“I find it hard to believe my job means so much to you. Whether I cure or kill people, it makes no difference to you. You owe me nothing, and your job is not to watch over me. In fact, it is the very opposite—to stay away from me. So why are you pushing this?”
His nostrils flared. He took my face in his rough palm, tilting my head so our mouths were aligned.
“I don’t fucking know, Aisling. I have no idea what keeps bringing me back to you, but I can’t seem to stop, and you don’t seem to mind, so let’s just get this out of our system and fuck already.”
The next thing happened like a snake bite. Sudden and fast and violent.
I kissed him roughly, this time taking what I wanted instead of waiting for it. Our kiss made me feel like we were lashing out at each other. Sam caught my lower lip between his teeth and tugged me closer to him, until there was no more space between us. He hoisted me up and carried me into the examination room, kicking the door open and spreading me flat over the table, kissing me as I toed off my work sneakers and unbuttoned his shirt.
There was nothing romantic or calculated about what we were doing. We both just needed to be physically connected as soon as possible. I tried to tell myself that it was fine. That no one had been on the examination table anyway. It was more for show. In case the place was discovered and Dr. Doyle and I needed to give the police some plausible explanation. Treating people without insurance underground wasn’t half as frightening as what we were trying to hide.
Sam’s tongue ran from my lips, down to my chin, heading south to my neck, licking a path between my tits. He cupped one of my breasts in his mouth through my shirt, groaning as he pushed my pants down, swirling his tongue around my erect nipple.
“Goddammit,” he muttered, sucking my whole breast into his mouth.
I shuddered. Something about the fact there was fabric and a sports bra between us made the act so much dirtier and erotic. I threaded my fingers through his hair—his body, hard and imposing, pressing against mine everywhere—as he moved to my other breast, giving it the same treatment.
When my pants and underwear were gone, and I was sitting on the examination table naked from the waist down, Sam pushed me roughly to lie down, using one hand to pry my thighs open and spread them as wide as he could.
“I sincerely hope you don’t intend to ask me to stop.”
I shook my head. “No. Don’t stop.”
“You know, growing up, I never played kiddie games. I graduated from formula to guns without a pit stop at toy cars and puzzles.” His mouth was swollen from our filthy kisses, and he grinned at me, his fingers on my hipbones as he plastered me to the cold, metallic table.
“Want to play doctor and patient?” I quickly caught his drift.
I wouldn’t bet on it, but I swore his cheeks pinked slightly.
“All right. Open up for me, Nix.” His fingers skimmed their way from my inner thigh to my center. I clapped a hand over his wrist, shaking my head with a taunting smile.
“Glove up first, Doc. First drawer on your left.”
He paused, then his face broke into a terrible smile. Terrible because it was the first genuine, giddy, hopeful smile I’d seen on Sam’s face in the decade I’d known him—and how awful was that?
Sam returned in a pair of my latex gloves that were tight around his massive palms. I nodded, satisfied.
“I’m new at this,” he feigned an apology, his grin turning sinister again, “so you’ll have to excuse me in advance as I conduct this pap smear, Miss Fitzpatrick.”
“Please, call me Nix.”
“Sorry, I don’t treat Knicks fans,” he deadpanned.
I bit down on my lip, suppressing wild laughter. I didn’t know many men who knew about pap smears, let alone how to conduct one. I let the hair in my ponytail spill over the edge of the examining table, blinking at him innocently.
“My name has nothing to do with the basketball team. It’s after an enticing female monster. Does that put you at ease?”
“Definitely.”
To my surprise, Sam wasn’t completely off. He settled himself between my legs and pushed me open so wide I felt the delicious pain of being stretched to my limit.
“You might experience some discomfort here,” he groaned, pushing two fingers deep into my core. I clenched onto them immediately, letting out a soft moan, rolling my hips to meet more of his hand.
“Miss Fitzpatrick,” he tsked, “control yourself, please.”
“S-sorry,” I mumbled, half-opening my eyes to watch as he pulled his hand away, only to drive it in again, this time using three fingers, curling them upward until he hit my G-spot, his free hand still stretching me wide open.
“Oh!” I cried.
“Still can’t get to that right angle. Better try again.”
He thrust again, fucking me with his fingers—with his entire fist, almost—in and out, in and out. I lay there on my back and took it, wet and turned on like I had never been in my entire life, chanting his name under my breath, not caring if he knew how much of a goner I was for him.
“H-how did you learn how to do this?” I asked, bucking my hips upward. Every time I did, he pinned my waist down, his way of telling me to behave as he fingered me. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”
“Got accepted to premed after high school.”
I let out a piercing laugh at that, but when I looked up, he seemed completely sober.
“You’re serious.” My smile dropped, and I felt the cloying feeling of an orgasm tingling through me. He didn’t even touch my clit, and I always needed clitoral stimulation to come. Huh.
“Dead fucking serious.” He sent me a nonchalant smirk as he fucked me with one hand and spread me with the other.
“You thought about becoming a doctor?” I wheezed.
“Hell no. I made a bet with a friend I could get into premed. Didn’t study for it either. But I read a gynecology book on one of my train rides to New York City while attending an arms deal and got the gist of it.”
I had a million questions to ask him, but all of them had to wait as my climax washed over me, shaking me to the core and making me cry out, grasping onto the edges of the examination table.
“Always so dramatic,” Sam muttered. Instead of getting on top of me like I thought he would, he grabbed me by the ankles, tugging me until my ass perched on the edge of the table.
“Sorry, Miss Fitzpatrick, but I couldn’t find what I needed. This might be a little unorthodox, but I think I know how to finish this exam.”
I was all boneless desire and satisfaction. I couldn’t even lift my head to see what he was doing before he squatted down between my legs, his tongue finding my clit and swirling around it slowly, teasingly, putting delicious pressure on it. I grabbed his hair and groaned so loud I thanked my lucky stars Dr. Doyle wasn’t upstairs in his apartment because I could probably be heard in neighboring cities.
“Merde,” I panted.
“I fucking love it when you say that,” he murmured between my legs, and I felt the wetness of me coating my inner thighs and his face as he began to eat me out, literally.
Eat. Me. Out.
Nibbled and bit and licked me thoroughly. My eyes rolled back inside their sockets, the pleasure so poignant, so intense, the oxygen rattled in my lungs. I was close to a second, violent orgasm, I couldn’t help but buck my groin, thrusting it into his face.
“Please. Ohhhhh.”
I stopped breathing, every muscle in my body clenching as intense pleasure coursed over me. I reached the highest point of la petite mort—my own little death, as the French referred to an orgasm—just when I felt him plunging into me, heavy and thick and long, in one smooth movement.
I was drenched, hot and ready for him.
My eyes opened and I saw him leaning against the examination table, between my legs, while I was full to the hilt with his erection. He closed his eyes and hissed, the pleasure too much for both of us, as he began to move inside me.
“Found what you were looking for?” I croaked, referring to his so-called pap smear.
He thrust into me with a punishing rhythm. “And then some.”
Something about his movements, so sure, so nonchalantly punishing, told me that he was used to getting what he wanted not only outside of the bedroom but inside it, too.
“I can’t believe I’m fucking you again.” He shook his head, frowning at me.
“Believe it.” My heart pounded loud and wildly. “Because I doubt you can do this with anyone else at this point.”
“Shut up.”
“You know it’s true. That’s why you couldn’t have sex with that woman at the ball, who looked exactly like me. You know what you want, Sam? You just don’t want to take it because the consequences would mean you’d lose my daddy’s fat paycheck.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your daddy.” He plowed into me angrily. I didn’t think anyone had ever been that deep inside of me.
“Then what is it? Please don’t tell me you actually convinced yourself you are bad for me. You don’t have a conscience, and I can make my own decisions.”
“Shut. Up.”
“Make me.” I blew a raspberry. For a second, he stopped thrusting and just stood still between my legs, buried inside me. Then in one swift motion, he removed the latex gloves from his hands, balled them together, and shoved them into my mouth, my juices still on them. My mouth filled with the bitter taste of latex and the earthiness of myself.
“There. That’s better.” He resumed his thrusts. “Never have I fucked a more infuriating creature.”
“Furrryerrr,” I offered around the ball of gloves.
“Yes, sweetheart, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Fucking you.”
He was close. I could feel it. The way his fingers tightened around my thighs, pushing them outward. The way his expression became less guarded and more surprised like he, too, couldn’t believe it was so good.
“Are you on the pill?” he asked, mid-thrust.
I tried answering around the gloves, but my voice was muffled, and he couldn’t catch that I’d said, “Yes, I was, since I was fifteen.”
“Never mind.” He pushed in and out with jerky movements. “Even if you aren’t, you are going to take the morning after pill. Am I clear?”
The pleasure and playfulness I felt just seconds ago turned into anger again. He came inside me, holding my legs still as his face tightened. I could feel his warm cum making its way inside my body. I spat the gloves out onto the floor, roaring with fury, swinging my body upright. I pushed him off of me, kicking him for good measure. He barely moved—just enough to let me stand up fully—already tucking himself in.
“Get out.” I pointed at the door. “Now. And don’t come back.”
He stared at me with amusement, slowly rearranging himself, buttoning his slacks, removing a cigarette from his pack.
“Lighten up, Nix. I heard you when you said you were on the pill. I just like to see you getting pissy.”
“Well, congratulations, you succeeded. You think it’s okay to tell a woman what to do with her body?”
“Depends on the woman.” He shrugged.
“Out!” I yelled, louder now.
He lit his cigarette. Another thing that bothered me. He knew I hated when he smoked. I stomped to the door, flinging it open all the way.
“Out!”
“Or what?” He grinned around the cigarette. “You’ll call the police to come and pick me up from your unregistered death clinic, Nix?”
“Or I will tell my brothers you’ve screwed their baby sister twice now, despite getting … oh, what is it, an extra million just to stay away from me?” I blinked slowly, a sugary smile on my face.
Sam snorted, moving toward the door with deliberate leisure designed to drive me nuts.
“Don’t come near me again,” I bit out.
“That won’t be a problem.”
And just like that, he was done.
Leaving me a half-naked mess, smeared in our truths and lies and all the things we couldn’t talk about.
My heart half-broken but held in his bloodied hands.
CHAPTER 10
SAM
Afew days had passed since I screwed Aisling at her death clinic.
I was sick as a dog and wasn’t showing any signs of improvement.
My fever was up, I threw up everything I put inside my body, and could barely drag myself from my bed to the door to snatch the DoorDash delivery left there.
It was the first time I was seriously sick since I was nine. The luxury of being weak and dependable wasn’t something I allowed myself. In fact, I hadn’t taken one sick day from school or work since moving in with the Brennans. I’d always done my best to be worthy of their awe and admiration, a half-man, half-god. Unbreakable and stronger than steel.
This was why I never let my adoptive parents in. Not fully, anyway. Not into my apartment, my domain, my privacy.
My corner of the world was mine and mine alone—to lick my wounds, be less than perfect, quiet, uncertain.
The next day, I met with Barbara McAllister on the outskirts of Boston.
She was a hobo-looking woman, not in the hipster, bought-that-holed-shirt-for-three-hundred-bucks way, but in the seriously-need-a-sandwich way. You could tell that underneath the bleached hair, wrinkled face, and badly applied self-tan, she’d once been an attractive woman.
Barbara was the final blow I needed to bring Gerald down to his knees. The missing piece in Operation Destroy Gerald. She held some deep secrets he never wanted anyone to know, and for a healthy sum of money, she was willing to air them out to the world.
“But I need to make sure it’ll be worth my while. I’ll only do it for the right price. Can I borrow a cigarette?” Barbara asked when we’d met in a small coffee shop.
She wore a black mini-dress and a cheap trench coat, and it looked like the ‘right price’ for her would be twenty bucks and a McMeal. I silently offered her my open pack of cigarettes, keeping my expression blank.
I still soldiered through my plan for Gerald Fitzpatrick, but I was no longer gleeful about it. Somewhere along the road, hurting Aisling, which I knew I was bound to do, felt unnecessary. It wasn’t that I was going soft. It was that there was no need to be harsh to a woman as pliable as her.
So fucking pliable that she runs an underground death clinic and seeks you out.
Barbara lit up a cigarette, exhaling with a satisfied smile.
“How do you know I’ll even get a book deal? There isn’t exactly a shortage of women Gerald Fitzpatrick has dipped his dick into.” She eyed me skeptically.
“True, but you are the only one who’d lived in one of his apartments. You weren’t just a fuck, you were a mistress. He flew you places. Bought you expensive jewelry. I bet it’s just the tip of the iceberg.” I smirked at her, setting the bait to make her say more.
She grinned, her teeth unusually white for a smoker, and nodded enthusiastically.
“Oh, did he ever. Samuel, my boy, he adored me. Of course, I did my part, too. There were orgies. Massive orgies. He sometimes took us three at a time. I always thought it was peculiar Ger was so upset when his son, Hunter, did it. After all, he was the king of orgies back in the day.”
My jaw tensed. I didn’t need to hear about my brother-in-law’s sexcapades before he married my baby sister.
“What else?” I asked.
“There were drugs. A whole lot of them at those parties.” Barbara rubbed her chin. It struck me as interesting that although Gerald had put her on the list, too, when I asked about her, he’d lied to me. Some of the details he had given me were different from what I’d found when I conducted my own research. Addresses, where they’d met, her age. Nothing lined up, so I decided to dig deeper. I was glad I did.
“There were also a few abortions.” She cleared her throat. “Gerald did not like to use protection, but he also didn’t want any bastard children. He was actually adamant about that, as you could imagine. I, myself, knew better than to tempt fate. I was always on the pill. Didn’t have the ambition of getting knocked up with a billionaire’s kid. Too dangerous. Looking back, maybe I should’ve. Maybe I’d fare better than I do today.” She looked around the small coffee shop with the peeling wallpaper and dusty surfaces. She lived in a small, deserted town. It was obvious she wasn’t swimming in it.
“But I was privy to everything that happened behind the scenes. He was a monster, Samuel. A real monster. Ever met one?” She sucked on the cigarette I gave her greedily, ignoring the disturbed glances the barista behind the counter shot at her—though she didn’t approach us or tell her to put it out.
“Yeah,” I said easily. “I’ve met monsters before. Multiple times, actually. So, here’s how we are going to do this, Barbara. I’ll bring the lucrative tell-all book deal, you’ll bring the juice. But whatever happens, you must remember one thing—you never met me, never saw me, and never heard of me. Am I clear?”
She nodded, finishing off her cigarette and taking a sip of the stale coffee I’d bought her.
“Absolutely. May I have another cigarette?”
I laughed, standing up and tossing the pack in her lap before disappearing back into the white blizzard.
“Sure, sweetheart, take the whole fucking pack.”