He ran his thumb over the wet folds, lingering over her clit, making circles as she moaned.
When he bent his head to taste her he was consumed with her scent — musky and primal. His cock throbbed between his legs, its demand for her growing as he ran his tongue through the petals of her sex.
She slid her hands into his hair and tugged. The pleasure-pain sent a bolt of lightning to his groin and he closed his mouth around her clit, drawing it into his mouth and sucking until she cried out.
He worked the little bud until he felt her body shake, knew she was on the verge of orgasm. Then he released it, lapping at it with the flat of his tongue as she rotated her hips against his mouth, reaching for her release.
He lapped up her juices, then touched his mouth to her belly, the channel between her breasts, the hollow at the base of her throat.
“We’re going to come together this time,” he murmured against her skin.
He kissed her deeply, rubbing the shaft of his cock between her folds, letting his crown tease her sensitive clit.
When he pulled back, her eyes were open and bright. Her hands were still entangled in his hair. She tightened her grip.
“Then fuck me now,” she said.
The command was surprisingly erotic. “Be right back,” he said, planning to dig in his wallet for a condom.
She squeezed his ass. “Bedside table.”
He leaned back on his heels and tried to ignore the storm of possession that rolled through him at the thought of her with anyone else, the thought of her in this bed — in any bed — with another man.
He reached inside the drawer until he closed his fingers around a foil packet. When he straightened on the bed, she was sitting up, her face inches from his pulsing cock.
She took the condom from him and touched her lips to his tip before tearing open the packet, removing the condom, and rolling it over his head and shaft.
She’d barely finished when he pushed her back on the bed, his need for her reaching a fever pitch he couldn’t deny. He’d never wanted someone so badly, had never been so close to losing control.
He wanted to memorize her, spread out before him on the bed, her hair a tangle around her glorious face, her flawless body ready for his occupation.
His cock throbbed painfully between his legs. He positioned it at her entrance and she lifted her hips, her body telling him what it wanted as she looked at him through half-closed eyes.
He drove into her with one swift thrust, relishing the sound of her cry into the room as he squeezed through her channel, burying himself balls deep in her wet pussy.
“Fuck, Julia… Your pussy’s so sweet, so tight.”
He hesitated, sensing he was stretching her to the limit, wanting to give her time to get used to him.
She reached her hands over her head, stretching her body out as she grabbed onto the headboard. He had a flash of her stretched out under him in the alley, a flash of the fire that had scorched his body like a desert wind when she’d bucked against him.
He’d known. He’d known even then.
She pushed down on his cock, taking him deeper than he thought possible.
“Don’t stop.”
He pulled out a little at a time, his withdrawal painfully exquisite, his cock already demanding the haven of her body. He waited until he was almost all the way out, letting his tip balance at the edge of her opening, cradled by her swollen folds, before driving into her again.
She thrust upward to meet him, their bodies finding a perfect rhythm as he dragged himself through her channel, tunneled back through it until he was consumed by the hot cave of her pussy.
Their pace increased, Ronan driving into her faster as her own movements became more frenzied, her channel clamping down on him as she came closer to orgasm, his release barely contained by the shred of discipline he managed to maintain in spite of the hunger blacking out the edges of his control.
“I’m going to come, Ronan,” she gasped, grabbing onto his ass.
“I’m ready for you, lovely.”
“Oh, god…” Her breath shortened as she climbed the mountain of her release, pausing for a split second at the top.
She tumbled over with a low moan, her body shaking against his, her pussy flooded with moisture that released the floodgates of his own orgasm.
He groaned, thrusting wildly, her pussy tighter as she convulsed with the power of an orgasm that went on and on, that squeezed every bit of pleasure from his cock.
And still he couldn’t stop. He wanted all of her. Would have stayed joined with her as the walls came down and the building burned around them.
When he opened his eyes it was to the curve of her neck, her hands trailing over his back.
He kissed her throat. “Did I crush you?”
She smiled. “I could get used to it.”
He wanted to return her smile, to make light of the moment, of everything that had passed between them. But he could only tell the truth: that he wasn’t going anywhere. That whatever this was, whatever it would become, it wasn’t temporary.
He looked into her eyes. “You should.”
20
Julia woke up with a start, disoriented in spite of the familiar bedroom. She had the sense that something had changed, the universe tilting on its axis while she’d been asleep.
She moved her hand and felt the heat of bare skin under her palm, turned her head to see Ronan Murphy asleep next to her — under her, really — his chest cradling her head.
She’d been right: her universe had tilted on its axis.
Everything had changed.
She wanted to call it a mistake, her old friend Reason ticking off all the things that made it one: Ronan had been hired by her gramps to find Elise, she didn’t know him, and what she did know made it clear he was a dangerous man, not to mention a closed-off one.
Except he hadn’t seemed closed off in bed. Hadn’t seemed closed off before bed when he’d looked at her with such naked longing she’d been relieved to turn her back on him, relieved to escape the raw need she’d seen in his eyes.
Then he’d taken her body with such tender ferocity that she’d felt full from the inside out. Not just her body — although god knew he did that too — but all of the empty rooms inside her, the ones she’d left empty on purpose because it was safer that way.
I could get used to it…
You should…
She tried not to read too much into it. They’d only known each other a week, had only seen each other three times. It was too soon to call it anything real.
He shifted under her, but when she looked, his eyes were still closed.
She was thirsty, desperate for water actually, and she eased her way off his body and to the edge of the bed, glancing back to make sure she hadn’t woken him.
His eyes were still closed when she stood, glancing around for something quick to throw on in the chilly apartment. She discarded the formal gown on the floor as a possibility and reached for Ronan’s tuxedo shirt instead.
Elise’s absence hit her like a punch in the stomach as she walked past the open door to her room. Her cheeks burned with shame. Julia was safe and at home. She had just gone to bed with Ronan Murphy, the man hired to find Elise, had fallen asleep in his arms.
Where was Elise? Was she hurt? Scared? Cold? Hungry?
Did she wonder why no one was coming for her? Why her face wasn’t plastered on every television screen in the country? Or was she so far removed from the world that she didn’t know what was going on?
Julia refused to consider the other possibility. She didn’t know where Elise was, but she knew she was alive.
She had to be.
Julia walked through the living room, light from the street lamps seeping in around the shades in the windows, and continued to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher and leaned against the counter, downing it in one gulp before pouring another.
Her thoughts turned to Ronan as she sipped at the
second glass, and she had a flash of his sculpted chest under her palms, his head between her thighs, the flat plane of his stomach as he disappeared inside her.
Moisture bloomed between her legs in spite of the soreness there. She was definitely out of practice, but she would have been sore even if that hadn’t been true. His cock was magnificent, perfectly formed, large by anyone’s standards in both length and girth.
She thought of all the times she and Elise had dished about their sex lives, Elise gleefully sharing every sordid detail and laughing at Julia when she was less forthcoming. She would have given anything to have Elise here now, could imagine her making crude jokes and begging Julia for information.
But Julia wouldn’t have shared even if Elise were here. She didn’t know exactly what to call what had happened between her and Ronan, but it already felt sacred.
Talking about it felt like a jinx. Even thinking about it while Elise was missing felt like a jinx, like the universe might suddenly realize she was feeling something good when she didn’t deserve to feel good with her sister missing.
She finished the water and walked to her laptop on the kitchen table. She should go back to bed, try to sleep, but the blue door taunted her, the scene at the Whitmore still fresh in her mind.
She opened the laptop and drummed her fingers on the table while she waited for the page to refresh. Was the web page really linked to the Whitmore Club? Had they studied the security cam footage, identified her and Ronan? Would someone come after them, try to keep them quiet? To keep them from digging deeper?
The page reloaded, filling the screen a little at a time until the blue door appeared.
But this time something was different. This time the door was open.
She sucked in a breath and scanned the page for anything else that might be different, but it was just the door, open now instead of closed, an unspoken invitation.
“What is it?”
She looked over her shoulder to find Ronan standing behind her in nothing but his tuxedo trousers, his chest bare. “The door is open.”
He came closer, leaning down next to her to look at the web page. “Fuck.”
They knew who Julia was. They knew she’d been lurking on their web page, probably knew she’d been at the Whitmore.
And now they were inviting her to play.
“Now what?” she asked.
He met her eyes in the dark. “Would you listen if I told you to exit out of this thing? Pretend you never saw it? Let me take it from here?”
“No.”
His expression was grim. “That’s what I thought.”
She returned her eyes to the screen and clicked on the door. The image changed, morphing into another black page, this one with a symbol similar to the ones that had marched down the page found by Clay when they’d discovered the symbol for the Whitmore Club: the now-familiar “M” against a different symbol, the whole logo rendered in a shade of gold that managed to be both sexy and seedy.
“It’s a new one,” Julia said.
“Dubai,” Ronan murmured.
She turned to face him. “Dubai?”
“It’s the logo for a club in Dubai,” he said.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
He hesitated. “Better that you don’t know.”
She thought about arguing the point, then decided against it. Ronan Murphy was a man with secrets.
A lot of them.
She would have to get used to not knowing everything, to picking her battles.
She brushed past him and headed for the hall.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She didn’t turn around as she answered. “To pack.”
21
Ronan threw the stick into the shallow surf and watched as Chief bounded after it, the water soaking the lower half of her body as she struggled to get a grip on the piece of wood.
Carson Beach was no tropical paradise. It was small, the city looming behind it, but the sand was soft, stretched to form a cove that provided for gentle surf and not too much wind. Chief always enjoyed playing there, and Ronan was feeling guilty about his impending departure.
“It’s against protocol,” Nick said next to him, a continuation of the conversation they’d been having since they left the house.
“I know.” Ronan didn’t need his brother to tell him taking Julia Berenger to Dubai was against protocol.
It was against everything — good sense included.
“For all intents and purposes, she’s a client.” Nick bent to take the stick from Chief’s mouth. “Good girl! Ready?”
He held up the stick and waited for Chief to back up, tail wagging in excitement, before throwing it farther down the beach.
“I know,” Ronan said.
“So?” Nick prompted. “If you know, why are you doing it?”
“She’ll go anyway,” Ronan said. “But if she goes alone the odds of her disappearing into the same void as her sister are higher, and they know who she is now. They’ll come for her if she doesn’t go to them.”
“Not if we put her into hiding,” Nick said.
Ronan snorted. “Not gonna happen.”
He’d left Julia’s shortly after sunrise, hoping to get into the house unnoticed, take Chief for a run, but Nick had been awake and in the kitchen despite the early hour on a Saturday morning.
Ronan had braced himself for a slew of questions — Nick had known he was infiltrating the Whitmore the night before — and had been both relieved and worried when Nick had instead grabbed a manila envelope, stuffed it in his jacket, and suggested he accompany Ronan to the beach with Chief.
No questions now meant more questions later.
Ronan had filled Nick in on everything that had happened at the Whitmore as they’d walked, Nick asking pointed questions that indicated his mind was working the new information into what they already knew about Elise Berenger and the possibility that she’d been taken by Seth Campbell.
Ronan had been detailed about the areas that pertained to the case but had fast-forwarded through his night with Julia, picking up the thread with the open door on the website.
“You fucked her,” Nick said.
Ronan narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Careful.”
He didn’t know what to call what had happened between him and Julia, but he knew it was more than that.
Nick sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus, Ro.”
“I suggest you think very carefully about what you say next,” Ronan said, his voice low.
Chief had returned and was barking around the stick in her mouth, a goofy smile on her face.
Ronan bent to take it, then reached into his pocket for a treat. He tossed it to her, and she lay down in the sand to eat it, the stick forgotten.
“Business decisions affect us all,” Nick said.
“This wasn’t a business decision.”
“It was, whether you want to call it that or not,” Nick said. “It will impact the business.”
“We don’t know that yet.” But even as he said it, Ronan knew it was a lie. His night with Julia would affect everything. He didn’t know how. He just knew it would, knew that nothing looked the same this morning as it had looked every morning before it.
Nick stuffed his hands in the pocket of his jacket and looked out over the water. Ronan had a flash of their father — same broad face, same distant expression, the deep creases around Thomas Murphy’s eyes just a possibility around Nick’s.
“Setting aside the personal aspect of the situation, taking her to Dubai will be dangerous.” Nick reached into his jacket and removed the manila envelope he’d picked up off the kitchen counter. “These people are dangerous. They didn’t invite Julia Berenger to the UAE for cocktails.”
Ronan took the folder. “What’s this?”
“Phase two of intel on the Berenger job. Clay was able to find some leads from the code in the website.”
Ronan glanced at Chief, saw that she was laying with
her head on her paws, tired out from the long game of fetch. He opened the envelope and removed the papers inside.
The wind blew them in his hands, and he skimmed the words, searching for the most important parts. He would read the report in its entirety when he got back to the house, but he knew there was a reason Nick had brought the papers with him, knew that whatever was in the papers was something he thought Ronan needed to know now.
He passed over several paragraphs of garden-variety information: an analysis of the website’s security protocols and firewalls, a rundown on the IP trace, set up by someone who knew what they were doing to track through several countries, making it impossible to know where it was coming from.
He was on the third page when his eyes snagged on a word. He looked at Nick.
“Manifest?”
Nick nodded.
“Want to save me some time and tell me what it is?” Ronan asked.
“The short version? It’s a secret society for rich assholes like Campbell who don’t think they should have to follow the rules,” Nick said.
“A secret society?”
“Clay’s working on getting more information,” Nick said, “but the spider he set loose turned up more than one mention of it, usually in private financial forums, and get this, on the Darknet.”
Ronan wasn’t a computer expert, but he knew a spider was a program set to trawl the internet for specific words or phrases.
“So clubs like the Whitmore are covers for something else?”
“We’re still digging for information on the structure. It looks like it might be a hierarchy.”
“What kind of hierarchy?” Ronan asked.
Nick shrugged. “Some of the clubs are low-level, possible transport points for trafficking victims, drugs, etcetera. There might be an escalation.”
“Anything specific on the Dubai location?” Ronan asked.
“Not in that intel,” Nick said. “But we didn’t know about Dubai when Clay put it together.”
Ronan ignored the accusation in Nick’s voice. Ronan hadn’t known either, not until the blue door opened for Julia that morning.
Murphy’s Law: Murphy’s Law Book One Page 10