KeeleyHe wanted to pay me for orgasms. Easy money for any other woman but me. I had no doubt that Gio was a skilled lover. But I wasn’t a woman who would ever enjoy sex. Not even with a man like him.I stared at him across the table, unblinking and speechless. And then I nodded. And just like that I agreed to his terms. I had spent years telling every man who came into the clubs to watch me that I wasn’t a prostitute and there I was agreeing to whore myself out to Gio. I would sleep with him. I would do anything he wanted, and I would fake the orgasm he had promised to give me. Because I needed the money he had promised me so I could get away.It would be enough to give me and Kieran a chance at a fresh start. And this time when we went, I would make sure no one, not even Gio would be able to find me.“You agree?” Gio’s hand reached across the table for me, closing around mine.“Yes.” If I was going to do it, it might as well be with him instead of some stranger who I didn’t know. Gi
GioI took her home. Back to the flea riddled place she shared with her friend. And it had taken everything I had, because moving my fingers from between her legs was the hardest thing I had ever had to do. It was everything I had been dreaming of. Her utter surrender. And she had been enjoying it. She hadn’t clamped her legs closed because she wanted my hand away, but because she wanted it close. Her feelings scared her, that much was obvious. She had feared the mounting pleasure and what it would mean.I had stopped. And one look at her face told me that I had done the right thing. Her face was screwed up, her eyes pinched shut. She wasn’t with me. She was back in the past. I never wanted her to look at me and see him. Not ever. I would let her go before that happened.So, I took her home, and kissed her cheek before she got out of the car, explaining that I would pick her up again the next night and that she was to pack because tomorrow she would move in with me. But tonight I coul
KeeleyI couldn’t go through with it. Not after last night. His hand between my legs had brought me pleasure sure, but I couldn’t give him anymore. I just didn’t have it in me. And surely Gio would understand? He had too.Except, deep down, I knew he wouldn’t. Gio wasn’t the kind of man who let his playthings go. Not until he had finished with them anyway. And he wasn’t anywhere near done with me yet. Which was exactly the reason I left the home I shared with Kieran hours before Gio was due to pick me up, carrying nothing but a backpack full of clothes and necessities. I could not stay living with Kieran. It would put him in danger, and I loved him too much to do that.I needed to run, but there was one place I needed to call into first before I jumped on a train. It didn’t even matter what train. I would choose at random. But first I needed my wages from the club. I wouldn’t be able to get far without them.“Why are you dressed like that, Kelly?” My house mother’s eyes raked over my
GioYou will be my whore. The words I had used were meant to hurt and they did that. Keeley shrank back, curling in on herself. The look on her face was almost unreadable. Half panic and half acceptance.Acceptance. I hated that I had made her look like that. When she had been attacked five years ago, she had fought tooth and nail, but I knew instinctively that she wouldn’t fight me. The fight had gone out of her.“Keeley,” I started to say. My voice was strangled. I hadn’t meant for it to come out the way it had. I hadn’t. I would never take from her what should only be freely given. I wasn’t a good man. Not even close. But I would never do that to her.“Keeley, stop.” I couldn’t move as she started to strip her clothes off. Her movements were jerky and angry. “Stop it.”Her eyes flashed towards me. “Aren’t those meant to be my words? Aren’t I the one who should be telling you to stop? Shouldn’t I be the one begging?” Angrily, she tossed her bra into my face. I had been wrong - the f
KeeleyGio left me in a room I had never been in before. The furnishings were rich and sleek, the bed was soft, and I fell back against the pillows with a sigh the moment he shut the door behind him. Part of me wanted to talk to him some more, but it was clear he didn’t feel the same. He hadn’t said one word to me since telling me he would let me go.Free. I would be free. Gio was going back to the States and I wouldn’t have to see him again. It was everything I had wanted, and yet…Dammit.Peeling off my jeans and jacket, I slipped under the soft sheets and closed my eyes. Why was I so messed up about this? He was giving me what I wanted. So, why was I kind of upset about it? It wasn’t like I wanted Gio in my life. Did I?I mean I had liked him when we had first met; he had been dangerous and sweet in equal measures. The kind of man any naive woman would fall for, but I hadn’t thought about him in the years since I had left.Except, on some level I had. When his goons had come to dra
GioSlow. I had to go slow. Even when every cell in my body was screaming at me to take her. She wanted it, wanted me. She wouldn’t have come looking for me if she didn’t. I fought against the urge to grab at her.Instead, I stepped away from her. With her hand on my stomach, it was too hard to think straight. Keeley, for all her innocence, was playing a dangerous game. It was one I wanted to win. I just didn’t know how to start. If she had been any other woman, she would have been naked and on my bed already. I would have treated her like a whore without a second thought. But this wasn’t any woman. It was Keeley.The memories of her sitting on my lap, her thighs clamping around my hand at the restaurant flashed into my mind. She had liked that. She hadn’t liked that she had liked it, but she had all the same.I turned back to her, my hand closing around her hip before I could stop myself. She yelped in surprise but didn’t pull away. My sudden movement had startled her and not scared
Keeley“Keeley?”I felt the bed under me move as Gio climbed up my body. But I couldn’t open my eyes, not yet. I sure as hell couldn’t talk. With my eyes closed, I could feel him staring down at me. His arms made the mattress dip either side of my head as he held his weight above me.There was a smile in his voice. “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”They fluttered open on their own and then closed again. I was so sleepy. My body felt like it was made of liquid. It was impossible to do anything but just lay there. I couldn’t even think straight. Gio's big hand cupped my breast, squeezing hard. My eyes flew open as a fresh wave of sensation flooded my body. I could feel the wetness between my legs, some of it was from his tongue but the rest was all me. My body had reacted normally to him. There had been no panic or flashbacks, only a need to be filled. It was a new feeling for me. One that I never thought I would feel.Gio’s smiling face came into view, and he was grinning like a fool. The
GioI was up before dawn. Leaving Keeley asleep and peaceful in the bed I hoped to share with her in the future. I hadn’t wanted to leave her so soon, but there was business I had to sort out, and with the time difference between the UK and The United States, I had to be up early. But not before I had left her fresh clothes on the bed.She was wearing the dress when she finally emerged at ten am. I lifted my head as she cleared her throat in the kitchen doorway. My eyes speared her to the spot over the rim of my coffee mug. I grinned. It looked good on her, the dress I had picked out especially. But then I knew it would because I remembered vividly what she used to wear. And I had bought her wardrobe to match the girl she used to be.“Morning.” I slipped from my stool at the kitchen island. And for a moment, I hesitated. Not knowing whether to go to her and kiss her fully on the mouth or hang back and just hope she would come to me. “Did you sleep well?”“Yes.” A blush tinged her chee
TaylorI kept it together until I stumbled down the steps of the courthouse. I don’t know what new evidence was given to the judge that made him halt proceedings and I didn’t care much. I had heard enough though. Horrible, despicable things that turned my stomach. But I couldn’t link what I was hearing with the man who sat just across the room from me or the man I had spent the night with. It wasn’t even that he hadn't been demanding and bossy that night because he had but he hadn't made me feel uncomfortable. Surely if he had been some dangerous killer then I would have felt uneasy at least? I prided myself on my instincts. Had I been totally wrong about him? Had I been intimate with a killer or worse had he singled me out because he knew somehow, I would end up sitting on the jury for his case?Hell, had I been in danger? Was I still? The thought made me feel sick. No, I forced myself to suck in a great lungful of calming air, I fell into a sitting position on the curb, my head in
JudgeThe moment she sat in her designated seat, I knew she recognised me. she tried to hide it but it was there in the slightly widening of her eyes. They darted over my face, over my suit and then back to my face. Taylor Lawson looked shell shocked. Like she couldn’t believe her eyes. I couldn’t blame her for that. In her position I would have been shocked as well. But what did surprise me was her composure. She recognised me, she was shocked by it but none of that really showed on her face, apart from the slight widening of her eyes and the plump bottom lip disappearing between her teeth so she could chew nervously at it. All in all, it was a very predictable reaction to any young woman who came face to face with a man like me.Taylors eyes skirted away, almost like she had realised that she was staring at me and the chewing on her lip became painful to watch. Not taking my eyes off of her, I pressed my own fingers to my lips. If she didn’t stop doing that to her lip, which was in
TaylorWork was my happy place. Sad but true. I liked making people happy. watching brides find their perfect dress and seeing their faces light up was one of my favourite things. It stoked the romantic in me. because those people had found their happily ever after. And it gave me hope that one day I would find mine. Not that it was going to plan so far. Sure, I dated. I'd even had a few disastrous relationships, but nothing had ever come close to what the ladies that paraded through the shop had found.I hadn't found my one.But that didn’t mean I was going to give up looking. For what seemed like the hundredth time since I had found the note on the bedside table, I found myself staring at it. There was no denying that I was slightly obsessed with reading it. but it made my heart swell a little bit every time I did. Even if I never saw my mysterious lover again, I would always have his parting words to look back on. They gave me hope that sweet romantic men were really out there.
JudgeI watched as Gio. Head of The Family and my not so official boss weaved his way towards me through the bustling tables. He looked younger, more relaxed than I had ever seen him but there was a slight tension between his eyebrows but that was understandable. I’d have been slightly tense as well if our situations had been reversed.Rising slightly from my chair, I thrust out my hand. He shook it quickly, barely touching it before taking his seat opposite me. “You didn’t have to come, Gio.” Him being here was what was putting that line between his dark brows. Not because he thought I would rat him out. Gio knew better than that. He knew that I would never talk. Just like he knew I would do everything in my power to be found innocent of the murder he had committed. No, it wasn’t me who was putting the worry on his face but the fact that this mess I was cleaning up meant he was away from his new bride. His beautiful new and heavily pregnant bride. Gio had loved her from the moment
Taylor“You did what?” My friend screeched from across the small patio table we were sipping coffee around. It was early, but it didn’t matter how early it was in London. The streets were already bustling with people. Some on their way to work, their heads down as they hurried on their way and others like me and Annie who were taking a moment in one of the curb side cafes to catch our breath and enjoy the late summer sunshine. It would all be over too soon anyway, summer always seemed to be over in a blink of an eye whilst winter lasted forever. And I had another reason to enjoy the peace whilst I could. Meeting her eyes over the rim of my coffee cup, I grinned. “I asked my doctor to get me out of jury duty.”She rolled her eyes in answer, her glossy lips twitching at the edges. “That’s not what I was talking about, and you know it, Taylor. I mean we will come back to that but….” Slowly she took a sip of her own mug. A glass one filled with a frothy coffee concoction with too much s
Judge“Tell me your name.” The blonde in my arms moaned against my lips. I didn’t answer her, she would know my name soon enough but not now and not tonight. Tonight, I didn’t want to talk. I wanted her to give herself to me. She needed to let me use her body the way I had been imagining I would since the moment I had first laid eyes on her. Three weeks of watching her every move, finding out her schedule, her weaknesses. Everything I could about her.I needed all the information I could get on Taylor Lawson, and I always got what I wanted. But I couldn’t deny that I wanted something else as well. The moment I saw her, her blonde hair piled on top of her head and her face alight with a smile as she greeted a customer, I had known that killing her was going to be my very last resort. I wanted her. In my bed, under me. Anyway, I could. And I always got what I wanted.Always.There was more than one way to deal with my upcoming murder trial and the jurors that would in theory decide wh
KeeleyFive years ago, I had run away from the very people who loved me the most in a stupid attempt at getting away from the pain of what had happened to me.I had put an ocean between myself and them.From my family.From Gio.But as I looked at their smiling faces as they turned towards me. I realised what a mistake that had been. I hadn’t healed. I had just separated myself from the people who could help me heal the trauma. And I had lived the last five years as a ghost. Like a sleepwalker, I had gone through my life in a zombie like state. Never letting myself feel.Until he had come back into my life.Gio.Dark, dangerous, wonderful Gio. Who showed me how to love again.Rising my eyes to him, where he was stood next to The Judge. His smile was impossibly wide. His eyes swam with tears as he stared back at me. The look he gave me made my heart swell in my chest. I paused, my feet coming to a standstill just before I could step onto the red carpet that would take me towards the
Gio“I should kill you.” Monster, who I had once called a friend, glared at me. He was pacing back and forth along the long bar that took up one entire wall of the Savage Sons’ clubhouse. This was a different chapter, but the whole lay out was eerily familiar. I watched him as he turned on his heel, stared at me for a second and then continued to pace.I couldn’t blame him. If our roles had been reversed, I would have been doing more than pacing. I would have been beating on him. I deserved much worse.“Yes, you probably should.” I admitted softly. He wasn’t going to kill me though. If that had been his plan, he would have done it already. Monster was posturing, which was not like him. At least not like the man I had known. Being married had softened him.Something must have shown on my face as he stopped in front of me. “Don’t think I won’t, Gio. It would be easy. What you did to Keeley…” He shook his head and went back to his angry pacing.“I didn’t do anything to Keeley but love he
KeeleyHe had told me to close my eyes and every part of me wanted to do what he asked of me. Because I knew what was coming, and I didn’t want to see it. The sound of the gun cocking brought me back to my senses and my eyes flew open.I didn’t want him to die. Not even after everything I had found out. And closing my eyes wasn’t going to make a damn difference to the outcome. It would be cowardly. Something the old Keeley would have done. She would have waited for someone to save her. The old me was weak, but I wasn’t that woman anymore. And there was no way in hell I was going to let Gio blow his brains all over the table in some vague hope that it would save me. I didn’t need that kind of sacrifice.I could save myself. And him as well.“I love you,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “Gio, I love you.”“I love you as well, Keeley.” His voice sounded strangled.“I mean as touching as this is, it’s gone on for long enough. Stop stalling, Gio.” Gio’s brother, who called himsel