She raised her brows. “Either you’re going to secure my wrists, or I’m putting my hands back where they were.”
Rourke bit his bottom lip to stop himself from smiling at Sophie’s deliberate challenge. He knew it was pure bravado. The uncertainty in those defiant blue eyes was proof of that.
But if she wanted to play it this way, then Rourke was more than up to meeting that challenge.
He kept two of the silk ties and put the other two on the bedside table before moving to kneel on the side of the bed so that he could reach her elevated wrists. His weight tilted the mattress, and he heard Sophie’s soft gasp as she rolled slightly toward him. The softness of her breast was hot against his thigh. A breast he could also feel was tipped with an engorged nipple.
Rourke’s cock thickened and lengthened as he breathed in Sophie’s arousal. An arousal he could imagine dampening the lace strip of material pressing against her mound and pussy.
Rourke had no idea how far he intended taking this, but for the moment, it was enough to hear the catch in Sophie’s breath when he secured her left wrist to the brass bedstead. Then another hitch in that ragged breathing once he had secured her right wrist to the other side. He sat back on his haunches to admire his own handiwork.
Which was when Rourke realized that, with Sophie’s arms in the air like this, he had effectively prevented himself from removing her gown.
Did he want to remove her gown?
Hell, yes!
Wanted it.
Ached for it.
Craved it.
His brow lowered as he glanced down at her. “Did you pay a lot of money for this dress?”
Sophie’s gaze had been fixed on the bulge she could see rapidly growing at the front of Rourke’s trousers. About an eight- or nine-inch-long and possibly two-inches-thick bulge that was unmistakably his cock, and it was getting longer and thicker as the seconds passed.
Did that mean Rourke was aroused by her?
Well…by what he was doing to her, at least.
The thought of that made her nipples tighten even more and caused a gush of juices to flood and dampen the lace between her thighs.
Which was why Sophie didn’t see the significance of Rourke’s question but just answered him truthfully. “I managed to buy it in the sale, so no, it wasn’t expensive.”
“I’ll replace it, anyway,” Rourke dismissed. He grasped the top of the gown and tugged it so sharply, the material ripped all the way down the middle before he was able to push the two sides of the garment apart.
Color blazed in Sophie’s cheeks the moment she looked down at her exposed and completely naked breasts, and then further to that scrap of blue lace covering the triangle of golden curls covering her mound.
She tried to hide herself, only to realize Rourke had ensured her wrists were firmly secured by those silk ties.
Rourke lifted a hand to cup one of her breasts, his skin so much darker against her pale flesh. “Do you want me to stop?” He stroked the soft pad of his thumb against her nipple. “Tell me to stop, Sophie, and I give you my word I will.” His other hand moved to cup her other breast, and he rolled the turgid nipple between his thumb and index finger.
Wet and heated desire flooded between Sophie’s thighs, blinding her to everything else but satisfying that desire.
At that moment, she didn’t care what came after. She just wanted what was happening now. “Don’t stop,” she groaned, arching up into Rourke’s hands and fingers squeezing and caressing her breasts. “Please don’t stop.”
She closed her eyes as she sank farther back into the pillows, unconcerned that she sounded as if she were begging. All her senses were centered on the different sensations brought about by having Rourke’s hands on her.
The sensual heat of his skin touching her own.
The thrill of arousal when he squeezed her breasts.
The increase of the hot gush of juices between her thighs every time he pinched or pulled on her nipples.
Oh dear God…
The mind-blowing pleasure as sure fingers pushed aside her tiny lace thong to seek out and press and stroke the erect nubbin nestled amongst her trimmed blonde curls.
Sophie was so aroused, so sensitized to Rourke’s slightest touch that she climaxed immediately. A deep and convulsing release that seemed never-ending.
It was the first time she had ever done so from the touch of a person other than the pleasure she occasionally gave herself in her bed at night.
She barely had time to recover from that first climax before she was quaking and trembling from another as Rourke’s fingers continued to move relentless against her clit.
“Again,” Rourke instructed huskily.
Again? Sophie hadn’t even realized she could climax twice in such a short time, let alone a third time.
“Now,” he rasped as his head lowered and he took one of her nipples captive in the heat of his mouth, tongue rasping over the sensitive flesh as his teeth bit just this side of pain. All while keeping up that relentless stroking of his fingers against her clit.
The third climax was so intense, it felt as if Sophie’s core was imploding and caused her whole body to become a trembling mass of sensitivity.
“Please,” she gasped. Rourke’s mouth released her nipple, but his fingers continued to stroke along her slit, gathering up her juices onto his fingers before returning his attention to the pulsing nubbin above. “I can’t, Rourke. No more,” she pleaded.
His lips quirked up into a smile. “Oh, I believe you can.” The smile disappeared. “And you’ll continue to do so until you either tell me to stop or tell me what I want to know.”
This was the torture Rourke had alluded to earlier, when he had predicted she would call out for him to stop?
Unfortunately, Sophie’s brain had turned to mush, so much so that not only could she not tell him to stop, but she no longer remembered what Rourke was torturing her for.
Her eyes widened as Rourke pushed her legs apart before moving down the bed to kneel between them. He held her gaze with his as he lowered his head. “What are you—oh God!” Sophie was sure she had totally lost her mind at the first feel of the stroking rasp of Rourke’s tongue licking along the length of her wet slit before centering on her oversensitive clit.
Over the next few minutes, he was relentless in his pursuit of her pleasure and utterly deaf to her pleas for mercy.
Rourke had never tasted anything as addictive as the nectar of Sophie’s release. Sweet and yet spicy; he couldn’t get enough of that delicious taste.
Or Sophie.
He had waited two years for this. Two fucking years. And now he couldn’t get enough of the touch or taste of her.
Her breasts were ultrasensitive to his slightest caress, her waist slender, the wet lips of her pussy were red and plump and beautiful. And when she came, those lips of her channel contracted and relaxed with her release, and her clit pulsed.
Rourke could feast on her for hours, days, and never tire of seeing how utterly wrecked and disheveled she looked from his lovemaking—
“Rourke, please, you have to stop…”
The use of that word and the sob Rourke heard in Sophie’s voice were his undoing. Not only had he promised her he would stop if she asked him to, but he never wanted to do or say anything that would hurt her.
Rourke straightened to swipe a hand across his jaw and gather up the wetness of Sophie’s juices from his chin. “Tell me what I want to know, or we’ll start again.” He continued to hold her slightly unfocused gaze as he slowly and thoroughly licked those juices from each individual finger.
Sophie felt boneless from multiple climaxes, and she no longer cared that she was virtually naked in front of Rourke. Her bared breasts were now tipped by hard and red nipples, and her legs were splayed wide open, exposing her glistening pussy lips and the hard and reddened nubbin above amongst the wet curls.
“Sophie,” he pressed in a hard voice.
She moistened the dryness of her lips before speaking. “Could you untie me and let me cover up before we have this conversation?”
“Of course.” Rourke untied the black silk about her wrists before pulling the two sides of her gown together over her nakedness. “I’ll get you a robe.” He disappeared into the en suite bathroom.
Sophie rubbed her slightly reddened wrists as she rolled over and sat on the side of the bed. She had managed to keep the ripped sides of her gown together, but gratefully took the robe Rourke handed to her before pulling it on and tying the belt securely about her waist.
It was far too big for her and reached down to her ankles, but at least she felt less exposed now. “The Boss is Zachary Tillman.”
Rourke’s gaze became guarded. “The billionaire businessman?”
She should have known that Rourke would have heard of the other man. “My father was his accountant for fifteen years.”
Those dark eyes narrowed. “Was?”
“I think Mr. Tillman has had good reason to reconsider my father’s employment,” she said dryly.
“What reason would that be?”
Sophie winced. There really was no way to avoid telling Rourke the truth. “My father embezzled money from him.”
“How much money?”
“Five million pounds.” Even saying that amount out loud sent a shiver of apprehension down Sophie’s spine.
It might amount to a drop in a vast ocean to a billionaire like Tillman, but to Sophie, it was so much money, she couldn’t begin to imagine what it would even look like.
Rourke was studying her through narrowed lids. “Jack Henderson is Tillman’s man?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he harassing you about the money, and not your father?”
She drew in a ragged breath. “Because my father has disappeared.”
Rourke stilled. “When?”
“Just over a week ago.”
“Did you know he was going away?”
Bile rose to the back of her throat from the knowledge that her father hadn’t even bothered to warn her of his departure or Tillman’s reaction to the reason for it. “No.”
“Have you heard from him since?”
“No.”
Rourke’s nostrils flared. “You didn’t think it was worth telling one of us so we could check out the situation for you?”
“No.”
Rourke winced. “I don’t like saying this, but could Tillman have already dealt with your father and that’s the reason he’s disappeared?”
Sophie knew by “dealt with,” Rourke really meant “killed”. “I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t have given me two weeks to tell him where my father is, and his money, if he’d already had him killed.” At least, she hoped that was the case. She might be angry with her father at the moment for having left her in this predicament, but that didn’t mean she wanted him dead. No matter what he had done, he was still her father and the only family she had.
Rourke rose to his feet. “You’re probably right. Do you have any idea where your father might have gone? It will help Haydn to narrow his location down if you have some idea of the direction he took,” he explained at her questioning look.
“Haydn?” she repeated sharply. “I really don’t want anyone else involved in this.” She shuddered.
“Too bad.”
“You—”
“We work as a family, Sophie,” he reminded.
She shook her head. “I very much doubt you’ve ever had to help any of your brothers, and definitely not your parents, out of something as seriously messed up as this.”
Rourke grinned. “I think you might be surprised in regard to my brothers and my father.” His father had worked for MI6 for years, and Rourke could also think of more than one occasion when he and or one of his brothers had to shoot their way out of a “seriously messed-up” situation. “You do know Zack Tillman is basically a crook, and that his legitimate business enterprises in the UK are just fronts for laundering the profits from the prostitutes he runs and selling drugs to teenage kids?”
Sophie frowned. “How can you possibly know that?”
“Because it’s our business to know what happens in our own city. Also, because Steele Protectors have been acquainted with Gregori Markovic, the head of the London bratva, for some time now. Bryce is really good friends with Nikolai Volkov, the Russian’s second-in-command. From that friendship, I know that the Russians stopped selling drugs completely and closed down the prostitution side of things about five years ago, before Gregori married and had a family. The slack was taken up by men like Zachary Tillman.”
Sophie felt sick at the thought of her father being involved in, condoning, the sale of drugs to underage kids, let alone the prostitution. That he now had five million pounds of the money that had been earned through the misery of drug addicts and prostitutes. It was dirty money in Sophie’s eyes.
She chewed on her bottom lip. “Tillman mentioned my father has been siphoning his money to the Cayman Islands for him for years.”
Rourke scowled. “You’ve spoken to Tillman?”
She let out a shaky breath at the memory of that meeting.
She had met the older man several years ago, Tillman having been present a couple of times when she visited her father at his London office.
In his forties and married, with two teenage children, Tillman had been absolutely charming to Sophie as he took the time to talk to her about being at university and the course she was taking. He also looked like every other businessman who spent too much time behind a desk. He had a middle-aged paunch, more salt than pepper in his receding hairline, and his pale complexion confirmed he didn’t spend enough time in the sunshine.
A week ago, when Tillman came to Sophie’s apartment, there hadn’t been a charming bone in his body when he’d stood back and let one of his henchmen twist both her arms painfully high against her back. She had then been held captive while Tillman told her exactly what her father had done for him, and had now done to him, and that she had two weeks to persuade her father into returning the money. The “or else” behind that threat had hung unspoken in the air.
Sophie had originally denied the accusations. But her father’s wrecked and empty apartment and the fact she hadn’t had so much as a phone call from him in the last week made complete nonsense of her defense of her father’s innocence.
“He spoke to me last week,” she answered Rourke. “I didn’t even know my father was missing until Tillman informed me he was.”
“Where did he speak to you?”
“My apartment.”
Rourke tensed. “Did he threaten you?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
Sophie grimaced. “I got the distinct impression I could be ‘swimming with the fishes’ by the end of next week if I don’t supply him with the information he wants.” Even she cringed as her attempt at humor only caused Rourke’s eyes to glitter more darkly.
Rourke grasped her arms and shook her before just as abruptly releasing her. “Damn you,” he snapped disgustedly. “If we don’t do something about this, that’s exactly what will happen to you. Men like Tillman don’t make empty threats. Hell’s fucking bells.” He ran an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair before drawing in a slow and controlling breath. “You know that playful spanking I gave you earlier…?”
Sophie eyed him warily. “It didn’t feel particularly playful at the time…”
He smiled without humor. “I assure you, it was nothing more than a lover’s tap compared to the spanking I’m going to give you in a few minutes for not coming straight to one of us after Tillman threatened you a week ago.”
“But—” She broke off the protest as Rourke raised pointed brows at her use of that word.
“Did you think Tillman won’t go through with it?” he pressed. “Of course he will,” he answered his own question. “If for no other reason than the need to make sure no one else even thinks about embezzling money from him in future. And if he can’t find your father, then you’ll be the one to pay the price, probably with your life. No doubt Henderson and his pals will enjoy every part of you before throwing you in the river for that unscheduled swim you mentioned.”
Sophie felt the color leech from her cheeks. “Stop trying to frighten me!”
“Believe me, it’s better than wringing your pretty little neck,” he grated. “Which is what I really want to do right now!”
Sophie could see that need for violence swirling in the depths of Rourke’s eyes and the harsh grimness of his expression. But he didn’t frighten her. She knew Rourke would never hurt her. “This is my problem, Rourke, no one else’s,” she soothed. “You and your family have all been wonderful to me since I started working for Steele Protectors, but I don’t want any of you involved and possibly hurt because of something my father has done.”
“You think I’m just going to walk away and pretend I don’t know about any of this?” Rourke drawled.
Sophie wasn’t fooled for a moment, sensed Rourke’s mood was the calm before the storm. “I know it would be for the best if you did.”
The rage currently roiling through Rourke was growing stronger and deeper the longer this conversation continued. “I just explored every inch of your body, and now you want me to forget that you’re being threatened and hounded by Tillman’s thug for something you knew nothing about until a week ago?”
The wings of color in her cheeks seemed to have become a permanent fixture. “I think what happened just now was because emotions were running a little high and everything got out of hand,” she excused.
“So you’re suggesting I forget about that too?” There was no missing the underlying growl in Rourke’s voice.
“It might be for the best—” She broke off, eyes wide as her chin was grasped between Rourke’s thumb and palm as he wrenched her face up to within inches of his.
“I told you to look at me when you’re talking to me,” he bit out harshly.
Sophie reluctantly raised her lids. This really wasn’t the charming and laidback Rourke she had known for the past three years, but the one she had only guessed lived behind that veneer. His eyes were narrowed and icy cold, lips thinned, jaw tight, and one of his hands clenched into a fist at his side, as evidence his temper was barely under his control.
If anything, growly and demanding Rourke was even hotter than the charming one!
“I’m not forgetting a single thing that happened today. Not. One. Single. Thing,” he reiterated. “Which is why you’re going to take off that robe and get your arse over here for a spanking.” He sat down on the end of the bed and patted the tops of his thighs. “Then we can both move on.”
“I’m doing no such thing.” Sophie stubbornly remained standing where she was. “Move on how?” she prompted warily.
“I’m going to give Haydn a call and have him check out the Cayman Islands. See if he can find any sign of your father there or locate which bank your father hid the money in.”
Sophie knew exactly how scarily honed Haydn’s computer skills were. “Surely my father wouldn’t be stupid enough to have gone to— Yes,” she sighed at Rourke’s knowing look. “Yes, he really would.” She pushed her hair back from her face, chin high in challenge. “I am not letting you spank me, Rourke.”
The confident smile that slowly curved his lips didn’t garner any confidence in Sophie that she was going to be able to stop him.