Page 105 of Wicked Ruin

She swallows hard, panting.

Before I take my hand away and step back, I spank her arse again. “Remember this. If you behave yourself, we'll have to revisit this when we get back, won't we?”

She sighs. “Fine. How much time do we have?”

“We have to be there in twenty minutes. It's a ten-minute car ride. Plenty of time for you to come on my tongue before we go.”

“Declan—”

I lift her onto the counter, and her hand is in my hair, like I’m the only thing she’s holding onto. I press my mouth to her inner thigh and feel her breath catch. She smells so fucking good, I’m hard as steel.

Her thighs are spread over my shoulders, her bare pussy spread wide, glistening in the overhead light. There’s nowhere either of us is going. I take my time. I drag my tongue slow and flat, feeling her hips jerk toward me, her fingers tightening in my hair.

I curl my fingers inside her until her head falls back and she’s moaning.

“Please, Declan…”

“Please what?” I say against her, my voice muffled between her thighs.

She makes a frustrated sound, and I smile. I find the sweet spot that makes her thighs press against my head and stay there, slow and deliberate, until her heels dig into my back and her whole body arches off the counter. I work her through every second of it until she goes soft and shivery and her grip loosens.

“Can’t feel my legs,” she says, her cheeks flushed.

“Good.” I press a kiss to her inner thigh and rest my forehead there for a moment. My eyes are closed, just breathing.

Her hand moves more gently in my hair now.

“There.” I drag the back of my hand across my mouth. “That ought to shut you up and keep you behaving.”

But she's laughing and flushed, and I like her like this. “Let's go.” I open the door, and she walks ahead of me.

We can’t take risks, not when all somebody has to do is take a picture of us and publicize it online. Her family will cut my fucking head off, my deal with Seamus will be in shambles, and I’ll start a war I can’t win.

She is parked in the dark alley behind her flat, and her guards dutifully look away when we walk past them. I know it's only a matter of time before somebody tells somebody. Before Erin talks to Cav.

Before the house of cards collapses.

I owe her the conversation with Seamus.

I just don’t know yet what that’s going to cost her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Three years earlier…

DECLAN

I remember the knife.

I noticed it when I first sat down, lying on the table between us because Seamus had put it there deliberately.

The office smelled like old wood and bourbon.

“Just for the sake of transparency,” Seamus said, “I'm recording this, Declan, but I'll store it in the archives so that nobody sees it. This will be just between you and me. Do you understand?”

“Aye.”

I kept my face still. I’d been practicing that since the drive over, the art of looking like someone who hadn’t spent three nights awake before arriving at this decision.