Illicit Temptation (Astoria Royals #3)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Shea

“ Y our old friend is back,” Larke says to me with a playful nudge.

“Who?” I look up from the meeting table in my office, where we’re working on the seating chart for Eoghan and Jillian’s wedding reception.

My heart soars into my throat, seeing Trace Quinlan approaching the plate-glass front door of my East Hampton storefront.

Other event planners meet clients in their homes. That’s too much of a risk for me, seeing my brothers are mob bosses. Balor has my office wired up with cameras and microphones as well as cameras planted on light posts a few blocks in each direction. Overkill and overprotective, but I wasn’t in a position to say no.

My phone beeps with a text:

Soren: Ms. O’Rourke. I’ve been recalled to Astoria. I waited for my replacement. He should be there. Warm Regards.

Wow, he didn’t even come in to say goodbye to my face. I close my eyes and dread what Lachlan will do to him since I requested he be removed from my detail. All the guards technically report to Lachlan.

That damn deal I made with the devil is coming back to bite me. I’d hoped he’d forgotten I agreed to take Trace because he’s got so much on his mind with a pregnant wife.

I play out our conversation in my head about my wanting to tag along on their anticipated trip to Dunbar Valley in the coming months.

In November, Cormac was sent to the torture camp as punishment for what he did to Anastasia Koslov, who is now married to Darragh. Cormac’s twin. And raising Cormac’s baby with her.

‘ I want to see Cormac, ’ I’d said to Lachlan last week when I stopped by Divona on my way to Manhattan to interview photographers for a seven-figure wedding next June.

‘No,’ Lachlan shut down my polite request.

‘Please.’ I tented my hands. ‘I won’t be any trouble.’

‘I said no. It’s too dangerous.’

‘How are you getting there?’

‘Kieran’s plane.’

‘Then fuck you. I’m going.’ I got in his face. ‘I’m an O’Rourke, too. I have every right to be on the plane.’

‘It’s a BUSINESS trip.’

‘To a torture camp,’ I said delicately because our da sent him there.

‘Exactly.’ Lachlan’s dark gray pools simmered with restrained anger because it was me. ‘But since you’re so eager. I have one condition, me a stór.’

Oh boy, calling me his treasure. I knew that would be good.

‘I’m listening.’ I folded my arms, digging in.

‘You can go. But only if you agree to take Trace as your guard.’

I frigging walked right into that one.

‘Why him?’ I challenged.

‘Why not him? You’ve never questioned who I sent to guard you, Shea-Lynne.’ The light left his eyes as they turned into beady slits.

I’d already put Soren’s head on the chopping block, I can’t do the same to Trace. But I need to get out from under this revolving door of bodyguards hired by my brothers.

‘All right. All right,’ I said, lowering my voice.

Right there, I knew Lachlan had no idea about Vegas three and a half years ago. The more I fought having Trace as my bodyguard, the more Lachlan would dig.

Correction: He’d make Balor dig.

Doing all kinds of research on me will expose the marriage license. Why didn’t I ask a hacker to wipe it off of Nevada’s servers? Same reason I couldn’t get legal help. My brothers know everyone .

With Trace as my guard, I have the freedom for us to get that marriage cancellation in Las Vegas. I would have suggested it earlier since he’s been here in the States, but any thought of going there evaporated in December when Eoghan decided to start a war with the Borgias, the Italian Cosa Nostra.

That sent chills down my spine. I’d done enough parties there to know the name and more importantly, to stay out of their way. I have unbelievable faith in my brothers, I just don’t care to test it with my life.

With a truce Kieran made, the tensions vanished. I only wonder what he offered up to Scava to forgive Eoghan for killing his younger brother Lazaro.

Trace walks toward us at the table, and I stand to make myself a cup of tea.

“Ignoring me, princess?” Trace’s voice surrounds me like a hug from behind. My favorite position.

Christ, does he know that? I still have no memory.

I turn around and soak up the sight of him. For a bodyguard, he’s dressed to the nines. “No. I’m working. I got the message you’re replacing Soren. You can post yourself outside.”

“It’s twenty degrees out there.” He gets dangerously close to me. And yep, more handsome.

Sigh.

“Then do whatever Soren did. He wasn’t in my face. He didn’t need any instructions.”

“I’m not Soren.”

No shit... I swallow, his eyes on my throat .

Cheeks blaring with heat, I say, “What bodyguard duties did you perform while you were guarding Balor?”

He leans in and whispers, “Well, I’m not married to Balor, so I wasn’t sitting around waiting to fuck him.”

I snap back, and laugh, “I hope not.”

Where does he get the balls to talk to me this way? And why am I not lifting my foot and kicking him in the teeth?

Because I’ve been secretly craving this man since I saw him a few months ago with Balor, and it cracked the rust around my heart since dumping Archer.

“There’s that smile I remember,” Trace growls. “I drove Balor around. He worked from his command center, and I hung out in the game room. When he was at Divona, I stayed in the guard’s booth.”

My heart pinches, hearing him calling my family home by the Celtic name Da gave it. Divona, Goddess of Springs and Rivers. Da named it for the fresh running water of Astoria Harbor behind the house.

“We’re going to have to do a sit-down and figure this out. I don’t work from home.” I spread my arms to show off my storefront salon. “I’m here every day. There’s no game room. If I’m not here, or at an event, I’m meeting with caterers, photographers, stylists, bands, printers, or florists.”

Trace’s dark eyebrows cinch together. “Are all these places vetted beforehand?”

“Vetted for what?”

“To be safe.”

I roll my eyes and open my mouth to respond, but Trace grips my chin softly.

“Oh, princess. Don’t roll those eyes at me. Unless you want to do it while I fuck you senseless.”

My core tightens. Down kitty!

With his cologne, he smells like a musky dream and that sharp suit makes him look like a billionaire. Only... I’m the billionaire. I think. I haven’t added up the balances of all the accounts Eoghan created for me.

If Trace had a different job or worked for someone else, I wouldn’t mind having a little fling. But he’s my bodyguard. I know better. If he’s supposed to be watching me, he can’t do that if he’s buried deep inside me. I take that back. He surely would be watching me during that , but well...he wouldn’t be able to protect me. He’d be way too distracted.

“Princess...” Trace’s voice, rough like that night in Vegas, snaps me out of my thoughts. “You’re blushing the deepest crimson I’ve ever seen on someone without a dangerous fever. And the vein in your neck is throbbing. Reminds me of when I had my cock down your throat.”

I have a fever, all right. And speaking of heat, he should feel my clit. “I... I went down on you?”

He cocks his head. “Still no memory of our wedding night?”

“Shhh.” I yank him into my supply room.

“ This is much better.” He backs me against the copier.

“Larke doesn’t know.” I made her sign an NDA, but there’s too much at stake if she slips. You... You fucked my mouth?”

“I did indeed.” He strokes my lips. “I came down your throat, too. Then I fucked your pussy so damn deep.”

I swallow a lump. We were married. It wasn’t a sin. Licking my lips, I say, “Was I good?”

He grins wickedly. “Care to refresh my memory?”

God, yes.

Only...

“No. We can’t. You’re my bodyguard now. Not my brother’s bestie hanging out in Vegas for a weekend. Or covering for Soren. This is for real now. You know better and I know better.” God, playing it safe sucks.

Trace steps back, startled at my firmness. “You’re right. ”

That was too easy.

“Why did you take this assignment?” I ask with my arms folded, hiding how he makes me feel.

“Balor suggested it. Lachlan requested it. Do you think I’m telling either of those two no?”

He makes a good point.

“Okay.” I shake all the lust away. “Then it’s settled. We can’t...fool around. If my brothers find out you are fucking me while on duty as my bodyguard, they’ll—”

“Kill me.” His calm demeanor sends chills through me. Like he’d die happy just to be in my bed.

Wow.

“And you know about the trip to Dunbar coming up? I’m going. That means you’re going.”

“Where you go, I go, princess,” he purrs at me.

Even if it’s to hell, apparently. Which Dunbar Valley might as well be.

A knock on the office supply door startles me. I open it and see Larke smiling.

“I’m heading out, it’s after six.”

Six p.m.!

Frig my life, the day flew by. I’ll have no time to absorb Trace working for me, and with no appointments or events, or plans with Larke to go for drinks, looks like I’m going home.

And taking my 6’5” gorgeous, dirty-talking bodyguard with me.