The Ruthless Read online

  I laugh too loud at that, but the awed tones in him are adorable. It's exactly the way I feel about her too, awed and obsessed and so freaking grateful to call her my best friend. My sister.

  He smirks at me and leans forward to grab my chin, pressing our lips together in a light kiss that ends far too quickly. When he pulls away, I have to force myself not to chase his lips because I don’t want to look as desperate as I really am for him. I need his stability, the way he says what he means and is always true to his word. I need the firm and sure way that he takes me apart and owns my body, the way that he’s focused on nothing but me and the pleasure between us.

  I need the way that he loves me, even if neither of us are ready to say it yet.

  His voice is rough as he says, “Illi has his bikers out patrolling. They’re a little less… mouthy about you these days. I think he might’ve thrown down about you. We’re safe to just… be here today, without worrying about who’s gonna find us.”

  I nod. “I trust you and I trust Illi to keep us safe. Now I need you to fuck me until I can’t think or move or exist. I need to forget about evil plots and murder boards and fucking sex tapes. Please, Aodhan.”

  His eyes flare wide and a little snarl leaves his throat. “You don’t even have to ask me for that, Queenie, and you don’t ever have to say fucking please.”

  Chapter Three

  It doesn’t matter that my eyes are starting to sting with exhaustion and my mind is still an absolute mess thanks to Atticus and the games he’s caught up in, the moment Aodhan pulls me back into his lips, my body melts for him.

  There’s been too much going on, too many things getting between us, and the stroke of his tongue against mine is like a sedative. Nothing else matters but the way I fit against his body and the feel of his hands cupping my face.

  Everything about his movements are a slow torture. There’s nothing frenzied or rushed about the way that he’s slowly pulling me apart, piece by piece.

  I get impatient.

  I want to forget about everything happening outside of this little safe haven he’s created; I want to only exist for the two of us and the pleasure we can find in each other, but there’s no rushing him.

  The moment I try, he pulls back. “If you want mind-numbing, leg-shaking, brain-breaking sex then quit trying to speed things up. You need to learn the difference between a quick fuck and me spreading you out and making a meal of you.”

  My thighs clench together a little at the sound of that, and a slow smirk cuts across his face. He’s too attractive right now, too open and present and right here with me in this vulnerable moment.

  I want to squirm away but he won’t let me, the grip of his hands on my face gentle but unyielding. I have no choice but to hold his eyes with my own and watch as he slowly tips my head back and kisses his way down my throat. The scratch of his stubble against the soft skin of my neck is like the perfect torture, rough enough to have me gasping even as he licks and sucks the sting away. There isn’t going to be an inch of my skin unmarked by the time he’s through with me.

  He continues his slow torture until he reaches the opening of the shirt I’m wearing, his unhappy groaning at my skin being covered the only warning he gives me before he reaches up to yank it over my head.

  I wish he’d hurry up and push inside me, something, anything, because I feel so fucking empty without his body covering mine and filling me, pushing and pushing until I want to burst.

  I never want this to end.

  His tongue circles one of my nipples before his teeth clamp down hard enough that a moan rips out of my throat and my hands tangle in his hair. When he moves to give that same treatment to my other nipple, my hands make a fist and tug until he’s grunting and grinding his hips against mine mindlessly.

  I feel like a teenager.

  I mean, I’m barely twenty years old but I never really went through the mindless makeout and grinding stage. Not really. Rory was the closest I came and that relationship was over before it started.

  When Aodhan has kissed and scraped and sucked his way down to my hips, he shoves the sweatpants away and presses a kiss to the wet heat between my legs, my pussy already dripping from his slow seduction. I don’t think it would take much for me to come right now, one finger hooking inside me or the brush of the heel of his palm against my clit, anything would set me off.

  Then he pulls away.

  I don’t rise to the bait because I’m sure this is just the next level of teasing he has planned for me but then he tugs the towel off of his waist and throws it away and for a split second I think that he’s going to fuck me into next week, just what I need.

  He lowers himself down… onto the bed next to me, splaying himself out like this is all done and over with.

  I’m about to bitch him out into next week when he chuckles at me, his hand grabbing my wrist and tugging me over to him. “Climb up, Queenie. Get that pretty pussy on my face.”

  There’s a lot of things about sex that I’d always found distasteful. To crawl over someone, naked, and have myself splayed open over their face? No thank you, that sounds like a horror story.

  I’m just desperate enough to give it a go.

  Except that Aodhan groans like a dying man the moment I straddle his face, his chest heaving and his hands more desperate now on my skin than they've been since he got home, and if that doesn't make my confidence skyrocket then nothing will. His fingers spread me open, adjusting my legs until he's practically smothering himself with my pussy, and I almost cry when his lips finally touch my clit.

  I try to ease up a little, just shift away so he can breathe, but he lets out a snarl that sends vibrations straight to my clit until my legs shake.

  I have to take a deep, calming breath before I can focus on anything other than what his mouth is doing to me. I don't want to be a pillow princess and just lie back while he does all of the work.

  I want to make him feel just as good as he makes me feel.

  With only two blowjobs under my belt, it’s a little intimidating to be in this position. Add that to how I’m attempting to make this a mind meltingly good blowjob and the pressure is on.

  The French manicure on my fingernails looks strangely obscene wrapped around his dick and I wish he could see it but then his tongue flicks against my clit again and I’m gasping and trying to remember to stay on task.

  Suck his brains out of his dick, Beaumont, for Christ’s sake!

  I dive into the blowjob the same way I tackle anything, head first and with the false confidence of someone who has always gotten what they wanted, one way or another.

  I relax my throat enough to swallow him down in one go and the groan he lets out is that of a dying man, long and choked out as though he’s in pain. It gives me the confidence to not only keep going but to put my all into it, no matter how I look or the sounds I’m making.

  Humming works quite well and almost backfires on me because the groan he lets out over my clit takes me all the way to the edge in one go, the wave of my orgasm washing over me until my legs are shaking and just barely keeping me up.

  The embarrassment of falling on him might kill me.

  I desperately want him to come first, even if that does put a dampener on the rest of my plans, but no matter what noises he makes in appreciation of what I’m doing, he doesn’t want to lose this game we’ve found ourselves in. He also knows exactly how to shove me over the edge and when I reach down to cup his balls gently, rolling him in my hand, he obviously gets close enough to coming that he finally stops his teasing and gets to work properly, two fingers slipping inside of me and hooking until he’s stroking over my G spot mercilessly.

  I almost choke, I come so hard with him so far down my throat it hurts.

  I forget sometimes how strong he is when all of my limbs start to shake and I think I’m about to fall, his hands wrap around my hips and lift me off of him, maneuvering my body until I’m straddling his waist now and not his face.

  “The
re’s no way I’m riding anything right now, give a girl a break,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound as wrecked as I’m feeling.

  He grins up at me, his face drenched and glistening with my cum that he’s made no attempts to wipe away. “You look too fucking pretty sitting on me; let a man enjoy the view for a minute.”

  I blush like a schoolgirl and my eyes narrow at him for making me so goddamn soft, but his grin just gets bigger and more lecherous.

  I’m not expecting him to flip me over, his hand cradling the back of my head so the impact onto the pillows doesn’t jar me and by the time I’ve realized what it is that he’s doing, he’s finally, finally, pushing inside of me.

  There’s nothing like this feeling. Nothing at all in the world compares to Aodhan O’Cronin sliding inside of me like he’s coming home, and he doesn’t at all ease me into it. His hips move rhythmically, not pounding into me but relentless as he stokes my body into a frenzy.

  I’m a squirming mess but one of his hands clamps onto my chin and holds my face steady as he stares down at me, taking in every shaking moan and desperate gasp until I’m coming, my pussy clenching around him and his hips stuttering for a second as he groans.

  He doesn’t come though.

  The control he’s got over himself right now is fucking unreal, and the moment I come down from my high, his hips start up again. It’s not until my body is breaking apart for the fourth time that he grunts and grinds his hips into mine, his lips desperate on mine as we both groan through the high.

  My legs are numb so he definitely did exactly what he said he was going to do.

  He leans down to press his forehead against mine, his breath fanning out across my cheeks before he pulls out and away from me, and it’s a more intimate moment than when I’d straddled his smirking face.

  I think I’m in love with him.

  It shouldn’t shock me at all, I wouldn’t let him in if I didn’t think that this could be something serious, but I didn’t think I was close to those feelings yet.

  It almost feels like it’s rushed… because my feelings for Atticus have been with me forever and to find someone else so quickly and to fall so hard feels freaking terrifying.

  And just like that, my brain clicks back on and there’s no escaping from everything swirling around in there, processing and assessing and calculating the risks and rewards.

  I want nothing more than to curl up in Aodhan's arms and sleep for the next month. It's so unlike me, I never run from the hard stuff like this and I'm always planning out our next moves, but right now that seems... terrifying.

  What if our next moves are to kill Atticus?

  "Stop thinking about it, Queenie. Stop worrying about what the asshole is doing, that's tomorrow's problem. Fuck, maybe we need to go again to ram that home for you."

  I roll my eyes at the suggestive tones, but a smile creeps over my face. Nobody is perfect, no matter how much they mean to me, but Aodhan comes pretty close.

  I used to think the same of Atticus.

  Jesus H. Christ, I'm never going to be able to get him out of my head.

  "This is the way my brain works; I can't shut it off. Get some sleep, you've been up for longer than I have."

  He lets out a breath and shuts his eyes, the exhaustion still radiating off of him in waves. He looks like the last two days have aged him, like the grinning and easygoing guy that has become such an important part of my life has been replaced with a world-weary man.

  Okay, that might be a little dramatic of me to say but of the two men who have found their way into my heart, he's the balance. He's the one who manages to walk that line between treating me like I know what the hell I'm doing and trying to make me enjoy life just a little more. He doesn't coddle me or protect me into captivity.

  He wants me to live.

  I lean over to kiss him softly and then I pull away to grab my phone from where it's fallen the short distance to the floor. There's a dozen messages from Ash, all of them worried and savage in his hatred of Atticus. I know Lips wouldn't have told him any of the details, but my brother hates Atticus enough that he doesn't need details.

  He only needs to hear his name.

  Lips has sent through some more theories and the names of the photos she didn't recognize thanks to Illi. Everything is vague in that way that she is in messages, too worried about being hacked and having her messages land in the wrong hands.

  It's a valid concern.

  You can ruin someone's whole life with a handful of screenshots.

  There's also a message from Jackson to call him when I wake up which has me wincing at the idea that I still haven't gone to sleep yet. I move to get out of the bed so I don't disturb Aodhan, though there's only the bathroom to hide in, but his arm snakes around me and holds onto me tight.

  "I need to make a call. Just get some sleep and I'll be back in a minute."

  He grunts and pulls me in closer. "You're not fucking leaving this bed. Call people, threaten them, plan a coup—I don't give a fuck, but your ass isn't moving."

  I huff at him like I'm annoyed but he's a little too charming for me right now because I need to focus on my work for a minute.

  I dial Jackson's number and he picks up almost instantly. "Good morning, my liege."

  Christ. "What have you found, Jackson; I'm not in the mood for games."

  He grunts at me and I hear the sounds of his fingers on the keyboard. He has one of those loud, extra clicky types that would make me want to murder him if I were Viola.

  Thank God I'm not.

  Being stuck with Jackson in the bunker is a fate worse than hell.

  "Did you recognize the guy in the basement at all? Was there, like, anything at all about him that seemed familiar to you?"

  I roll my eyes and huff at the idiot. "If I did recognize him, why the hell would I ask you to figure out who he is? Honestly, Jackson—"

  "There's no security cameras in the tunnel or the basement, obviously, because I didn't even know the basement existed. So I had to go through the security footage to figure out who went into the house and has never come out."

  I shrug, that's obvious enough. "How far back did you go?"

  He groans. "I went as far back as it took for someone not to fucking leave the place. Crawford doesn’t shit where he eats, thank God, so it's not like I had to look for body bags either."

  Aodhan pulls me further into his body, tucking me in close and burying his face into my neck while he tries to sleep through the phone call.

  Just once I'd like to enjoy it rather than dealing with this bullshit.

  "The only person who has gone in but not out was his brother, Bingley. The Butcher delivered him there four years ago and the pervert has never left."

  Bingley.

  Jesus H. Christ, could it have been him? I didn't get a good look at the guy, the smells and moaning were terrifying and I was too goddamn distracted by the murder board to get a proper photo of him, but... I mean, it could have been. Four years of captivity and if Atticus wasn't exactly taking care of him then it definitely could have been him.

  Why the hell would he be keeping him down there?

  The obvious answer is that Bing is a pedophile who was possibly worse than Randy and Holden in his depravity because he aimed his perversions at innocent children, but why not just kill him? If Atticus paid the Butcher to find him and bring him in then why not just get him taken care of in a more permanent way?

  Obviously, Randy and Holden don't know that Atticus has him locked up, so he could have easily hidden his death. Illi has access to cannibals, for Christ's sake, they don't exactly leave much evidence behind!

  I'm going to have to speak with him.

  I don't want to but there's too many inconsistencies, too many variables, too many different scenarios that could be happening. He could be innocent.

  As innocent as the Crow can be.

  "Thank you, Jackson. As always your work is impeccable."

  He huffs down the line at m
e. "Does this mean I'm off your shit list? I like breathing."

  I hum at him, the same way Lips does when she's toying with people’s lives in her head and I swear I can hear him start to sweat. "You're awfully worried about what I think of you these days. Where has the snarky, sarcastic hacker asshole gone that we all know and tolerate?"

  He's quiet for a second, only the beeping and whirring sounds of his computer to be heard. "I've got Viola to think about. She's only got me now that her family disowned her, and I've done a fuckload of bad shit in my time that might bite us in the ass. I can't have you sending the fucking Devil here to take me out."

  Aodhan doesn't react at all, his breathing still even, so he's either asleep or didn't hear him. "I thought your bunker was bomb-proof? You've never worried about someone showing up before."

  He lets out a shaky breath. "The Devil got in. Fuck knows how he did it, but he got in here the day he came calling about the Wolf. I haven't slept right since."

  Chapter Four

  When I finally fall asleep after a brief visit to the bathroom for a cleanup, I sleep right through until long after dark. My body clock is all out of order and I feel sick the moment my eyes open, groaning and searching in the bed for my phone.

  I find Aodhan instead.

  He’s awake, sitting up and on his phone, something I very rarely see him do with me around. The moment my hand touches him he glances over at me with a lazy smirk before leaning down and kissing me softly.

  “Good evening, sleeping beauty.”

  I frown at him, completely aware that I look like a mess in the mornings even when I can do my usual nightly routine, so I must be freaking hideous. “What’s the time? Why are you looking so… alive? I feel like death.”

  He chuckles under his breath and strokes back my hair, far too sweet for me this early. Or late, I guess. “It’s almost midnight, Queenie. You were fucking out like a light. I had to switch your phone to silent because it’s been going crazy.”