The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2) (6 page)

Nothing.

Ignoring the feeling that might have been disappointment souring her stomach, she wound through the dance floor and headed for the stairs leading to the VIP area. She needed a drink and to get her head on straight, and then she’d go dance until she forgot what she’d agreed to earlier today.

Just like she always had.

And maybe she’d finally break her four-month-long dry spell…

She shook her head and climbed the stairs. No. Not tonight, and not a guy from here. It hadn’t worked out so well last time, and she sure as hell wasn’t looking for a repeat kidnapping. At the top of the stairs, she paused and let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Up here, there were no strobe lights or black lights or anything other than tiny lamps on each of the tables, throwing off just enough illumination so that someone could walk the entire floor without tripping over something. In theory.

She headed for her favorite booth, but drew up short when she saw that it was occupied. Her brain took precious seconds to catch up to her eyes. There he was, the asshole, sitting in
her
booth with his legs stretched out in front of him, wearing those jeans that hugged his ass and thighs and a smug smirk, with his arms stretched out across the back of the booth. Challenging her.

In case she missed all that written all over his face, there were two drinks in front of him—a beer and, if she didn’t miss her guess, a dirty martini.
Her
preferred drink. How the hell did he even know that?

Oh yes, this was a challenge all right.

Every intelligent cell in her brain demanded she turn around and walk away.
Run
away. But then the bastard raised an eyebrow, as if daring her to sit down and drink with him, and she threw common sense right out the window. Carrigan strode across the distance separating them, putting a little more swing into her step and smiling to herself when his gaze tracked the movement. Album or not, tangled history or no, he wanted her.

And she wasn’t above using that against him.

“Two nights in a row. I must have pissed off Lady Luck somehow.” She sank onto the cushioned seat across the small table from him. The bartender appeared half a second later, and Carrigan smiled sweetly at her. “A dirty martini, please.”

The woman looked at the table, looked back at her, and shrugged. “Sure thing.”

If anything James just seemed more amused. “Too good for my drinks?”

“I’m not stupid enough to take a drink I’ve left unattended…and I’ve never laid eyes on this one until I got here. Party Girl 101.”

“Now, lovely, why would I need to drug you? You came here of your own free will, just like I knew you would.” He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, drawing her gaze to the way his black T-shirt clung to his shoulders and how his dangling hands seemed designed to frame the bulge between his legs.

Her body zinged to life in a way it hadn’t in months. It was all too easy to take a walk down memory lane and feel him lifting her against that wall and shoving his cock home, growling filthy words in her ear in that same tone of voice he was using now.

Shit.

She held his gaze even though all she wanted to do was look away. James wasn’t pretty. He was far too masculine for that. The first time she’d seen him, she thought he’d look perfectly at home on the back of a Harley, and that perception hadn’t changed with time. Everything about him screamed
danger
in a way she wasn’t used to. The men in her family were dangerous—there was no doubt of that—but it was a polished danger. James’s wasn’t. He was gritty and primal and…She really needed to stop. Right now. “I wouldn’t put anything past you at this point.”

“You wound me.”

“You kidnapped me. I’d say we’re nowhere near even.” Something she had to keep reminding herself, though the fact she kept forgetting annoyed the hell out of her. Only a weak woman would get all aflutter over a man who obviously meant her harm. A weak woman or one with a death wish.

Carrigan wasn’t either.

So why was she here, sitting across from him as if they were best pals? She leaned back and recrossed her legs. “Why are you stalking me?”

“If you’d remember,
you
are the one who came to me. I was just sitting here, minding my own business, enjoying a drink.” His cocky grin said otherwise. He’d known she would come back—that she wouldn’t be able to resist. The knowledge he’d read that much in her personality in such a short time set her teeth on edge.

“Enjoy it in a different bar. Hell, in a different city.” She had to get a handle on her attitude. As it was, she was practically waving a giant sign telling him that he got under her skin. There was no reason to hand him over more power than he already had—and he already had too much.

“Now, lovely, don’t be rude. I’m buying you a drink.” He nodded at the bartender as she handed over a duplicate of the dirty martini already sitting on the table.

“I can buy my own damn drink.” She sounded surly and childish and hated it.
You can do better than this. So do it
. She watched a trio of girls who couldn’t possibly be twenty-one pass their booth, hips swinging wildly and sending come-fuck-me looks at the man across from her. He didn’t even glance their way, which only aggravated her further. “What do you want, James?”

“You already know the answer to that question.”

Did she? Because she was starting to wonder, even though she knew better.
He wants the album back. Plain and simple
. She’d have to be a damn fool to think he actually wanted
her
. “Pretend I don’t.”

Instead of jumping right on that, he snagged his beer and drank deep while he watched her with those unnerving blue eyes. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw more than she wanted to reveal. Carrigan took a sip of her own drink—perfect, as always—determined to wait him out and not speak again first.

The silence stretched out between them like a live thing, twisting and snapping and full of too many things best left unsaid.
Why? Why did you do it? Why did you make me feel so much and then turn around and betray me in every way that counted?
They were questions she’d never allow herself to ask because even the asking showed him that she cared in some small way. She
didn’t
. She looked away, doing her damnedest to ignore the way her hand shook when she brought her drink to her lips.

“Why did your father bring you back to the city?”

It was so unexpected, she almost answered truthfully. She caught herself at the last minute. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“It does.” He shifted, once again drawing her attention to his big thighs. Powerful thighs. Every part of him was built powerfully, like he was a gladiator from ancient times. She had no problem picturing him wielding a sword in an arena somewhere, cutting through his enemies with the same determined look on his face that he wore now. “Word has it that your father is arranging a marriage for you.”

“Gossip is bad for the soul,” she said in her most prim tone, even as her mind raced. She hadn’t expected the news to be kept secret—her father had no reason to hide his intentions for her—but hearing it from a man who was both an enemy and something more was disconcerting, to say the least. She’d only been back in town for three days—either James had an inside man, or her father had put together that damn list of his long before she drove back into Boston. A thought struck her, and she blurted out, “You aren’t thinking of throwing your hat into the ring, are you?”

His gaze sharpened on her face, searching for an answer she wasn’t sure she had. “It would almost be worth seeing the look on his face when I did.”

Her brain caught up to her mouth. Finally. She pressed her lips together, as if that would really do anything to help her maintain control. Control was one thing she’d always prided herself on having—if not over her life, then at least over herself. Being this close to James, even with a table between them, was making it hard to focus. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Yes. He so would
. And her father wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him, tentative truce or not. Carrigan stared at her drink, tilting it this way and that in the low light. After everything that happened, it shouldn’t concern her if James Halloran had a death wish. It should serve him right to take a bullet the same way her little brother had—even if he wasn’t the one who gave the order—but the thought of the world no longer holding him in it…it was a cold one. “Don’t do it.”

“I think I’m insulted. The thought of marrying me is enough to shut you down completely.”

“Funny, you don’t sound particularly insulted.” She had to get them off this subject—the sooner, the better—so she went on the offense. “If you’re hoping for a repeat of that night, you’re in for the disappointment of a lifetime. I’m never letting you touch me again.”

A strange smile pulled at the edges of his lips. “Liar.”

She jerked back, her heart beating too hard. He wasn’t flustered or worried or anything, except arrogant. “You’re an insufferable jackass.” Now was the time to get up and walk away, and put him in her rearview for good. But Carrigan had always had a nasty habit of playing with fire, and James was scorching hot.

“Guilty.” He stood and moved around the table, slow and purposeful, to sit next to her, entirely too close. She started to shift away, but his heavy arm dropped around her shoulder. The feeling of his bare skin across her shoulders made her whole body clench up. Torn between wanting to bolt and wanting to crawl into his lap, she froze.

James had no such problem. He wound a lock of her hair around his finger. “You want me, lovely. You want me so bad you burn with it.”

With every turn of his finger, he brushed her bare shoulder with his knuckles, the gentle touch making things low in her stomach coil tighter and tighter. She dug her nails into her palms. She wasn’t weak and she wasn’t afraid, and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to melt into a puddle at his feet just because he’d casually touched her. “You’re wrong.”

*  *  *

James wasn’t wrong. Across the careful distance he’d created between their bodies, he had no problems picking out the signs of desire. Her pulse fluttered, heart beating too hard; her pupils dilated, and her nipples pressed against the thin fabric of her sad excuse for a dress. The damn thing barely covered her from breasts to ass, and the fit was enough to tell anyone who cared to look that she wore nothing underneath. It wasn’t the same one she’d worn they night they hooked up, but it was close enough to make his mouth water. The fire in her eyes as she did her best to take him out at the knees only made him want her more.

He leaned closer, still keeping the precious inches between their bodies. He might want this woman more than sanity, but she was like some kind of wild creature that’d wandered into his life. One false move and it was over. Letting her go last night was the right thing to do. He’d piqued her curiosity, added a healthy dose of anger and, maybe, she felt even a sliver of the desire that threatened to take his common sense and turn him into a goddamn fool.

But he had to play this right or she’d be gone for good. It’d be better for both of them if she was. Smarter. But taking the safe and smart road didn’t stand a chance with a woman like her looking at him with
that
expression in her eyes. His lips brushed her ear, her rose scent teasing him. “I’m not wrong, lovely. You crave me the same way I crave you.”

“I don’t.” The words were barely more than a whisper, almost lost in the demanding beat drifting up from the dance floor.

“You do. And if I slipped my hand up your dress, I’d find you wet and wanting.” Fuck, he wanted to do just that. Only sheer stubbornness kept his free hand away from her when she shivered. “It wouldn’t take much, would it? A few strokes to make your eyes slide shut and your head fall back. Circle that sensitive little clit of yours and feel you come apart around me.”

Her back arched, so slight that he would have missed it if every fiber of his being wasn’t focused on her. “No…”

He had to get the fuck away from her before he did exactly what he’d just described. The VIP room was far from packed and, even if it hadn’t been, no one would blink an eye at two people hooking up in the shadows. But it wouldn’t get him anywhere with Carrigan, aside from a few moments of pleasure. Then she’d be gone, and he had the feeling he wouldn’t be seeing her again in the near future—if ever.

That didn’t suit his purposes one goddamn bit.

So he pressed a soft kiss to the sensitive spot behind her ear and backed the fuck off. When she turned and blinked those big green eyes at him, he almost threw caution to the wind and kissed her. Only the knowledge that it wouldn’t stop with a kiss, wouldn’t stop until he was buried between her thighs, kept him from giving in. “I’ll be seeing you, Carrigan O’Malley.”

Still holding her gaze, he grabbed his beer and drained the rest of it. He’d already taken care of the tab with the bartender, so he stood and, with one last look at her, walked away. It felt unnatural to do it, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the fire in his blood for Carrigan wasn’t going away. He’d been so sure it would, that seeing her again would be enough to bring common sense rushing back and remind him that she was the enemy and he’d done the right thing when he’d chosen his family over her.