The rest of dinner went off without a hitch. In fact, it was going too well if Olivia was going to be honest with herself. Cillian was a perfect gentleman, and their conversation had only had the slightest hiccups through the meal. As he paid and rose to get her chair, she wasn’t sure what the next step was. She hated being so unsure, but this was completely new territory across the board. Was this a date where he’d drop her off at work with a kiss? Or was he going to get back to what they’d started in the alley behind Jameson’s?
She knew which one she’d prefer.
Let’s give him some incentive.
She stepped to the side as they walked out onto the street, and grabbed his suit jacket, tugging him against her. Her back hit the wall behind her, the feeling making her shiver with memories from the other times he’d had her in this position. Cillian caught himself with his hands on either side of her, his body pressed against hers. “Hey there.”
“Hey.” She licked her lips, her gaze on his mouth, her stomach in her throat. It would be easy to make a joke and back off, and pretend this never happened. He’d let her. Hell, he was letting her take the reins right now. If she changed her mind, he wasn’t going to blink. Knowing that only made her hotter. So she took a flying leap of faith. “I don’t suppose you know somewhere we can go to be alone? I still have an hour before my shift.”
“You mean someplace better than me dragging you into that alley?” His tone was flippant, but his eyes belied the joking. He’d do it. They both knew he’d do it.
And she’d enjoy every last second of it.
Come on, Olivia. You’re better than back-alley sex. No matter how much you like it.
Shut up.
She ran her hands up his chest, taking her time and enjoying the way his muscles flexed beneath her fingers. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“It’s not.” Still looking at her, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a phone, and dialed. “Yeah, Liam? Send a car around. One with a divider.” He hung up.
“You’re just going to do me in the backseat of your car? We’re really moving up the class level, aren’t we?” She gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t even know how I feel about that.”
Cillian leaned in, his breath brushing her ear. “You know exactly how you feel about it. And no, I’m not fucking you in the backseat, sweetheart.”
Disappointment closed her throat. Of course he wasn’t. Because he was classier than that, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that she wasn’t. She’d been the one to haul him into that alley the first time, and if he’d been down for a repeat, she wouldn’t have said a word otherwise. No, she would have dropped her pants right there in her desperation to have him. Shame rose to tangle with her disappointment. God, I am so messed up.
He leaned back enough to study her expression. “What did I say to put that look on your face?”
“It’s nothing.” Nothing except her mind being twisted into a tangle that she could barely navigate. He didn’t have a problem with anything that had happened to date—she was the one creating the complications.
“I know what nothing looks like, and that’s not it.” He tipped up her chin. “Tell me, Olivia.”
How was she supposed to deny him when he said her name in that tone of voice? A tone like he actually cared if he’d hurt her. Like he wanted to make it better. Every instinct she had demanded she close down and retreat to lick her wounds—opening up only gave the world more chances to stab her in the back.
Instead, she told the truth. “I’m just feeling awfully easy right now.”
“Sweetheart, you’re not easy.” His brows dipped in a frown. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing what you want and going for it—whether it’s sex, money, or something else.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is.” He glanced over his shoulder as a black town car with darkly tinted windows pulled up to the curb behind them. “Come on.”
“Cillian, I’m not sure this is a good idea…”
“Trust me.” He stopped, and looked at her. “Just this once. This stops the second you want it stopped. Say the word and I get you to Jameson’s—no questions asked.”
He’s too good to be true.
Maybe, but that didn’t stop her from taking his hand and letting him lead her to the car. He ushered her into the backseat and climbed in behind her. Sure enough, there was a dark glass divider between them and the front seat, though it was cracked a few scant inches.
Cillian glanced at his watch. “Drive around for the next forty-five minutes, but stay in this general area.”
“Yes, sir.” The window closed before she could get a good look at the man in the driver’s seat.
She crossed her arms over her chest, and immediately reversed the movement. “So, what now?”
“Now, sweetheart, we do whatever you want.” He leaned back and draped his arms over the back of the seat. The position put his hand close to the back of her neck, and he trailed a finger across her spine.
She shivered. “Whatever I want.”
“Exactly what I said.” The tension in his body belied the ease of his words. “Normally…Well, it doesn’t matter what would happen normally. We’ve played that game before and, I don’t know about you, but I like the reality better than any alternative thing we could dream up. I like you, Olivia. I want to take you out again. So I’m willing to do whatever it takes not to spook you.”
“I’m not a wild animal.”
“Aren’t you?” He traced some abstract pattern over her skin, drawing forth another shiver. “It’s not meant as an insult. My point is that what happens in the next forty-five minutes is completely within your control.”
“My control.” She tasted the words, considering them, and then scooted closer. “Anything I want.” She liked the sound of that. She liked it a lot. Maybe he was right—there was nothing wrong with seeing what you wanted and taking it. She might have been fighting it since that first time, but the truth was that she wanted Cillian.
“Anything you want.” He didn’t blink.
“Tempting. Very tempting.” She ran a hand down the center of his chest, undoing the buttons one by one. It took a few minutes between the vest and the shirt beneath, but then she had his bare chest laid out before her. She spread his shirt, and then traced over the dragon. “How old were you when you got this done?”
“Eighteen.”
She leaned down and kissed the dragon between his eyes. Cillian smelled amazing, like some kind of expensive cologne and, beneath that, the man she wanted more than she had a right to. “And the bullet scar?”
“Six months ago.”
She traced it with her mouth. It must have broken his collarbone when it hit him, but she was suddenly so incredibly thankful that it hadn’t gone near anything vital. “The person who shot you?”
“Dead.”
“Good.” The thought of some person wandering the world after putting a bullet in this man was wrong on so many levels. The gunman should have died for what he did, and she was glad to hear that he had.
She shifted down to the floorboard so she could kneel between his legs. “I like your ink. I don’t know if I said that the other night.”
“I like that you like it.” In the darkness of the car, his eyes were pools of shadow. Even his voice sounded different, huskier and full of promises that she was only too eager to follow through on.
She undid his belt slowly, liking the way his mouth tightened, but didn’t immediately go for the button of his slacks. Instead, she kissed his stomach, following the line of the dragon’s back to his chest and then to his shoulder where its wings met the swallows bracketing his throat.
He rested his hands on her hips, not guiding or pushing, just touching her. She climbed into his lap to straddle him. “Touch me.” She pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it to the side. “I want to feel your skin against mine.” Leaning forward, she had to bite back a moan when her chest pressed against his, her bra the only barrier between them.
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” He ran his hands up her sides to cup her breasts. “Fuck, you’re almost too good to be true.” His thumbs feathered over her nipples, and this time she couldn’t hold back her moan. Cillian dipped down and captured one with his mouth, sucking her through the lace.
“Oh God.” She tried to get closer, digging her fingers into his hair and rolling her hips, but her jeans were too tight for her to get to where she needed. “More.”
He looked up at her. “I’m going to make you come now.”
She was already nodding. “Yes.”
His grin was almost reward enough in and of itself. But then he hooked an arm around her waist and twisted, laying her down across the backseat and covering her. His weight settling between her legs was a whole new kind of heaven, but he didn’t stop there. Cillian slipped an arm behind one knee and hitched her leg up and around his waist, so that the ridge of his cock rubbed right across the seam of her jeans and her clit. He kissed her as he rolled his hips, devouring her mouth. His tongue stroked hers and he slipped a hand down to cup her ass, bringing her more firmly against him. “You like this.”
“Yes.” A breathless laugh escaped as he licked and nipped across her jaw. “I feel a little like I’m necking in the back of some high school boyfriend’s car, though.”
He leaned back enough to meet her gaze. “Sweetheart, I’m a thousand times better than some fumbling teenager.” As if to prove his point, he rolled his hips again, the friction nearly making her eyes roll back in her head. He lightly bit her earlobe.
She grinned even as she arched up to meet his thrust. “Oh, I guess you’re pretty okay.” There was something so goddamn hot about the fact that they were still wearing most of their clothes and yet her body was humming with more pleasure than she could have dreamed. He was right. He could get her off like this. She was already halfway there.
“Then I’ll just have to up my game.” He kissed her again, his hands digging into her hips and forcing her to meet his rhythm, stroke for stroke. Abruptly, he stopped, almost making her cry out in protest. “I changed my mind. These jeans have to come off.”
A few seconds passed before she realized he was waiting for permission. “Yes.”
“Thank fuck.” He moved back enough to unbutton them and jerked them down her hips and off her legs. What in the world had possessed her to wear skinny jeans? Such a bad idea. But then they were gone and he was back between her legs. He lifted her again, resuming their original positions with her straddling him. She shot him a look, which he returned with another grin. “What? I like the view.”
Sex had never been like this before—almost…fun. She liked it. God, who was she kidding? She liked him. Olivia braced her hands on the roof of the car and shifted against him, biting her lip when his cock rubbed against all the right places. “You’re right. This is better.”
He slid a thumb beneath the side of her panties, tracing down the dip where her thigh met her center and back up again. He was so close to where she wanted him, but he seemed content to tease her. “Your panties are soaked.”
She angled her hips, trying to force him to touch her clit, but his grip tightened, holding her in place. “You promised me something.” Make me come again. Please.
“I always keep my promises.” His thumb stroked her clit and then spread her wetness up and circled it again. “This is what you want.”
“Yes.” She spread her legs even more, lifting herself up a little to give him better access, which he was all too ready to take.
He pushed a finger into her and groaned. “Fuck, sweetheart, the feel of you clenching around me drives me crazy.”
He was doing a damn good job of driving her crazy right alongside him. She hooked the back of his neck and kissed him as she rode his hand, her orgasm looming closer with each stroke. He’d finish her like this if she wasn’t careful and, as hot as that was, she wanted more.
Reaching between them, she dragged down his zipper and freed his cock. He was broad and long, and she shivered as she wrapped her hand around him. “I want to feel you.”
“Then feel me.” He had her down on the seat again before she’d registered the move, his cock lining up perfectly with her clit. He propped himself onto his elbows. “If I had a goddamn condom, I’d already be inside you.”
She bit her lip to keep words she had no business even thinking inside. I don’t care about a condom. But she did care. She had to. “I—”
Cillian kissed her, stealing her words. By the time he lifted his head, she had no idea what she’d been about to say. From the look on his face, he knew it, too. “Do you trust me?”
No. Yes. I don’t know. She nodded. “Yes.”
He kissed her again, his tongue sliding into her mouth as his hips moved, creating delicious friction between her legs. He kept their bodies sealed, offering no chance for him to push inside her, and a small, very stupid, part of her mourned the loss. But the rest of her body was too busy sparking with pleasure. She wrapped her legs around his waist, moaning against his mouth.
And then it was too much.
She clung to him as she came, kissing him with everything she had. He started to pull back, but she was having none of it. “No, don’t stop.” She arched against him. “Finish.”
For a second, he looked almost shocked, but then the heat in his eyes doubled and he started moving with renewed purpose. He palmed her breast with one hand, keeping them tightly together with his other, his mouth on her neck.
Against all reason, she felt pressure building again. “Oh God.”
“I can’t get enough of you.” He yanked her bra to the side and took her nipple into his mouth, all without missing a stroke. “You make me crazy, sweetheart. So fucking crazy.”
She grabbed his hips, rising to meet each stroke as much as she could while being pinned to the seat. She could actually feel him swelling as his cock slid against her. “Come for me.”
He cursed, his movements turning jerky, and she looked down in time to see him do exactly that, his semen hitting her stomach, so damn hot that it was a wonder it didn’t scald her. She hissed out a breath, wondering how something like this could be so damn sexy.
“You’re almost there.” Without missing a beat, he slid down to the floorboard and pushed two fingers into her. “One more time, Olivia. I’m damn near addicted to the way you come so sweetly for me.”
His eyes darkened further. “I’ve been dying for a taste of you.” He dipped down and then his mouth was there, licking and tasting and savoring her. He kissed her there like he kissed her mouth—as if he’d never get enough.
That thought hit her as he fucked her with his tongue, and it was too much. She dug her hands into his hair and moaned his name as she came a second time. He kept going for a few seconds, drawing her orgasm out until it almost hurt. Then, and only then, did he raise his head. “Regrets?”
He was asking that now? Olivia managed a hoarse laugh. “No.”
“Good.” He moved up to sit next to her on the seat. “Then next Wednesday I’m taking you out again.”
*
Sergei watched Olivia—his Olivia—get out of the town car, her hair mussed and a look on her face of supreme satisfaction. Every part of him rejected what his eyes were telling him, but then that Irish bastard leaned out, snagged the back of her neck, and kissed her like she was his. Sergei clenched his fists, fighting to remember his orders. He was not to intervene.
Not unless Dmitri changed his mind.
He fished his cell out of his pocket without taking his eyes off of them, and pushed the button to speed-dial his boss. Dmitri picked up almost immediately. “Now is not a good time.”
“I was right. She’s fucking that piece-of-shit O’Malley. The one with the tattoos.”
A pause. “You’re sure?”
Across the street, Olivia pulled away with a laugh, her entire face lit up with happiness. He hadn’t seen her wear that expression in years, and he had been the last one to put it on her face. “Positive. They just fucked in his backseat, and he looks like he’s ready to haul her in for round two.” One well-placed bullet and he’d put that kid out of commission. Hell, it would be a waste of a bullet. He’d work him over with his fists.
Yeah, that was a much better plan.
He was so focused on all the ways he’d bring the enemy to his knees that it took Sergei a few seconds to realize Dmitri was still speaking to him. “I’m sorry, boss. I missed that last part.”
“So I gathered.” He didn’t sound happy, his voice icy. “Keep your distance. I don’t need you spooking her. I think it’s time that I paid my darling sister a personal visit.”
Damn it, that wasn’t what he wanted. “That’s not necessary. I can take care of it. No need to put yourself out.”
“Wrong. And if you make contact before I get up there, I’ll skin you alive. Do we understand each other?”
Sergei cursed long and hard, though no sound made it out of his mouth. He knew better than to cross Dmitri, but he’d always had a hard time keeping that in mind where Olivia was concerned. She was special. She alone had looked at him without fear—at least at first. It wasn’t his goddamn fault that he was the best at what he did, and Dmitri had no problem putting him to work doing it. That was something to be proud of—not ashamed of like she was. He kept them safe. All of them—even her ungrateful ass. People heard the name Sergei Utkin, and it made them pause and think before they attacked the Romanovs.
And the money didn’t hurt, either.
Dmitri’s father had brought Sergei over from Mother Russia, where he could barely steal enough food to keep himself alive, and he gave Sergei everything he could need—more than he ever dreamed. He’d had money to blow, the best vodka, and any woman of his choosing. More than that, he had the respect and fear of every person he came in contact with. He liked his life, and he liked it even more with Olivia in his bed. It might have only been a year, but he’d gotten a taste for a woman of worth. He wanted her back. He wouldn’t be able to pull that off with Dmitri looking over his shoulder.
“Sergei.”
Damn it, he was so busy thinking, he wasn’t paying attention to the other line. “Sorry again, boss.”
“You’re not comforting me right now. Do I need to bring a replacement when I come?”
And have another man watching Olivia? Not fucking likely. He cleared his throat, doing his best to sound curt and professional. “I’ve got it.”
“You had better. She might be my father’s bastard—for the moment—but she’s still family. Don’t cross me, Sergei. You know what happens if you do.”
Yeah, he knew. He was usually the one Dmitri sent when that happened with someone else. “It’s under control.” Or it would be. He just had to keep a handle on his shit until Dmitri came and left—until he figured out what his boss had planned for Olivia. Because he had a plan. Dmitri always had a plan in place.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” He clicked off.
Sergei gave in to the need to curse aloud. What the fuck was Dmitri thinking? He should have hauled Olivia back to New York the second he realized she was gone. Andrei wanted her as a Romanov, and Dmitri had given his word that he’d see it done. Instead, he’d sat back and let her create a life for herself here. A life that didn’t involve Sergei. Now she had some new cock she was fucking, and the fact that it was attached to the same family that had offered the Romanovs such disrespect barely six months ago…
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.
A few more hours and I’ll have answers. That will have to be good enough.
And if he didn’t like the answers?
Well, then he’d do something about it. He’d lost Olivia because of her half brother once before. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.