Page 5 of Only for You
Three…
He didn’t stop. Didn’t pause or speak to her. His hard fingers wrapped around her bicep, his expression merciless, and he pulled her after him. Stunned, she followed him. Not that he was giving her much choice.
His broad shoulders filled her vision, blocking out everything and everyone else. Everything but the tight band of his fingers around her arm. Even through the cotton of her long-sleeved, blue shirt, her skin burned, the heat emanating from that one place to her breasts, nipples, her sex. He was touching her—for the first time in years, Killian was touching her again. Didn’t matter that it was a grip that radiated his disdain. Her body didn’t know the difference…or just didn’t give a damn.
Probably the latter.
Moments later, he stopped in front of a door, jabbed in a code on a mounted pad, and entered a room, tugging her behind him. Almost immediately, his hand dropped away from her as if he regretted even those few seconds of touching her. A click, and then a soft glow bathed the area, and she blinked against it, her eyes taking seconds to adjust after a couple of hours of LED lighting.
A dark brown, leather couch, two big, matching armchairs, and a glass coffee table formed an elegant but comfortable-looking sitting area. A dormant fireplace, wooden mantel, and huge, mounted television dominated the far wall. In the corner sat a cherrywood cabinet with several drawers. More of the photographs that hung in the club appeared in this room as well, the sensual, black-and-white prints adding to the intimate atmosphere.
It appeared to be some kind of private room, probably for the VIPs and celebrities when the upstairs booths weren’t…secluded…enough. She could just imagine what probably went on in here. Just as she could imagine what occupied those cabinet drawers. Top of the list: condoms.
“What is this?” She waved a hand toward the room, smothering the swell of jealousy surging inside her like Old Faithful. Too easily, she could imagine Killian’s big body covering another woman on that over-size couch. The taut muscles of his back and ass flexing as he pressed against her, drove his cock into her. Without any effort at all, she could envision him sprawled in one of those chairs, his hands buried in the hair of the woman kneeling before him, guiding her mouth up and down his dick. Once upon a time, that faceless woman would’ve been her—had been her. “You have a playroom in your nightclub? That walks the tenuous line between hot spot and stripper joint.”
“VIP room,” he corrected from behind her. Paused. “The playrooms are upstairs.”
She should hate him for admitting they did have them. If what Wendy claimed was true, he took full advantage of them. And if he hadn’t delivered the explanation in that low, deep, coarse voice, she might have dwelled on that resentment. But God, the texture of it—gritty, like a road that had been churned up for repair and had just barely been smoothed over—slid over her skin in an almost rough caress. Yet, something was…off…
“Did something happen to your voice?” she asked. Although years had passed since the last time she’d seen his stunning face, inhaled his rich, dark scent, or stroked his hard, sculpted body, she hadn’t forgotten one thing about him. Not the scar that bisected his eyebrow or the mole on his left hip bone, and certainly not his voice. Before it’d been just as deep, as shiver-inducing, as smooth as bourbon—just not so…serrated.
She couldn’t see him, but she didn’t need her eyes to sense him. The same body heat that had blanketed her in bed in his shithole of an apartment reached out to her now, urging her to lean back against him. To let it cover her once more. But she remained straight, because that warmth was no longer hers to indulge in. The body—the man—no longer hers to claim.
“Jail happened to my voice,” he murmured in her ear, the undercurrents of rage swirling in his voice. “Solitary confinement happened to my voice. Any more questions?”
Jail…solitary confinement. Grief and horror at what he must’ve suffered bombarded her with relentless fists. Her fault. Guilt was bitter in her mouth. The accusation radiated from his words; he didn’t need to say it.
“Killian,” she whispered.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled, finally circling her and coming to a halt in front of her several feet away. As if he couldn’t stand being too close to her.
“In Boston? Or the club?” she hedged. What the hell had she been thinking coming here? That he would open his arms for her to run into? That he would say all was forgiven and welcome her home? Had she believed time would cool his anger? A part of her had. That whimsical, fanciful, the-glass-shoe-is-a-perfect-fit side that time and the pain of loss hadn’t completely beaten into submission yet.
Staring into his fierce hazel eyes, at the flat line of his mouth, and the tiny tic of a muscle along his jaw, she called herself ten different kinds of idiot for even harboring that small hope. He hated her.
“Either. Both.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze slowly roaming over her. Flames licked everywhere his scrutiny touched. Her mouth, shoulders, breasts, hips, legs. She couldn’t prevent the spike of arousal that lit her up like a flare gun.
“My uncle’s eightieth birthday. The family’s throwing him a party since he’s selling the bar. He asked me to come home for it.” She hadn’t been able to refuse the request of the man who had shown her the only kindness she’d known as a child, even though she was in the middle of the biggest negotiation of her life. In three weeks, she would be opening her own bar after years of tending someone else’s.
But she couldn’t forget all her uncle had done for her, what he’d been to her. When her mother would’ve drafted her into the world’s oldest profession at eighteen, Uncle Garrett had given her a job in his pub, even though she hadn’t been twenty-one and legally old enough to serve drinks. Still, he’d granted her independence and freedom. With dementia slowly but steadily pilfering his memories, she couldn’t resist coming home. Especially when this might be one of the few times left that he would recognize her.
“My cousin and sister-in-law brought me here tonight.”
Again, that deliberate perusal with those hooded hazel eyes. A tingle of apprehension joined the desire. “And when you agreed to walk in this club, did you know I owned it?”
Lie. A sense of self-preservation screamed at her to lie. Handing him the knowledge that she’d purposefully sought him out would be tantamount to an animal exposing its vulnerable neck to a voracious predator…
“Yes,” she confessed. “I knew.”
“Did you lose your mind in the last five years?” he murmured, cocking his head to the side. “You’d have to be a goddamn fool to return to Boston, much less here, after what you did. And you were a lot of things, Gabriella, but never a fool.”
Gabriella. Not Gabby. She’d never be Gabby for him again.
Gabby had been the woman he’d curled his big body around and held through the night. Gabby had been the woman he’d introduced to the dark ecstasy of dirty, mind-shattering sex. Gabby had been the woman he’d protected, pleasured…loved.
But Gabriella was the woman who’d ratted him out to cops. Had left him with a broken voice and a stone heart… If there was one there at all. For her, at least.
“No one knows it was me,” she said, voice quiet. “No one but you.” She’d committed a cardinal sin in their world. Her violation couldn’t be washed away with a litany of Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Acts of Contrition. That she’d just been trying to save his life wouldn’t grant her absolution.
