Chapter Seventeen

Layla

As if this day wasn’t long and busy enough, spending the night at Eamon’s meant I didn’t have time to pack a lunch. I had to venture out into the cloudy, almost rainy day to get something to eat.

“You sure I can’t get you anything, Ross?” I’d been too distracted by Eamon’s cryptic text to order lunch until it was too late.

“Nope. My woman’s bringing me lunch.”

I cut a gaze over at my boss while I packed up my purse and arched a brow. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Fingers crossed.” With a wiggle of his brows, Ross left my office. Whistling.

Now Ross and Mary? They were a #goals couple. Not only had they been together for more than a decade, but they still went at it like horny college kids, including frequent, fancy date nights.

It was hard not to be bitchy, and I probably would have been if they weren’t the nicest, most generous people I’d ever met. Sure, I had every reason to be jealous since I hadn’t had a boyfriend since junior year of college. The last date I’d been on was at least four months ago. Maybe six. But I wasn’t bothered by what they had. I envied them because I was one of those self-obsessed under thirty’s who worried I wouldn’t find the one. If I envied them at all, it was because of the trust it must take to love someone like that.

Not sure I had that in me.

I grabbed my umbrella and took the elevator down to the lobby, heading toward the deli. I hoped it wouldn’t be so packed that I’d spend my entire lunch hour standing in line. At least the rain had stopped; that was the one small saving grace in this hellish day.

I’d arrived at the office early and played catch up for the rest of the morning. Two clients had shown up unannounced to ‘see what we had so far,’ which was code for they wanted to peek over our shoulders—my shoulder—to make sure we didn’t fuck their image up. That hour-long handholding session screwed up my entire morning. As a result, I missed a conference call with a new client and had to move a meeting with my team to after lunch, which meant they would all be sleepy and lethargic instead of upbeat and creative. Hooray for me.

Thank God for lunch breaks.

The sight of a familiar black limo brought me up short. My breath hitched, and my heartbeat ratcheted up double time and then my brain kicked in. Of course it had to be a different limo belonging to some random rich douchebag or one of those couples who thought a quickie wedding in Rocket was the height of romance. Not him. Shaking off the elevated heart rate, I tamped down the disappointment and kept walking.

“It’s soon, princess.”

I froze at that deep, seductive voice. It was Eamon, damn him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Get in.” Without another word the window slid back up and the door opened. Eamon stepped out looking panty melting hot in a dark gray suit.

My feet carried me toward all that male deliciousness, but my mouth never made things all that easy.

“You said four nights.” My own body betrayed me as the words came out, standing up as if to say, “Shut up bitch, we want this.”

“I did,” he damn near whispered in my ear as his hands went to my waist and guided me into the limo. “But then something funny happened today. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Hearing you.” He inhaled. “Smelling you.”

My legs trembled and I was grateful the seat was there to catch me because holy fuck sticks, this guy was potent.

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

I wish I wasn’t flattered by his empty words but dammit, I was weak.

Eamon slid in and closed the door, pressed a button to lift the privacy window until we were completely alone, nothing but an ovary-exploding smile between us. “It is personal. Very. That’s why I’m here because only a personal solution will do.”

One hand dropped down to my thigh, gripping it just tight enough that I knew who was in control and then his mouth crashed down onto mine. His mouth took possession of me, sliding across the seam of my lips back and forth, back and forth until I was practically in his lap.

“See, I knew you’d understand.”

He smiled and I was thankful that I was already sitting down, because, holy hell, this man should come with an explicit warning labels.

My panties soaked instantly even as my heart pounded in my ears or maybe that was the sound of my blood, thick and hot, rushing through my body. Either way, one hot kiss and one nuclear smile and I was a gone little hussy. A low moan escaped and Eamon swallowed it as his free hand, the one not cupping the back of my head, slid up my thigh until his thumb brushed against my clit.

“Fuck, the sounds you make. Layla.”

The way he groaned my name was like a hot steamy night full of want and need, the kind of sticky, sweaty sex that a woman never forgot.

“I need a taste. Now.”

He tossed off his jacket, leaving him in a sexy little suit vest that I couldn’t look away from, not even as he knelt in front of me and spread my legs apart. I gasped and he smiled a wicked grin, probably straight from the devil himself.

“But…” I didn’t want to finish that sentence, because I realized I didn’t care that I’d been running around all morning like a crazy person. And my fucking bra and grandma panties didn’t even match.

“That’s okay Layla, I don’t mind.” And then his face was buried between my legs, licking and sucking me while two thick fingers invaded my opening, thrusting in and out while his mouth did wet, wicked things to my clit. It was too much, but like the sex junkie I was turning out to be, I couldn’t stop. Hell, I probably couldn’t under the threat of bodily harm, because the way he tasted me, really tasted me, like I was truly his favorite snack, was more addictive than dark chocolate.

Before I could finish my thought, Eamon yanked a powerful orgasm out of me that shook me to my core, vibrating my body while the limo moved smoothly through traffic and the sounds of pedestrians and midday life filtered into our little bubble.

The pleasure went on and on because Eamon, the torturer, wouldn’t let it go. His tongue traced my opening again and again, ensuring that my sensitive nerves never got a break, flicking his tongue inside every once in a while just to make my body jerk in response.

“Okay. Okay.”

His deep chuckle filled the limo and vibrated my inner thighs.

“Enough?”

“Yes. No.” The words came out choppy around my big goofy grin.

“Good answer.”

His seductive gaze never left mine as one hand made quick work of his pants and boxers while the other worked to make sure I didn’t forget his touch. With that beautiful cock exposed, hard and long, thick and jutting out where I wanted him most.

“Now, I want you to ride me. Make me come, Layla.”

Words to my ears. He grabbed me by the waist and lifted me onto his lap, groaning when I slid my pussy up and down the length of his cock. My clit was so swollen that every pass sent a lightning bolt behind my eyes, tingles of awareness zapped through me and skittered across my overheated skin.

“Yes!” I moaned.

“Fuck!” I gripped him tight and lined our bodies up, basically impaling myself on his massive cock and tightened immediately. This position with a guy like him was uncomfortable. Deliciously, wickedly uncomfortable. I couldn’t stop moving, my body wouldn’t allow it, not with this gorgeous cock throbbing inside of me.

“Layla,” he pleaded. With his jaws clenched in restraint, Eamon threw his head back and swallowed another moan.

Watching him in the grip of lust like this did something to me. I leaned forward and scraped my teeth along his throat as I rode him, hard and fast, a woman possessed until we both flew apart.

At.

The.

Same.

Fucking.

Time.

I was pretty sure my body floated away from me and I watched us on a cloud of pleasure. Intense fucking pleasure that caused me to wear a ridiculous grin on my face.

“Damn girl, that was intense,” he said, his head lying back on the soft, buttery leather.

It was. Too intense, emotionally and physically. I needed space. Now. Adjusting my panties, which I knew would have to be trashed as soon as I got to a bathroom, I smoothed my skirt, my top and my hair until I looked like any other worker bee rushing around on her lunch break. Except unlike most of the worker bees, my legs were wobbly, my Grammy panties were ruined, and my stomach was empty.

“That was … amazing as always.”

“Honestly,” he chuckled, “I like it.”

I’m sure the ego stroke didn’t hurt one bit. “I aim to please.”

“You did, princess. I am whatever the word is just above pleased. I am fucking satisfied, babe.”

There went that damn smile again, the one that would replay in my head while my body remembered every moment of today’s encounter.

“Now you have something to think about the rest of the day.”

“I’ll probably be thinking about what I want to eat for dinner for the rest of the day but I’ll be sure to pencil you in for a few thoughts as well.”

“No need, Layla, because I’m all you’ll be thinking about.”

He opened a small black door that turned out to be a fridge and pulled out a red and white checkerboard bag. “Lunch.”

I groaned. “Pastrami? Now I will be thinking about you all day. A guy who brings me pastrami can’t be all bad.”

“Sandwich, chips and a thick pickle. Just for you.”

I flashed a sickly sweet smile. “I love a thick pickle.” I really wanted to ask how in the hell he knew about my love of pastrami, but I was afraid I didn’t want to know the answer. “Thanks Eamon, you’re a unique lunch date.”

He chuckled and opened the door for me, grabbing my ass as he helped me out of the limo. “Just wait until you see what I have planned for dinner.”

I couldn’t wait and I gave him a wink before turning away, closing the door and striding back into the five-story building that housed my office with an extra oomph in my step.

***

I should have known the minute Eamon showed up at my office and gave me an unforgettable orgasm or two, that my day would only go to shit from there. It was inevitable, really and I was more pissed off at myself because I knew better. Good things didn’t happen like that, at least not in my life.

The day I won the fourth-grade spelling bee, I ran through the hospital to share the news with my mom, who’d practiced every word with me even from her hospital bed. She’d been so damn proud of me, bragging to all the nurses and doctors about her pretty little genius. It had been a really great afternoon, until just a few hours later when the cancer took her.

So I should have known those orgasms would cost me. But I was too high on them, on Eamon’s mouth, his capable fingers and especially his thick cock, to realize that all the pleasure would come at a cost.

It started with the goddamn copy machine which had decided to crap out at exactly two fifteen in the afternoon, exactly forty-five minutes before the New Style people showed up to see what their team had come up with.

Thankfully it wasn’t my team, but that hadn’t stopped Jamie-Lyn, another account executive, from throwing me under the bus because I’d been printing out budgets for my team when it happened. I could handle being thrown under the bus, if it would save a client. And only then.

“She’s trying to sabotage me!” That whiny ass cry made me want to bitch slap Jamie-Lyn, but that would have been a surefire ticket to the unemployment line.

Instead I snorted and rolled my eyes, showing Ross and Brenda the HR lady how ridiculous I thought this whole thing was. “You don’t register on my radar enough for me to attempt sabotage, Jamie.” Even if I didn’t have a gambling addict father who owed a shit ton of money to the mob that I had to actually sell my ass to pay off, Jamie-Lyn wasn’t important enough as far as I was concerned.

She sucked in a breath and turned her red-rimmed eyes on me. “You were using the printer when you knew we had an important meeting today.”

Ross remained impassive at the table and Brenda wrote notes but her gaze never left us. I sighed again, seriously contemplating a quick throat punch in lieu of a letter of resignation but that kind of reckless behavior was saved for my dad. “Maybe you shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to print off what you needed for a client meeting. And for the record, I don’t care enough about you to know when you have meetings, Jamie-Lyn!”

Ross’ lips twitched at my outburst, but he was a professional and kept it contained, which was smart since the waterworks started in earnest.

“That’s not…that’s not even close to true!”

This shit was getting ridiculous, I folded my arms over my chest and turned to Ross and Brenda. “Are we seriously considering that I did this, my job, on purpose just to screw with her? Because forty-five minutes before my team meets with a client, we’re practicing our pitch. Just saying.”

Jamie-Lyn sucked in a breath and I prepared myself for more tears, hysterics, whatever. The glow had long faded on my lunch time nookie and I was just pissed. “She broke the machine!”

“Enough.” Ross was quickly losing patience and I braced myself for his outburst. “Layla get back to work.”

That was all I needed to hear, letting my four-inch black stilettos carry me back to my office just in time to hand out budget print-outs to my team. “Make sure your numbers come in under the ones highlighted for each department and we won’t have any problems. Got it?”

My team was all smiles, but I could see the worry in their eyes and Kade, my resident computer maestro, was the one to voice the collective concern. “You’re not in trouble are you?”

More trouble than they knew but that wasn’t their concern. “Not that I know of but if you guys hear anything, let me know.”

I gave a smile and a quick wink before dismissing them all to get a bit more work done before the day ended in an hour.

“Commit those numbers to heart!”

By the time the workday was officially over, I was exhausted and pissed off and ready for another round of Eamon’s fingertips. And to top it all off, I needed to go see my dad, something I had no desire to do while I was using my body to pay off his debts. But he was my dad and the only family I had left in this world, which meant the apartment we’d moved into two years after mom’s death was my after work destination.

“Hey Dad, I figured it was—” the words died on my lips at the sight of him asleep in his favorite lounger. Head leaning back with his mouth slightly parted, he looked every inch the middle-aged widower with a gambling problem he was. Asleep though, the wrinkles faded away and he looked like the man I’d known my entire life, not the stranger I realized he’d been for years.

With Dad asleep, I wouldn’t get any answers from him. Not that I thought I’d get them if he were awake, but at least then I had a shot. I decided to clean up the place the way I had for most of my life. Looking around the kitchen at the dishes piled in the sink, the multitude of cups littering the countertops, and the six-seater pine table in the corner, I could see how easy it was to be clueless.

Dad had been a good provider, but he wasn’t the best housekeeper, which meant chores like washing dishes, making sure the bathrooms were clean and the laundry was done had always fallen to me. And I was happy to do it, along with anything else I could to ease the sadness I saw every time I looked at him. But that meant I missed clues about his drinking and gambling that I shouldn’t have.

All the final notice stamps on utility bills, the late nights I never thought about because as a kid I couldn’t wait until I was a grownup who could stay out as late as I wanted and the slow trickle of new friends.

Damn! It was all right there before my blind eyes!

And now, like the good daughter I was, I was paying the price.

I finished the dishes and moved to the three stacks of mail on the kitchen table. After sifting through at least two dozen envelopes with late notices, I found something I thought might be able to give me some answers. A bank statement. Twelve hundred bucks and two cents was all the money he had in this particular account, which wasn’t too alarming, except that it kind of was.

Not satisfied with just one statement, I went through all the envelopes and set aside the bills that needed to be paid while throwing out all the duplicates. I found two more bank statements and my face went pale as all the blood ran out of it. One account had a bit more cash in it, ten thousand bucks, which pissed me off.

“I’m going to kill you, old man.”

He had ten grand just sitting in one account while I was fucking a mobster to keep him from doing God knows what to him!

The other bank statement was a loan statement. A loan for half a million bucks.

“What?”

As soon as I saw that number and the regular payments that were made, I stopped giving a damn about whether or not Dad’s precious sleep was interrupted.

Up on my feet, I went to my old room that had since been converted into a junk storage room and exactly where I knew he kept everything I needed to see.

It was all there, boxes and boxes of papers. Nothing was labeled, because in true Peter Michaels fashion, he planned to ignore it all until the problem grew so big that it couldn’t be ignored. Bank statements going back five, six years stuck out of every box.

I could see this wasn’t the first loan he’d had which only brought up more questions. How did he get these loans and where in the hell did the money go? Did he have cash someplace to actually pay the Connelly’s off?

“Dad, wake up!” I yelled for him before I even made it back to the living room.

“Dad! Dad!”

He didn’t even stir, and I ignored the flash of worry that maybe he wasn’t sleeping, because of course he hadn’t just taken a nap in the middle of the day. He was passed out drunk.

“Dad!”

Startled, his eyes opened, hazy and unfocused before he blinked, and a slow smile appeared.

“Hey princess, what are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you Dad and guess what I found? Go on, guess.”

I was so furious I could have throttled him the way Eamon had the day we met, but I didn’t.

“I found bank statements. From more than one bank and good news Dad, you’re rich.”

At least he had the decency to look ashamed.

“It’s not what you think, honey. I swear it isn’t.”

He sighed and pushed the footrest down so his feet were planted firm on the ground. “Those loans, that money, it isn’t mine.”

“Explain.”

He didn’t want to. I could tell by the defiant lift of his chin and the way he sat just a little taller.

“It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

“Bullshit. You want to know what I’m doing to pay off your debt? Do you Dad?”

He shook his head and snorted.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Tell me why, according to the bank, you have hundreds of thousands of dollars from several banks right here in town?”

“Casinos and underground gaming rooms need cash. When I couldn’t pay the last few times, I took out loans for Connelly, the old man, not Eamon. They pay the loans back on time, and I don’t know why they do it this way, only that they do.”

“And you couldn’t do that this time?”

He shook his head, disappointment radiating off of him in waves.

“Too much already, bank wouldn’t approve another until some of these are paid off.”

I stared at the man who’d raised me, the man who was supposed to love and protect me and shook my head. I had no words for what I felt. I took a deep breath and nodded. I needed to get out of this place. Away from Dad, away from my thoughts and away from Eamon Connelly.

“I have to go.”

“I’m sorry, Layla. Forgive me.”

I froze at his words and turned back to my father whose entire body had been swamped by fear. The anguish in his eyes was real and I knew he was hurting inside and that hurt me. But I also knew that a quick mention of some action and his guilt would blow out the door with me.

“I’ll do what I can, Daddy.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

I slammed the door behind me, dammit. Angry that he was making me feel sorry for him when I was the one selling my ass to a fucking gangster.

Albeit, a gangster who was a magician when it came to giving a woman pleasure.