AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Especially not by her.
I take one last drag off of the cigarette and toss it onto the pavement, grinding it out under my heel before I go back inside.This is going to get us what we need,I remind myself as I sit back down at the bar, motioning to Charlie, the man standing behind it, for a refill of my beer. There’s no reason for me to feel as torn up about it as I do; no sense for me to be questioning if I should have asked this of her at all.
No reason for the thought of her with another man—especially Matvei—to make me feel that tight knot of angry jealousy deep inside my gut, causing me to clench my jaw, wanting to deck the man instead of handing her over to him.
We need this.A handful of nights where she’s in his bed, doing what he pleases, and we’ll likely have more information about who he is and what he has planned than if we’d sent some of our men in to infiltrate his organization, and with less bloodshed. Working undercover like that is a dangerous job, one that costs lives, and men like Matvei know to look out for that sort of thing. He won’t expect us to send a woman in to try and find out what he’s up to.
And anyway, I remind myself as I reach for the beer, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of how attracted I am to Asha—how attracted she clearly is to me, regardless of how hard she tries to hide it—we don’t fit. That was madeveryclear to me at the club tonight. I don’t like being dominated, and she doesn’t like submitting.All we do is clash, I tell myself.She’d drive me insane in no time at all.
I force the thought of the first night I went there out of my head, the odd arousal I’d felt despite how uncomfortable and out of place I felt, and focus on tonight instead. I’d shown her what I wanted, given her a taste of what I imagined doing to her, and she’d pushed me away.If that’s not a clear sign that we’re incompatible, then what is?
As if on cue, I feel the air next to me shift as someone sits down on the barstool to my right. “I don’t suppose this is taken,” a soft voice says, and I turn to see a woman in a pencil skirt and a sleeveless button-down red shirt sitting next to me. My gaze sweeps down her quickly enough to see the high heels she’s wearing, hooked over the bottom of the stool like she’s tired of standing on them, and I have a pretty good idea of where this could go.
A damn good way to get Asha out of my head.
“It’s not,” I tell her with a smile. “And you look like you’ve been on your feet too long.”
“I have.” She brushes a dark lock of hair out of her face, returning the smile tiredly. “All day in court, and then depositions to go over afterward. I can’t wait for the day when I get my own paralegal.”
“You’re a lawyer?” I raise an eyebrow. “I think you’re supposed to be drinking somewhere nicer than this. A few streets up, probably.”
She laughed. “I spend all day working with those assholes. You think I want to drink with them, too?” She smiles at Charlie, who’s quick to come over.
“What do you want to drink, sweetheart?” He gives her a wink, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“Gin and tonic. Splash of St. Germaine if you have it. And two slices of lime.”
Charlie whistles. “Sounds like you do need to go to that fancy bar a few streets up. I’ve got gin and tonic, but it ain’t Bombay. And none of whatever the hell else that is.”
The woman laughs again. It’s a pretty sound, musical, but I find myself thinking of Asha’s laugh, the way her smirk curls her red lips. Lips that I want on mine—and on every other part of my body.
Strange to think that I’ve had those lips on my cock, but I’ve never kissed her.
“Whatever you’ve got is fine,” the woman says, interrupting my train of thought. “And his next beer.” She flashes me another smile. “I’m Claire.”
“Finn.” I raise an eyebrow. “You didn’t have to buy me a drink.”
“I know.” There’s a hint of flirtation in her smile now. “But I thought you might buy me one, and I wanted to beat you to it.”
“Can’t argue with that.” I take another sip of the beer I already have. “So—you come here often?” I grin at her, letting her know thatIknow just how ridiculous of a line it is, and she laughs again.
“Often enough. It’s on the way, and like I said, I don’t like drinking with coworkers—or other lawyers in general, really. But I’ve never seen you here before. And I’d remember,” she adds, that blatant flirtation in her tone again.
“I’ve been out of town for a bit. It’s been a while since I’ve really been out.”
“Oh? Where to?” She takes the gin and tonic Charlie hands her, one thin slice of lime sadly floating in it. “Out of the country? Or just out of town.”
“The country. Spent some time in Dublin for work.”
“What do you do?” Claire hides her wince as she takes a sip of the gin. “Must be exciting.”
“Sometimes.” I relax onto the stool, forcing thoughts of Asha out of my head. For some reason, sitting here flirting with this woman feels wrong—and just like my jealousy, it’s absolutely ridiculous. Asha isn’t mine, and I’m not hers. We’re not in a relationship—we’ve, at best, hooked up, and I fuckingpaidfor it. I haven’t kissed her or fucked her—now she’s working for me.
There’s nothing in the world stopping me from taking home this beautiful lawyer, laying her back in my bed, and pleasuring her until she forgets all about her long day in the courtroom.
Nothing except for the fact that every time I look at her, trying to imagine taking her dark hair down out of the loose bun it’s still pulled into and running my fingers through it, every time those dark eyes look at me, every time her rosy lips purse around the edge of her glass, I keep fucking seeing Asha pinned against that wall tonight, looking up at me with a desire that she couldn’t hide no matter how hard she was trying to.
“I work security,” I tell her, finishing my beer and reaching for the one she bought me. It’s my usual line, an easy way to explain away my job. “Private security,” I add, which always keeps anyone from asking too many questions or getting suspicious when I can’t answer many of the ones that they do ask. “And you? What kind of law?”
