I thought of the prospects again, their cocky little grins and know-it-all attitude. ‘Come on,’ I said to Juliette. ‘We’ll let the new boys clean up this mess.’
Juliette looked tired. ‘I should clean it up. My mom will get mad.’
I will pound your mother’s face into a fucking wall if she gets mad at you for not cleaning up her vomit. That’s what I wanted to say, but I refrained. ‘Nonsense,’ I said, extending my hand. ‘Those boys need to prove their worth.’
Almost as if on cue, bikers started to pour into the room. They all looked at me openly as they passed, but no one said a word. They wouldn’t dare. I felt itchy all of a sudden, needed to leave before Emilio and Murphy came out of their own meeting and noticed I was still around. Murphy had a bad habit of trying to corner me, and I’d developed a sixth sense around his impending approach.
Several of the bikers greeted Juliette. Most of them had known the girl all her life, saw her as one of their own. But she was coming up to fifteen, and she was a beautiful girl. I’d seen girls who looked younger than her around this clubhouse. I wasn’t stupid. I closed the space between the girl and myself. ‘Come on,’ I said to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Two young Gypsy Brothers appeared in front of me, blocking our path to the door. I looked between the young men with thinly veiled disgust. Dornan’s two oldest sons, Chad and Donny, seemed to find Juliette the way . . . well, the way Murphy seemed to find me.
‘Move,’ I said. Saying ‘excuse me’ didn’t do any good in a place like this.
Chad, the older and burlier asshole of the two, folded his arms across his chest and leered at me.
‘What’s the hurry?’ he said, reaching out and dusting imaginary lint from my shoulder. Chad’s eyes slid down to my chest. And stayed there. He licked his lips, making a suggestive sound in the back of his throat.
‘The accountant,’ he said, chuckling. I noticed Donny, the younger, weedier brother, edging closer to Juliette. ‘Seems like we need to get you to more parties, sweetheart.’
Parties were when they all got their dicks wet with whoever they pleased. Probably in this very room. I wrinkled my nose up in distaste.
‘What are you, twenty? I think I’m a little old for you, kiddo,’ I said, taking Juliette’s arm firmly in my grip as I spotted Murphy enter the room to my left.
Fuck. I was surrounded by idiots. Horny, moronic idiots.
At least I knew I could handle Murphy. I pulled Juliette in the opposite direction, making a beeline for the DEA agent who I despised with a passion. I didn’t even look back at Chad and Donny as we made our way out of the room and into the hallway.
‘Need a ride?’ Murphy asked, falling into step beside me so I was flanked on one side by him, and Juliette on the other. The girl didn’t speak, and I had to wonder if she was doing okay. Something struck me as odd. How did they get here? I looked down at Juliette’s balled fist to see a set of keys peeking out from her grip.
‘Did your mom drive here?’ I asked her, knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer.
‘No,’ Juliette said. She didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press her. I already knew. She was fourteen, and she drove her fucking mother here, through busy LA traffic, because Caroline had taken too much heroin. Again.
I stopped short in the hallway, deciding I didn’t need Murphy to drive us, after all. Sweet baby Jesus, that was a relief. The price of a favour from that motherfucker was always way too high.
I wondered, briefly, where Guillermo had gotten to. He’d probably hightailed it to the strip club to get a piece of ass on his one afternoon off, since Dornan and I usually spent Sunday afternoons alone at the apartment.
‘Emilio was looking for you,’ I addressed Murphy, a blatant lie. ‘We’ll wait out front.’
Murphy stopped beside me, his mouth curled up into an unimpressed smirk.
‘Liar,’ he murmured, his eyes flicking from me to Juliette, and then back again.
I smiled sweetly. ‘Wouldn’t want to be wrong, and keep him waiting, would you?’
Murphy muttered a stream of expletives as he left us, and I started walking briskly towards the front doors of the compound-esque building, Juliette right beside me.
‘Which car?’ I asked her, once we were past the guys on the door. She pointed to a silver Caprice that had seen better days. I held out my hand for the keys. ‘Come on,’ I said, aiming for upbeat and probably failing miserably. ‘Let’s blow this joint.’
Juliette smiled at me, dropping the keys into my hand.
John and Dornan arrived at my apartment a couple of hours later. Both had bloodshot eyes, which I suspected were for very different reasons. As soon as John walked in, his daughter ran to him, her blonde hair streaming behind her as she rushed to the front door and hugged her father tightly.
I retreated into the kitchen, still in earshot, but I busied myself making coffee. I didn’t want to interrupt their moment. Juliette had sat on my couch for the past two hours, mute, resisting all of my attempts to coax something out of her until I gave up and let her be.
I heard steps approaching and poured steamed milk into two espresso-filled cups, setting the jug down and turning when I felt a hand on my elbow. I was expecting Dornan. My smile was a secret just for him¸ but as I turned, I saw John instead.
My smile dropped. All of a sudden I didn’t know what to say. So I went for the first thing off the top of my head.
‘Is Caroline okay?’ I asked.
John threw me a sceptical look. ‘Do you care?’
Nope, not at all. ‘Of course I care. I care for you. I care for your daughter. She’s spoken five words to me in two hours, John.’ I almost added in the part about her driving the car to the clubhouse, but I bit my tongue. The last thing I wanted to do was get the girl in trouble.
He looked over his shoulder. I shifted slightly to the right so I could see the front door. Dornan was talking in hushed tones to Juliette, and she was smiling.
I don’t know what it was about seeing them like that, but something stabbed painfully inside my chest. He was a good man, underneath all the bravado and the leather. He had made Juliette smile in moments, whereas I couldn’t even elicit a single one from her in two hours, not since she’d handed me the car keys back at the clubhouse. But with Dornan she beamed. Under that gruff exterior, he had the capacity to put you at ease . . . but only if he wanted to. It was clear he loved Juliette, and I remembered him telling me stories about how he’d been there when she was born, how he’d brought her home from the hospital afterwards and he and his wife had looked after her as their own, since John was in prison and Caroline went MIA soon after the cord had been cut.
‘You know she drove the car to the clubhouse,’ I said quietly, changing my mind. He needed to know this shit. I wished he’d just leave his wife, or that she’d finally get it right and take enough heroin to die and release him from their hellish marriage. Yeah. I wasn’t a very nice person, wishing people dead, but she didn’t give me any reason to wish differently.
John turned back to me, his mouth set in a hard line. He raked his hand through his hair, staring at the floor.
‘Caroline . . .’ John shook his head, meeting my gaze again with his magnetic blue eyes. Intense, like Murphy’s, but nothing alike. John’s were clear and bright, and trusting. Compassionate. Kind. They were like windows to his soul, turned down ever so slightly at the edges, the stress making them look older than his forty-odd years.
I liked his eyes. They reassured me.
‘Caroline used to be well,’ John continued. ‘She was never like this.’
You’ve been saying that for nine years, I wanted to say to him. But instead I said nothing.
‘Where is she?’ I asked.
John’s face twisted into a grimace. ‘Rehab.’
I knew the mounting costs of his wife’s continual cycle – overdose, emergency room, rehab centre – were killing John. I did his finances. I knew he was fighting to keep his house a
nd pay the bills. It always struck me as odd that he had no money, because he was always in possession of so much of the stuff. But he was stone broke.
I nodded, chewing on my lower lip. ‘You think it’ll stick this time?’
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His expression told me everything.
‘Thanks for watching Julz,’ he said, patting me on the arm. It was meant as a casual gesture, but it almost made me jump it was so unexpected. A thrill coursed down my spine as I turned around and collected the cups of coffee, offering John one.
‘Do I smell coffee?’ Dornan asked, interrupting our . . . I don’t even know what it was. It wasn’t small talk. It wasn’t awkward, exactly, but it was something. John was always asking me questions, innocuous enough – things like how was your weekend and did you get out to see the fireworks at the pier and are you going home for the holidays? I managed to answer vaguely enough, but I knew there would come a day when he got sick of those non-answers and would demand to know the entire truth about me. It was written all over his face every time I was with Dornan. John knew that Dornan and I had a relationship, but he liked to pretend we didn’t. Despite his terrible choice of life partner, John Portland still, at least then, believed in the sanctity of marriage, and strongly disapproved of Dornan having both a wife and a mistress. I’d heard them arguing about me once. John had been demanding to know why I wasn’t allowed out of the apartment, and that was when Dornan had installed Guillermo as my housemate. Nobody outside of Emilio and Murphy knew the full truth about me, about us, even after all this time. But I knew John wanted to know about me, in the way he phrased his questions, always seeking more information. Where did I come from? Why was I still under lock and key and 24-hour guard after almost a decade? I saw the question in his eyes, the bewilderment, and the resentment that, even as president of the Gypsy Brothers, he was powerless to extract the information he so clearly craved from anyone.
‘Coffee,’ I said, handing Dornan the second cup after he drained his whiskey and set the empty tumbler on the counter. John, who hadn’t touched his own cup of coffee, handed it back to me.
‘I should take Juliette home,’ he said, looking between Dornan and me. ‘It’s been a long one.’
Dornan nodded in response, not moving from his spot, leaning against the counter and tipping coffee down his throat. He finished the cup in one go and dropped it in the sink.
I opened my mouth to say something, to offer some kind of help or reassurance, but then I closed it again. What was I going to say that could ease the pain of a man with a burden like Caroline Portland?
After they’d left, and the door was securely shut, I shifted my attention to Dornan. ‘Somebody should just put her out of her misery,’ I said.
Nine years in this life and I was starting to talk like him.
‘You’re saying what I’m thinking,’ Dornan said, passing me as he opened the freezer and dropped a handful of ice cubes into the tumbler he was holding. The coffee had been merely a formality, something to keep us awake after a trying day.
I took the opportunity to drink him in: dark jeans, tight black T-shirt that hugged his hard chest in all the right places, his tattoos peeking out from the sleeves and neckline. The Ross family crest on his neck always bothered me for some reason, maybe because it was inked proof that he belonged to Emilio. The revolver down his left forearm was better. And the Gypsy Brothers tattoo that adorned his back curled up enough in the middle that it edged up above his collar. Dark hair that he’d let grow a little longer recently, peppered with grey, like his permanent three-day stubble.
I’d been waiting for him. I had missed him terribly.
I hungered for his touch.
But with everything that had happened with Caroline, what I really needed right now was a stiff drink. I sipped at John’s untouched cup, always loath to let good coffee go to waste, and watched Dornan pour whiskey over the ice cubes and take several gulps.
‘That bad, huh?’ I asked.
‘That woman is a fucking train wreck,’ he mused, cracking ice cubes between his teeth. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, setting his whiskey down and stepping over to me. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he stood over me, his hips pressing me into the counter as his dark eyes gleamed. The edge of the counter bit painfully into my back, but it didn’t matter. I was wholly focused on him.
‘You have no idea,’ he said, threading a hand into my hair and pulling me into him. His stubble was rough but his lips soft, sweet and tangy with the remnants of the whiskey. As his tongue found mine, I melted into his grip, relishing the cold of his mouth from the ice cubes.
‘I missed you,’ Dornan murmured against my lips. My stomach flipped nervously, anticipation building within me. I wanted him. I needed him.
His kisses grew deeper, more urgent, and I felt the unmistakable line of his rock-hard erection pressing at my waist. I reached down and squeezed his hard length through his jeans, smiling when he knocked my hand away.
‘There’s plenty of time for that,’ he said, taking my wrists and pulling them behind my back. I shivered as his mouth, rapidly losing the coolness of the ice cubes, kissed a rough, wet trail down my neck.
‘I missed you so much,’ I whispered, tensing as I felt his hands curl around my ass and lift me up. I wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him long and hard as he carried me through the kitchen and deposited me on the end of the dining table, all without breaking our kiss.
But then he did break it. He pulled away and looked at me, really looked at me, one of those moments when you feel like your soul is laid bare. When you wonder what somebody sees in you. Do they see the lies you’ve told? The people you’ve left behind? Or do they just see what they want to see?
He pressed a palm against my chest, pushing me down until I ended up on my back, staring up at the ceiling, my legs bent at the knee and my feet – still clad in the black patent stilettos – braced against the edge of the table. I watched as he went back over to the counter and leaned over, collecting his whiskey and taking a sip.
He didn’t speak; neither of us did. I watched him with great interest and barely controlled lust, my chest rising and falling quickly in anticipation. I wanted him. Now.
But he loved to make me wait.
He placed the whiskey between my feet, the ice making a clinking noise as it shifted in the glass. My dress was long, past the knee, and tight. It didn’t seem to hinder Dornan’s hands, though; he hooked a thumb underneath each side of the skirt and pushed it up, over my knees and up my thighs, until it was bunched around my waist. Just like he’d done several hours ago, but with more patience this time, more control. He took hold of my knees and pulled them apart, the sudden movement making me breathe in sharply.
Touch me. Just touch me. It’s been too long. I could already feel wetness building at my core.
I still wasn’t wearing panties. Dornan made a small sound of appreciation in his throat as he trailed a hand up my inner thigh and over my bare pussy. He smiled as his fingers slid along my wetness.
‘You’ve been waiting for me,’ he murmured, his voice low and gravelly. I nodded, bracing my palms against my thighs.
He leaned in, his head between my legs, so close to me that I could feel his breath on my pussy. It drove me wild, that waiting, that feeling, hoping he was about to dart his tongue out and lick my willing flesh. He stayed there for a moment, just breathing, his fingers digging into the backs of my thighs. Please do it, just hurry up and do it—
His tongue found my clit. Holy mother of God. It felt good. I arched my hips towards his mouth, greedy for more. I groaned when he took his mouth away and stood straight, picking the whiskey up again and taking another sip.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked, an ice cube still in his mouth, a mischievous glint in his dark eyes.
I looked at the ceiling. I couldn’t look him in the eye when he asked me what I wanted him to do.
‘You know,??
? I replied.
In my peripheral vision, I saw him shake his head, a smirk spreading across his face. ‘Words. I want words.’ He rounded the table so he was at my side, crouching so we were eye to eye.
He leaned in, kissing me deeply. His mouth was cold from the ice cube, refreshing. He tasted so fucking good. His free hand went down to my clit and drew slow, shallow circles that made me moan into his mouth.
He broke the kiss, smiling as he took a chair and placed it at the end of the table. He sat down and dragged it closer, so that he now had unrestricted access to me.
Hands gripped my ass cheeks and pulled me down so I was hovering half-off the table. I heard the clink of ice cubes again and braced myself for the cold.
‘Say it,’ he ordered.
‘Fuck,’ I muttered. ‘I want your mouth on me. I want you to lick me.’
He raised his head, his smile contagious. ‘Lick you where?’
‘My pussy,’ I begged. ‘Please.’
We might have done this only hours earlier, but it had happened so quickly, it was almost as if it hadn’t happened at all. And let’s face it, I was addicted to this man – too much was never enough.
His head disappeared again. I moaned as Dornan’s cold tongue touched against my sensitive nub, pressing the ice against me. I bucked involuntarily, trying to close my legs. The cold was overwhelming. It was too much.
‘Don’t move,’ Dornan hissed, before returning his tongue to my clit. It was slightly warmer now. Sighing, I rested back on my elbows and prayed like hell that he’d finish what he was starting.
More ice. More protesting. The heat and the freezing cold stirred within me, Dornan’s hands gripping my ankles like twin vices, the unspoken message perfectly clear: Don’t. Move.
‘Holy . . . Jesus!’ I cried, as he dragged an ice cube against my opening. It was freezing cold. It stung, but in a good way.
Then he pushed it inside me, along with a finger.
It burned. The cold cube slowly melted within me, ice turning to water, Dornan’s tongue collecting the excess as he licked me. It felt so fucking good, it was almost unbearable. He repeated the action with another ice cube, his fingers sliding down from my pussy to the pucker of my ass.