Cillian knew he was in trouble the second Doc Jones walked through the front door. She was a big woman who looked like she came from a family of lumberjacks and bench-pressed trees for fun. Her orange-red hair was liberally streaked with gray, but she could be anywhere from forty to sixty. All he knew was that she’d been the family medic for as long as he could remember and, aside from the added gray hair that she liked to blame on the O’Malleys, she didn’t seem to have aged a day in the meantime.
She took one look at him and snorted. “Always trouble with you, isn’t it, boy?”
I’m twenty-six. I’m not a goddamn boy anymore. He bit back the instinctual response. It would only let her know exactly how much she got under his skin. Not that she needed the verbal confirmation. Doc Jones was one of the few people who talked shit to every member of his family from his youngest sister all the way up to his father, all without seeing any actual consequences. Probably because she was excellent at her job—and knew how to keep her mouth shut.
Olivia stood. “It’s not his fault. He was jumped.”
“Who’s this cute little piece of ass?”
She started to bypass Olivia, but Olivia got right in the doctor’s face. Nothing overtly threatening, but she didn’t back up when the large woman got into her personal space. “I’m the one who saved his ass. So maybe before you go dismissing me, you’ll ask me—the one without a head wound—for the details.”
Cillian braced himself to stand and get between the two of them if it became necessary. No one—not even his father—talked to the doctor like that. But Doc Jones just grinned. “I like this one. Try not to fuck it up.”
Right, because that was what he was worried about right now. The only reason Olivia was giving him the time of day was because she was afraid he’d fall down on the sidewalk and bleed out if she let him out of here unsupervised. It wasn’t exactly the suave impression he’d wanted to make. After this, he’d be lucky if she looked at him with anything other than pity.
“He was jumped by two men. He’s probably got a bunch of bruises, but the main issue is that he hit his head on the brick wall when he fell, and has been bleeding ever since.” Olivia glanced at him. “He’s been talking, but seems kind of out of it, so it’s possible that he’s got a concussion.”
“Any vomiting?”
“No.”
“That’s something, at least.” Doc Jones nodded. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble this one gets into.”
Olivia snorted. “Oh, I can imagine.”
Cillian tried not to be too insulted that they were talking about him like he wasn’t in the room. Doc Jones took the towel off the back of his head and batted his hand away. “Don’t move.”
Since she had a history of smacking her unruly patients, he wasn’t inclined to disobey. He’d already had his bell rung tonight—he didn’t need it to happen a second time. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.” She prodded the wound, her touch much less gentle than Olivia’s had been. “You don’t even need stitches.” She hefted her giant bag onto the table next to him and rifled through it, coming up with a handful of bandages. A few minutes later, he was wrapped up and feeling like one of those amnesia patients on the soaps his mother swore up and down and sideways that she never watched. “Good enough.” Another dip into her bag brought up an orange pill bottle. “These aren’t anything fancy—just extra-strength Tylenol. You’re a grown-ass man, so you can handle a little pain, and I’m not giving you anything else until we know if you’ve got a concussion.”
He ignored the bottle. “I don’t need anything.” Tylenol wouldn’t knock him out like the meds he’d been given after he was shot, but his aversion to pain pills had only gotten stronger as time went on. He didn’t want to take anything that might make him sleep too deeply—or take away his pain so he’d pass out. The nightmares were bad enough if he could startle himself awake easily. Being stuck in them…He wouldn’t take the chance.
Doc Jones’s eyebrows rose. “If you say so. Change the bandage once a day for a week, don’t knock your head into anything in the meantime, and you should be fine. Call me if it starts bleeding excessively again.”
“I will.” He wasn’t thrilled about the head bandage, but it was better than stitches at this point. He fucking hated stitches.
She nodded, and turned to Olivia. “He can’t be left alone tonight. So either take him back to the O’Malley house or take him home with you.” Her dismissive tone said she couldn’t care less which option the other woman chose.
“Wait—what? Aren’t you going to take him?”
“Not my job. I made sure the idiot wasn’t going to bleed to death. The rest is up to you.” She grabbed her doctor’s bag and marched out of the pub without a backward glance.
Olivia stared. “That’s some bedside manner.”
“She’s always been like that. Comes in, patches us up, and is gone without any small talk.” Doc Jones may not have been into the softer feelings, but she liked her money. So she didn’t mind showing up at odd hours, fixing men who’d obviously been up to something less than legal, no questions asked. He was pretty sure she had her own clinic, funded in part by O’Malley money. Since he couldn’t see her answering to anyone but herself, he figured the arrangement worked well for everyone involved.
“Wonderful.”
He carefully moved his head from side to side. As expected, the bandages were a good fit and not going anywhere. Cillian looked at Olivia—really looked at her—for the first time since the attack. She wasn’t exactly dragging ass, but she looked as exhausted as he felt. If it hadn’t been for him, she already would have been home and safe and probably asleep.
Way to go, asshole. If you hadn’t been wandering the streets like a crazy person, this never would have happened.
He carefully stretched. The aches and pains were more annoying than worrisome. “I can make it home on my own.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s late—or early, depending on your definition. I’ll get you a hotel nearby and stay with you until morning.”
“Sure. Thanks.” Under different circumstances, he would have been happier than hell at this turn of events. As it was, he didn’t have the strength to make a move even if she was willing. He was pretty sure pity was her sole motivation for helping him, rather than being so overwhelmed with his masculine sexuality that she couldn’t wait to get him alone. You are seriously knocking it out of the park with this woman.
*
This was a mistake. An epic mistake. Olivia should have just called him a cab and sent Cillian on his way. Instead here she was, checking them both into Beacon Hill Hotel while he leaned heavily on the counter next to her. Its nightly rate wasn’t one she could afford, but it was the only hotel within walking distance.
Even though the night had cooled down to being nearly pleasant, she hadn’t enjoyed one second of that walk. She kept flinching at every little sound, half-sure that the guys she’d scared off had come back to finish the job. Or, worse in some ways, that Sergei would melt out of the shadows and demand to know what the hell she was doing with Cillian O’Malley on her arm.
Maybe she should have just called the damn cab and sent Cillian home, but as stupid as it was, she couldn’t help feeling kind of responsible for him. There was an old legend in a book that she’d read about as a kid that said if you saved another person’s life, you became responsible for it. She’d found the idea tragically romantic as a little girl.
Now? Now she was starting to think it was a giant pain in the ass. She had enough to worry about. She didn’t need some O’Malley with more charm than sense mucking around in her life.
He offered to leave multiple times and you ignored him.
So what? That doesn’t mean I want this.
It doesn’t mean you don’t.
She cursed under her breath as the front desk agent passed over the hotel keys, very carefully avoiding looking directly at Cillian. Their room was on the second floor, so she slid under Cillian’s arm to support him—not that he asked for it—to get him into the elevator and up to their door. He didn’t say anything as she unlocked it and pushed it open. She stopped short when she caught sight of the single bed. “Damn it. I asked for a double.”
“I’ll call the front desk.” He started to move toward the phone, but she grabbed his arm and steered him toward the bed.
“It’s fine. I wasn’t going to sleep anyway.” Even though she was so tired, she was pretty sure she was weaving on her feet more than he was. Dealing with Sergei yesterday and then Cillian and those thugs and then Doc Jones on top of everything…
It was a lot. A whole hell of a lot.
She sat down next to him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like some asshole took a two-by-four to the side of my head.”
“No, really?” She rolled her eyes. “Are you still dizzy? Nauseous?”
He started unbuttoning his shirt. “Just fucking tired.”
“What are you doing?” She had to fight against the insane urge to slap his hands away and clutch the shirt together to hide the growing slice of skin on his chest the parting fabric revealed.
He didn’t stop. “I’m covered in blood and feel like absolute shit. I can’t do a damn thing about how I feel, but I can get this shirt off.” He gingerly shrugged out of it, and then cursed when the dried blood made the fabric stick to his skin.
Olivia moved to help him, trying not to notice how freaking good he looked without a shirt on. The tattoos on his neck wound down, connecting with his sleeves and a giant mural over his left side, the ink only serving to accent a body that would have made her stop and take notice under any circumstances. Her fingers trailed down his chest as she finished unbuttoning his shirt, his skin almost hot to the touch. It was so strange that he’d been inside her but she hadn’t touched him like this. She stopped when his stomach tensed beneath her touch. “Am I hurting you?”
“No, nothing like that.”
She made herself stop stroking him and rocked back on her heels. “Right. Okay.” The tattoos created such a strange contrast—the pretty boy and the multitude of artwork inked into his skin—that she wasn’t sure what to think of him.
Hell, she hadn’t been sure what to think of him from the start. Nothing he did was on par with what she expected. It was enough to make her head spin.
She pushed to her feet, needing some distance between them since the whole of a king-sized bed wasn’t anywhere near enough. “Let me wet a washcloth and we’ll see about cleaning you up, since a shower is out of the question.” Doc Jones hadn’t explicitly said that, but getting the bandages wet seemed like a pretty dumb idea.
“A sponge bath? Careful there, sweetheart—keep acting like that and I might actually start to think you like me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She couldn’t help a small smile as she ran the water until it was warm, and then wet the cloth. But her humor faded as she came back into the room, faced again with all that skin. Just do it. Nurses do it all the time and it’s not weird. Sure, but she wasn’t a nurse. She was a bartender who was having uncomfortable thoughts about a man who was injured.
Uncomfortable sexy thoughts.
Like the fact that they hadn’t been this naked when they’d had sex. Or that just seeing him without his shirt was enough to have her reconsidering her promise to herself that it was a onetime thing.
Olivia debated how to go about it for half a second and then went to her knees in front of him. There were faint red tracks down his chest that had bled through his shirt, and his hair was matted on the one side. “Hold still.” She ran the washcloth down his arm, figuring that was safe enough to start with. She bit her lip. She was sure she could feel the heat of his skin through the warm cloth. I’m imagining things.
What she wasn’t imagining was how he tensed again the second she touched him. She froze. “Are you sure I’m not hurting you?”
He huffed out a laugh. “It’s got nothing to do with hurt, sweetheart, and a whole lot to do with pleasure.” Then he turned those dark eyes on her, and her breath caught in her throat. It didn’t matter that he was walking wounded or that she wasn’t even sure she liked this guy. He seemed to reach out and run his hands over her body without moving a single muscle. She tried to hold back a shiver and failed miserably. If he could do that with a look, what could he do if he actually touched her?
Oh, right. You already know exactly what he can do if he touches you.
Bad idea. Really, really bad idea.
It took far too much effort to break his gaze and go back to what she was doing. In an effort to distract herself, she said, “Tell me about your tattoos.”
For a second, she thought he might not do it, but he sighed. “What you see is what you get.”
Somehow, she doubted it. She focused on the ones wrapping his forearms. They were both pinups—an angel and a devil—but the angel was posed more like a porn star and the devil was downright demure. It made her smile despite everything. Things were rarely what they seemed to be, a truth that he apparently held as tightly as she did. Both women were framed by roses but, again, they weren’t what she would have expected. They were the traditional colors—red for devil and white for angel—but the white roses were framed by deadly looking thorns, and the red were filled to the brim with green vines that were so lifelike, she reached out to run her finger along one.
The feeling of skin against skin, even so innocent a touch, was almost too much. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d casually touched someone who wasn’t Hadley. It had to have been Sergei, and that was more than a year ago. A whole year.
That had to be the reason she was reacting so strongly to this O’Malley. The reason she’d thrown caution to the wind and actually had sex with him. The reason she was having a seriously difficult time taking her hands off him.
Focus.
Right. Focus.
She took her hand back and went to work on his side. The tattoo there was massive, stretching from his shoulder over his chest and down his side to disappear into the band of his slacks. She paused. “A dragon.” It was wrapped around a naked woman, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell if it was protecting the woman or about to take a chunk out of her.
“Have you ever heard the story of Saint George?”
She glanced at him. “I’m not Catholic.” The Romanov family was Eastern Orthodox, but she’d never been required to attend the Divine Liturgy and she hadn’t felt the lack at all. What kind of church took money from people who were known criminals? A confession shouldn’t be enough to absolve certain crimes. But as long as the funds kept flowing, no one said a single word. It was hypocrisy in the worst form as far as she was concerned.
“Saint George was a soldier for some Roman emperor or another, and was a pretty badass warrior. He decided that he didn’t like the way the emperor was killing off every Christian he could get his hands on, so he told him so to his face.”
She moved up his body to his chest, which held the head of the dragon—right next to a scar of what had to be a bullet wound. The scar didn’t distort the tattoo, but it butted right up against the back of the dragon’s head. “What happened?”
“Oh, he died. Torture and beheading.”
She blinked. Didn’t expect that. “Oh.”
“Most of the saints went out in gruesome ways. Sometimes I wonder if it actually got them any extra cosmic points or if it was all for nothing.” He gave himself a little shake. “But Saint George is my patron saint. Traditionally, the art depicting him shows him facing down a dragon to save a damsel in distress.”
Olivia leaned back. There was no warrior in sight. “So where is he?”
“Not on me.” He grinned unexpectedly. “See, the dragon typically represents the wickedness of the world, and I happen to be a big fan of wickedness—or at least I used to be. He’s made up of the seven deadly sins.”
He was? The scales of the beast were…She moved closer. There were scenes etched into his hide. Olivia silently counted them. Seven. His head was obviously lust, the depiction of the man and woman…and another woman…in a naked embrace so intricate it was a wonder she hadn’t realized it was there before. “This artwork is amazing.” Without thinking, she trailed her washcloth down to the woman. Olivia couldn’t figure out if her face was frozen in fear or ecstasy. “And the woman?”
“She’s supposed to be God’s holy truth.” From his smirk, he’d tweaked that meaning as well.
She went back up to his shoulder. The blood was almost gone now except for on Cillian’s head, but she was hesitant to break this curiously intimate moment. And maybe, just maybe, I’m prolonging the time I’m going to have to stop running my hands over his body. “And what does your priest think about your interpretations of your patron saint?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s resigned himself to my being fed to the fires of hell when I die.” He shrugged. “But he never stops trying.”
She finished with his neck and sat back on her heels. “I think your hair is going to have to wait until you can shower, so you’ll have to talk to Doc Jones about that.”
“Thanks.” There it was again, that look that threatened to curl her toes. He reached out and took the washcloth from her and tossed it onto the nightstand. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
She should object, move away, do something other than rest her hands on the top of his thighs and tilt her head up. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Didn’t the last few years teach you anything? Apparently not, because she wanted Cillian to kiss her again, and she wanted him to kiss her now.
Truth be told, she wanted him to do a whole lot more than that.
Olivia licked her lips. “Okay.”
His lips quirked up at the edges. “I can see I’m blowing your socks off. Let’s see if I can do better.” He cupped her face with one hand and then his mouth was on hers, soft and teasing, testing—nothing like the forceful kiss that started everything last night. She opened for him immediately, driven by the lightning dancing just beneath her skin. She wished she could blame it on being skin-starved, but the truth was that this man was doing more with a near-innocent kiss than Sergei had ever done with his entire body and hours at his disposal. I am in so much trouble.
Then Cillian’s tongue stroked hers and she was lost. She gripped his thighs as he explored her mouth, giving herself permission to do some exploring of her own. He was all lean muscle, as if he’d been melted down and stuck in a forge, only to come out new. She ran her hands up his legs, stopping just short of his hips.
He took it from there. He ran his fingers through her hair and down her back, inching her closer until there was nothing more than a breath of distance between them. It would have been so damn easy to lean forward and touch him, pressing her body against his, but the separation was almost unbearably erotic. She shivered again, tilting her head back to give him better access.
She’d never been kissed like this, like she was something to be savored…valued. Like he had all the time in the world and he’d still never get enough.
Common sense tried to rear up and remind her that it was a goddamn kiss, not a lifetime commitment, but then his thumb feathered across the underside of her breast, and all rational reasoning flew right out the window.
He rested his forehead against hers, and groaned. “You’re making it hard to be good, sweetheart.”
So don’t be good. She gritted her teeth to keep the words inside. If she started pressing now, it was a slippery slope to begging, and Olivia did not beg. So she closed her eyes and just took a second to enjoy the feeling of being wrapped up in him while maintaining some distance. Last night she’d pushed until she’d gotten her way. She could push tonight and he’d give in. She knew that in her bones.
But he was hurting, and going there with her might injure him further. She took a shuddering breath. “I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” He ran his hand down her side, slipping it beneath her shirt to rest on her hip. “I want you so bad it’s killing me. But I’m not in a position to be able to take care of you how you deserve right now, with my head wound fucking me up.” His thumbs traced circles on her skin. “And even if it wasn’t…A few hours ago you were telling me that this wasn’t what you want. When you change your mind for good—and you will—I want you to know you’re not just coming down from an adrenaline high. You want me as much as I want you. It’s not circumstantial.”
Oh. That was the last thing she’d expected. She opened her eyes as he sat back. “It was just a quick fuck in an alley.” A really outstanding fuck. Even if she’d been able to pretend last night was a freak thing…She couldn’t do that now. Not when the chemistry was still sparking between them so hot, it was a wonder she didn’t burn up with it.
“Sure it was.” His low chuckle, so similar to the one he made last night before he was inside her, had her squirming.
It would have taken only the tiniest of pushes to take that kiss into the bed and lose themselves in each other. She was already poised on the brink and he’d barely done anything. Even now, it was a struggle to take her hands off his thighs and move away. She concentrated on stopping touching him. “Exactly. Nothing to write home to Mom about.”
“Olivia.”
She stopped backing away, her heartbeat picking up. “Yeah?”
“Let me take you out on a real date. It’s obvious there’s something between us. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want to let it pass without exploring it.”
Longing like nothing she’d ever known rose up inside her. A real date. She wanted to say yes, to put on a pretty dress and doll herself up and let Cillian take her somewhere nice. They’d spend the meal flirting and talking and then afterward, he’d kiss her again and, this time, there would be nothing standing in the way of taking things further.
Nothing except her past and his family.
It’s too big a risk, no matter how he makes you feel. Hell, the way he makes you feel only adds to the risk. This isn’t some casual dicking around—this could be ruinous.
“I can’t.” She stood. “I’m sorry.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Both. She walked to the nightstand where he’d tossed the washcloth, and picked it up, desperate for anything to distract her from the half-naked man watching her far too closely. “I have a whole lot of shit in my past that’s just waiting to rise up and kick me in the face again, and you have…” She motioned in his direction. “Your life. Your family. Whatever you’re running from. It would never work.”
“I’m asking for a date, sweetheart—not a lifetime commitment.”
Maybe, but there was nothing simple about her life right now, and she had a feeling he didn’t know the meaning of the word, either. I could lose myself in a man like this. That was reason enough without everything else to stay the hell away from him. “It’s not a good idea.” No matter how much she suddenly wanted to say yes.
He gave her a long look. “Or maybe it’s the best damn idea either of us has had. Life is too short, Olivia. Why not take your happiness where you can find it, even if it’s not forever?”
She froze. When he put it like that…She’d been so busy running and trying to just survive that she hadn’t taken a single thing for herself in longer than she could remember. Not until last night. What was one more night in the grand scheme of things? Even if it went well, he was right—it was one date. It wasn’t like he was asking her to marry him.
You’re just looking for any excuse to say yes. She unfolded and refolded the wet washcloth. “I don’t know.”
He didn’t say anything else, just watched her with that heated look that made her want to cross over to him and crawl into his lap. She turned away, but it didn’t help. She could feel him watching her, which made her think of that kiss…which led right back into imagining another kiss. More than a kiss.
One night won’t kill me. It might even give me the breathing room I desperately need.
Flimsy excuse firmly in hand, she turned back to face him. “Okay. One date.”
And she’d pray to the God she wasn’t sure she believed in that she wasn’t making a horrible mistake.
*
Sergei stood out on the street, looking up at Beacon Hill Hotel. He didn’t like that his Olivia had taken the O’Malley there, and he liked it even less that she was still up there. When Dmitri sent him to Boston to keep an eye on her, he’d thought it was a reward, a chance to finally get close to her again. Now he wasn’t so sure. It had been over a year since he could last call her his and mean it, but he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was walking into a hotel with that goddamn bastard.
He didn’t like thinking about the possibility that his Olivia had turned into a whore.
His phone rang, a welcome distraction. Spending time thinking about what she was doing up there with that bastard made him want to march through the door and deal out the sort of pain he was known for.
He couldn’t do that.
Dmitri didn’t want Olivia to know he was watching her, and he’d be pissed if Sergei fucked up whatever plan he had going in that twisted head of his. “Da?”
“Where is she?”
Speak of the devil. Sergei might put the Romanov family and its interests first, second, and last, but he still hadn’t forgiven the man for being the reason Olivia walked away. He promised she’d be mine in the end. Remember that. “She’s with that O’Malley.”
“I see.” Dmitri sounded like he always did—cool and composed—but there was an underlying tension there. Apparently he didn’t like that his little sister was going Irish any more than Sergei did.
“Do you want me to take care of it?” Sergei asked. He was the best at what he did and with good reason. No one fucked with him and his in New York. He’d worked his ass off to get that reputation and, if he sometimes enjoyed what it took to keep it…sue him. There was no shame in being proud that he was a man people thought twice about before crossing.
But this wasn’t New York and he wasn’t in charge here.
That didn’t stop him from hoping that Dmitri would give him the go-ahead to fuck up the enemy who thought he could touch Sergei’s woman.
Then Dmitri went and dashed all those hopes to hell. “No. You had your chance to deliver the message. Now your job is to watch her, and that’s all I want done. No further contact, Sergei.”
He clenched his jaw. Always with the orders when it came to Olivia. Everywhere else, Dmitri gave him plenty of freedom and trusted his judgment. If he’d done the same a year ago, Olivia would still be in Sergei’s life and bed. “If you’re sure—”
“I am.” Just that. No explanation, but Dmitri never offered them. He was boss, and his word was law.
He was vulnerable to mistakes just like any other man, though. Sergei was sure this was one such mistake—just like the last time he’d gone head-to-head with the O’Malley family. If Dmitri had sent him to Boston six months ago to take care of business, they wouldn’t be in their current clusterfuck. He would have handled things here just like he handled things at home, and that O’Malley bitch wouldn’t have had a Halloran to run to.
But he couldn’t say as much to his boss. If there was one thing Dmitri Romanov hated more than being disobeyed, it was being questioned. He had a plan, and he expected Sergei to fall in line and do what needed to be done without opening his mouth. “Got it.”
“Call me if anything changes.”
“Will do.” His gaze flicked from one illuminated window to the next. Was she up there right now, sucking O’Malley cock? Or was she riding him, giving him the view of a goddamn lifetime? A sharp pain brought him back to himself. At some point, he’d pulled the knife from his pocket and engaged it, and begun running his finger along the edge. Sergei looked at the dark line of blood against his skin and imagined it was the man’s throat.
When the time came that Dmitri was ready to get rid of the little shit, Sergei would be the first in line to get the job done.