll get Reilly to look after you and get you to Geneva.’
Sinead shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly, I can take the train.’
Andy’s stern expression was a contrast to his usual smile. ‘Reilly will take you.’
It was a miserable, damp day and she pulled on her jacket
as she got ready to return to Geneva. She hated this, leaving Paris when they were so close to finding Roisin and the Fire. She knew where she would be. It was madness not to make the most of it. Who knew when they would get a chance like this again? She tucked her hands into the pocket. Her hand brushed a card and she pulled it out.
Mimi Lorenzo.
She had forgotten about the card. And the client who was expecting a double Domme date this afternoon.
She fingered the card, twisting it between her fingers. Niall wouldn’t know if she went there first. If she could convince Roisin to return the stone then this mess would be over and she would have her life back. Surely, the museum wouldn’t hold it against her that her sister had stolen the stone? She hadn’t seen Roisin for more than twenty years. Uncle Tim could confirm that. If she could get the Fire back, there might be a chance for her and Niall.
Sinead shook the thought away. They had made no promises to each other. Deep down, he didn’t believe her about Roisin and he had been distant since she had foolishly told him that she loved him. There had been no ‘I love you too’. No declaration that he had any feelings for her at all – apart from sex. Me and my big mouth. How could she have thought that Niall could possibly love her?
She stared at the card, trying to work things out. She should wait for Reilly to take her to Geneva. Of course she should. Uncle Tim had put up the bail for her, and if she didn’t go, the money would be forfeit. Tim would never forgive her.
But if she didn’t go to the St Pierre, she would never get another chance to meet her sister. For as long as she could remember, she’d had a Roisin-shaped hole in her life. All this stuff with the ruby, there had to be more to it. Her sister was a part of her. She couldn’t have turned to the dark side, not really. And she knew that Roisin needed her, as much as she needed Roisin.
Sinead knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that Roisin would never have killed Maurice. She was in trouble, and probably didn’t even know. Sinead had to help her.
And of course, she had to get the Fire of Autumn back. If she didn’t grab this opportunity, she would never get another one. This was her chance to find the ruby and clear her name.