Page 15 of Bloody Knuckles

"Liar." I capture her wrists, pinning them at her sides. "Your hatred excites you. The danger. The forbidden fruit. It makes you hot—and wet."

"You're delusional."

"Am I?" I press my thigh between her legs, feeling her heat even through denim. "Should I check how wet you are right now?"

Her breath catches. For a moment, pure want flashes across her features—quickly masked by defiance.

"My father will destroy you for this," she whispers.

"He's welcome to try." I release her wrists but don’t move away. "Many have. I'm still standing."

She doesn't move. The tension between us pulses, alive and dangerous. My cock throbs, aching to take her against this window, to make her scream my name while the whole city watches.

I imagine bending her over the kitchen counter, ripping those jeans down her thighs, spreading her legs and driving into her until she shatters. Taking what her body offers even as her mind resists.

With effort, I rein in the savage impulse.

"The photographer arrives in twenty minutes," I say, stepping back. "Clean up. Change if you wish. Clothes in the bedroom should fit."

"And if I refuse that too?"

I shrug. "Then you appear on film exactly as you are—wearing the same clothes from your failed escape, marked by me. Your father will draw his own conclusions about your treatment here."

Her fingers touch the bruise on her neck unconsciously. "You're a monster."

"Perhaps." I move toward the door. "But I'm the monster you wanted to fuck last night. Remember that."

Her defiance, her fire—they call to something primal in me. Something I've spent a lifetime suppressing.

My father was right about one thing: vulnerability gets you killed in this business.

But as I instruct the security team about the photographer, desire courses through me like molten steel. The throbbing between my legs demands satisfaction. Demands her.

Perhaps the real liability isn't my attraction to Aoife Gallagher, but my resistance to it. Fighting nature never ends well.

Liam Gallagher's activities will soon reveal if my suspicions about a traitor are correct. And if they are, the leverage against Patrick doubles. The price for his daughter's return becomes much, much higher.

Perhaps high enough that she stays minepermanently.

The thought sends a dark thrill through me. I could keep her. Break her. Rebuild her as mine.

And if Patrick refuses my terms? Well, that just gives me more time to claim his daughter in every way possible. To fuck the Gallagher defiance out of her until she begs for my collar around her throat. Until she forgets she was ever anyone's but mine.

CHAPTER6

AOIFE

GAMES & GHOSTS

The photographer leaves after twenty awkward minutes of posing with today's newspaper. My cooperation bought solely through Cormac's threat about what the alternative photos might suggest to my father. The click of the door lock follows the man's exit, sealing me in solitude once more.

Alone again in my gilded prison.

Five days captive. The walls close in despite the penthouse's spacious layout. I've memorized every inch—the sixteen steps from bedroom to kitchen, the slight creak in the third floorboard near the sofa, the exact angle where sunlight hits the Ha'penny Bridge around noon.

I pace, searching for weaknesses missed during the hundred times I have already looked. The windows are impenetrable. The balcony door now sealed with additional electronic locks. Guards rotate outside with military precision.

Boredom poses its own danger. Restlessness leads to recklessness.

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