Page 55 of Riordan's Revenge

“Yes, it’s worthy as hell. Yes, I’d be bored out of my mind. It’s not for me, as much as my family would apparently prefer that to the path I’m taking. I get it. They’ve seen me pick up and drop obsessions like no one’s business. They saw me quit uni and take an apparent wild card job at Arran’s warehouse so obviously they’re expecting me to quit that, too. Did ye see the skull on my bookshelf containing the souvenirs of my failed obsessions? I can’t really blame Jamieson for acting the way he did.”

Stooping, I picked up a pebble and flung it at the water. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke. I got lost in memories. Riordan just watched me.

Finally, I returned to the events of this evening and the dots that were now connected.

“All these years, I wondered about my piece of history that came before this place. Before my real family was formed. All that time and my mother’s friend was just a couple of hours away. We searched records. We asked people who Arran encountered, women who worked for him. Nothing.”

“The information DeeDee gave, the fact you were born on a Sunday, does that give you a date of birth?”

It did. God. “The thirtieth of October.”

“Ten days away.”

“More importantly, it gives me something real about her. Up to this point, other than her name, all I knew was that she’d sold her body to McInver. She had ambition. I can follow that.”

“The ambition, right? Not selling yourself.”

Caught in too many competing emotions, I hauled in a breath. “When I was new to the warehouse, I talked to some of the women about what it would be like to work there. On my back.”

“Theoretically?”

“No.”

Riordan stared, his features almost hidden now that the moon was setting. “You said that in the club on the night of the game, but I convinced myself you were joking. Why the fuck would you want that?”

All of a sudden, I needed to provoke him. I needed him to jump up and grab me, because I was reeling and had to fix my energy on something. For whatever reason, with him, I’d never been able to make the first move. For all my big talk, touching him scared the life out of me, yet it was everything I desperately wanted.

I took a step in his direction. “I asked that question because I wanted to know what it would be like to work in the brothel. To prove to myself that sex was just transactional.”

To feel closer to the mother I never knew.

Shoving his hand into the pebbles, he rose to standing. “You were going to sell your virginity?”

Fury poured off him.

My breath quickened.Yes, more of this.Eagerly, I nodded.

Riordan released a pained sound then turned and stomped back up the beach. My heart fell. He was leaving?

My panic was short-lived.

At his bike, he snagged the rucksack I’d left there and rooted through. A few seconds later, he came back down with something in his hand and marched straight up to me.

He thrust his wallet against my chest. “Sell me your first time.”

I rocked back and fingered the leather. Something hot flashed through me, burning up on the challenge. I needed more.

“Ye can’t afford me.”

“The fuck I can’t. At least if I paid, I’d have some pretence at control.”

Pulling back my hand, I threw the damn wallet as far as I could into the water. It landed with a plop and disappeared beneath a wave.

In outrage, Riordan watched it fall then came back to me. With barely a pause, he snatched hold of my biceps and tugged me against him.

His mouth took mine in a brutal kiss.

He devoured me, no softness in the move. It should have been made of anger, but all I tasted was passionate need. Desperation. An undeniable connection that exploded as he slanted his mouth over mine and opened my lips for his tongue.

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