The Devil’s Keepsake by Somme Sketcher
Poppy
Lorcan moves against the tide of sequins and bow ties heading to the large dinner table in the center of the room until he’s looming over me at the bar. With a slow turn of his head, he pins Nova with a stare. “Miss Mondez.”
She nods and replies with the same politeness. “Mr. Quinn.” Then she flashes me a cheeky grin, downs her beer, and follows the crowd.
Lorcan turns all of his attention to me. “You made friends.”
I use the straw in my too-strong drink to swirl the lime around the glass. “Friend. Singular. All the other women here are one step above being lobotomized.”
A chuckle rumbles deep in his chest. “Which is exactly why I don’t host these parties anymore.”
“Yes, Orna’s disappointed about that.” I can feel someone’s gaze boring into the side of my cheek, and when I turn round, I see Queen Bitch glaring at me. I say sourly, “The ratty blonde over there is probably disappointed about it too.”
His eyebrows knit in confusion as he follows my eye line. “Vittoria Regazzi? Nothing but a Don chaser.”
“A what?”
“It’s what we call chicks who want to be married to the mafia so bad. Has no allegiance to any family, just wants to be married to a Don. Alessandro Regazzi has fallen for her charms, apparently. So, you might have put up with her occasionally.” I raise an eyebrow, and he chucks me under the chin. “I’ve just made a treaty with the Regazzi family, as well as the Rodrigo Mondez. Your new friend’s father.”
The wedge of lime loses my interest and I match his gaze. Is he really keeping me in the loop? I wonder what could have brought on this sudden change of heart, but I don’t question it. “Will that mean less security around the grounds?”
His jaw ticks. “Not quite yet.” He glances over his shoulder, before pulling me towards him by my waist. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier,” he murmurs, studying my lips. “I’d never really make you fuck every dick in this joint.”
It’s a combination of shock that Lorcan Quinn actually has the word sorry somewhere in his vocabulary and his crude choice of words that makes me burst out laughing. He scowls in response. “I might not let anyone fuck you,” he growls, “but it doesn’t mean I won’t fuck you in front of them.”
Heat quickly spreads between my legs, stopping me mid-chuckle. “In that case, apology accepted.”
“Good,” he responds without a trace of a smile. Then he takes my hand in his and guides me towards the table.
Dinner is… surprisingly entertaining. Lorcan takes charge at the head of the table, a place card with my name in swirling calligraphy to the right of his. Before we sit down, he stoops to mutter something in the ear of who I now know to be Rodrigo Mondez. In response, Nova replaces a scowling Vittoria at the seat next to me, much to my relief.
We eat scallops and caviar while Rodrigo Mondez makes polite small talk, then when he slips into a hushed, intense conversation with Lorcan, I become the subject of Alessandro Regazzi’s interrogations, all while he stares at my chest and his sugar baby wife shoots daggers at me from his side.
Lorcan never takes his hand off my knee the entire meal. Stabbing at his Dover Sole and fondant potatoes with only his fork. Occasionally he’ll run his thumb over my thigh, like a gentle reminder that he’s there. Maybe it’s the champagne served between courses or the backdrop of the upbeat brass band, but I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy. I like watching Lorcan in conversation. The way his Adam’s apple bobs and the muscle in his jaw clenches as he regales an anecdote. How when he listens to someone talk, he studies them in intensity, never taking his eyes off them, nodding and laughing in all the right places. I know how it feels to have Lorcan Quinn treat you like you’re the center of his world.
Regazzi finally loses interest in my boobs and I fall into easy conversation with Nova. She swigs her beer and plays with the beaded bracelets on her wrist as she tells me about getting into MIT to study architecture, and how she teaches self-defense classes to women on the weekend.
After dessert—a decadent Tarte Tatin—Lorcan squeezes my knee and flashes me a small wink. Then he rises to his feet and taps a knife against his glass. A cloak of silence falls over the table. With total command of the room, he says, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d please join me in the courtyard for an after-dinner digestif.”
Murmuring and movement ensue, and Lorcan reaches his hand down to help me to my feet. He plants a small kiss on my nose, and all of the hatred I felt for him a few hours earlier in the dressing room seems like it belongs in a different dimension.
“You guys are disgustingly cute, it’s going to bring my dinner back up,” Nova tuts, brushing past us and grabbing two flutes of champagne from the tray of a passing server.
Lorcan eyes me for a reaction, an amused smirk dancing on my lips. He’s satisfied when my cheeks flush red. Then, he leans over me and murmurs, “She wouldn’t think we were cute if she saw how hard I spank you, and how much you like it.”
The heat in my face burns and bubbles under my foundation. “Lorcan!”
He chuckles and I feel it rumble under his tux. “Let me show you the courtyard, China Doll.”
The guests part like the Red Sea as Lorcan tugs me towards the back of the restaurant, through a large door that I’ve never paid much attention to before.
Stepping out into the fresh air makes me realize how tipsy I am. Lorcan steadies me with a strong arm around my waist. “Easy there.” I lean into the comfort of his chest and drink in the courtyard. An open-air, circular space with gravel floor and softly glowing fairy lights draped around the perimeter. Standing tables line the perimeter too, and the guests are starting to crowd around them with cocktails and chatter.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, nestling into the crook of his chest. I close my eyes for a brief moment when he rests his chin on my head, drawing his arms tight around me.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs into my hair.
I melt.
We stay like this for a few moments, watching the brass band set up in the center of the courtyard. Their red and white striped suits and bow ties make me feel like I’ve truly stepped back in time. When the trumpets and the double bass kick in, Lorcan drums his fingers against my waist in time to the beat.
I’m feeling one step down from euphoric. “Dance with me,” I suddenly say over the tempo of the saxophones and crane my head up to face him.
Lorcan frowns. “What do you always say? Something about asking instead of telling?”
It’s my turn to frown, but it’s not one that reaches my mood. “Oh, yes. I should probably lead by example. Please, Mr. Quinn, will you dance with me?”
He doesn’t get a chance to reply before I’m dragging him into the center of the courtyard, closer to the band. It triggers a ripple of other guests moving closer too. Wives tug their husbands onto the gravel, unsteady on their stilettos, their clutch bags tucked under their armpits.
As we move in time with the beat, it’s not lost on me that I’m dancing with the Devil. Only, it doesn’t feel like it. The man rocking me in his strong arms, occasionally leaning down to mutter something in my ear, the man that twirls me around like a ballerina then catches me before I stumble, dizzy from the liquor and the lights. He’s not the man that held a fake funeral to seal my fate all those years ago. He’s not the man that drugged me and dragged me from my life on the West Coast. The man that crawled into my bed unsteady on his feet from a full day of drowning in whiskey.
That man wouldn’t dance with me.
At first, I don’t feel it. The first raindrop that lands on the tip of my nose. It’s Lorcan that brushes it off before it reaches my cupid’s bow, then turns to the sky with his palm upwards. “It’s raining.”
I follow his gaze, taking in the looming clouds that have appeared out of nowhere.
Two thoughts pass through my foggy brain at once.
The first—
Summer is ending. Which means I’ve been at the museum through a whole semester and almost all of summer break.
School will start again soon.
The second?
I don’t want this night to end.
You would have thought it was raining bullets the way Lorcan springs into action, slipping off his suit jacket and holding it over my head. He pulls me in the direction of the other guests, who are all making a slow jog to find shelter back in the dining hall. The music peters down, as each musician realizes, one by one, that the weather might ruin their instrument. I find myself digging my heels in and pushing a hand against Lorcan’s chest.
He glances down at me, confused. “You’ll be soaked…”
“I don’t care,” I say breathlessly, the euphoria surging over me.
Lorcan studies me for a beat, then with a glint in his eye, turns to the band. “Keep playing.”
On command, the music starts up again. Somewhere far away, I can hear the cheers and claps from the guests, but I can’t concentrate on anything apart from Lorcan’s hands on my body and the smell of fresh water in the air. I laugh until my throat hurts, we dance until my feet ache, and when a song ends and Lorcan’s lips meet mine with an intensity that steals my breath away, I feel… free.
“Poppy,” Lorcan moans into my mouth, wrapping his jacket over my soaked shoulders. I can feel the wet strands of his hair against my own forehead; I can taste the after-dinner mint on his tongue. “I need to take you home now. I can’t wait another second to fuck you.”
My knees buckle under the assertiveness of his words.
Dragging me by my hand like a man on a mission, he pulls me into the dining room, shaking hands and kissing cheeks as we pass. Without the backdrop of rain and jazz, I’m suddenly aware that I must look like a drowned rat in a designer dress, dripping like a mop onto the mosaic tiles.
I’m also aware that I don’t care one bit.
“Poppy!” I follow the sound of my name and see Nova making a beeline for me, a scrap of paper in her hand. She stops and glances between me and Lorcan, who’s distracted by whatever Nova’s older brother, Miguel, is saying to him. She wiggles her eyebrows and grins. “You’re wetter than a mermaid’s vagina.”
Laughing, I say, “I haven’t heard that one before.”
“Here,” she snatches my purse from under my arm, unclips it and slips the paper inside. “Call me, if you ever take a break from boning Lorcan Quinn.”
I glance up at Lorcan with a sudden weight on my chest. For a brief moment under the stars and the rain clouds, I felt free. But Nova giving me her number reminds me I’m anything but.
“Will do,” I say with a forced smile. If I ever escape.
Her hug is unexpected, and when she throws her arms around me, I almost stumble. “I’ll get a phone to you,” she whispers in my ear. “Promise.”
Her smile is a little sadder when she pulls away and disappears into the crowd, and I’m left feeling dazed.
How does she know I don’t have one?
Then I remember what she said to me at the bar earlier. I don’t think I want to know how you fell into this world.
Of course. Nova Rodriguez is cartel royalty. She knows how these men operate. And despite the kissing and the hand-holding and the dancing in the rain, she can tell I’m not in Lorcan Quinn’s life willingly.
I look up at my captor, watching as he runs a hand through his soaking hair and grins at whatever Miguel is saying.
She can tell that a man like Lorcan Quinn wouldn’t see me as his equal. Only ever a possession, never an equal.
But when Lorcan turns to me and pins me with his smoldering stare, the lump in my throat disappears and the heat spreads to my pussy. With only that one look, Lorcan does what he always does.
Makes me forget and forgive.
We can’t keep our hands off each other in the privacy of the Rolls Royce. Under the twinkling star ceiling, Lorcan’s lips burn the damp skin between my chin and collarbone, kissing, nibbling, and sucking until the goosebumps and the ragged breathing are too much for me to bear. He’s as surprised as I am when I gather up the fabric of my dress and slide on top of him. “Mm, my little China Doll can’t wait until we get home.” He growls, grabbing my ass and pushing me down onto the bulge in his suit pants.
The truth slips from my lips, breathless and desperate. “No,” I say firmly, framing his beard with my hands. “I can’t.”
The grumble that comes from deep in Lorcan’s chest is animalistic. As wolf-like as his eyes. With one hand, he lifts my ass up enough to slide off my panties—wet from more than just the rainfall. I desperately tug at his zipper; I don’t need to be prepped or relaxed with a tongue or well-intentioned fingers, I’m desperate to feel his cock slide inside me.
His dick throbs in my hand, warm, hard and tempting. I can’t resist running my thumb over his glistening bell-end and lifting it to my mouth to taste his longing for me. “Fuck, China Doll,” he groans, throwing his head back to reveal the thick trunk of his neck. When he looks back at me, the fire in his eyes is deadly. “Put me inside of you, now.” Needing to hear him call me good girl, I move only enough to slide his cock into the wet folds of my slit, over my clit and into my aching hole. We groan in unison as I lower myself onto his shaft, my pussy clenching around it. He doesn’t wait for me to ride his dick. Instead, he grips my ass cheeks and lifts me up and down, up and down, slamming me down harder and harder with every thrust. “Take it like a good girl,” he demands, in that low and rough voice that sets every nerve ending in my body on fire.
With every thrust, I’m taking more of his cock, rocking myself against the fabric of his suit, my hands desperately clawing around his neck. When my body starts to tremble, Lorcan lifts me off of him pushing me towards the roof of the car.
“What the—”
“I want to taste you,” he growls, sliding down so that when he pulls me back down, I land on his face. “I need to taste your sweet cum, China Doll.”
The cocktail of his words mixed with the feeling of his hungry lips and rough beard is all it takes to send me over the edge. A powerful orgasm washes over me, and Lorcan is there to steady my trembling thighs and suck all the juice from me as I cum in his mouth. With my head crushed against the ceiling, I can hear the rain hammering on the roof. As I come down from my high, Lorcan slows the tempo of his tongue, dipping into my tender hole and up towards my raw clit in light, sensual strokes. He shifts my weight so that he can hold me with just one hand, while the other returns to his cock. His lips and tongue get greedier with every pump of his fist, and I can feel another wave of ecstasy on the horizon.
This is so fucking hot.
I groan into the roof, my lips pressed against the velvety fabric, my thighs wrapped around his strong jaw. He moans into my clit at the same time as I come again, and only then does he let me slide back down into his lap. Face to face again, he lifts his hand to my mouth. “This is what you do to me, China Doll,” he whispers. Never breaking eye contact, I part my lips and lick his fingers, sucking up every last drop of his sweet, sticky cum. I enjoy how the vein in his temple throbs. How his eyes burn with a new wave of lust. How his eyes never leave me. Possessive and wild.
I wipe my juice from his chin then crush my lips against his. His heart hammers through his wet shirt against me, meeting mine in ferocity and speed. We stay like that, me straddling him with my head in the crook of his neck, and his thumb running circles on the small of my back, until the driver slows to meet the gates of the estate.
Lorcan wraps his hand around my throat and lifts my head up to look at him. “Stay with me tonight.”
I don’t bother telling him that it’s not a question. Instead, I nod, and when the driver opens the passenger door, I let him carry me through the house and up to a room I’ve never been in before.
He lowers me onto a soft bed and disappears through an adjoining door. Mustering just enough energy to prop myself onto my elbows, I drink in the room. Lorcan Quinn’s bedroom. Not the Devil’s lair I expected. No black walls and burning furnace of hell. Instead, there’s a rich mahogany bar snaking around one corner, and in the other, a tan leather armchair and a side table with a Statesmen globe. Other antiques punctuate the space in between, but I’m too high on the events of the evening to bother exploring them.
When I hear taps running, I pull myself off the bed and follow Lorcan into the bathroom. He’s perched on the edge of a freestanding, roll-top bath. We lock eyes and he pats the rim. “Get in.”
I’m getting used to doing what Lorcan Quinn says, not what he asks. I turn around and sweep my hair to the side, letting him tug the zipper down the length of my back. The dress is soaking as he peels it off of me, and it lands on the onyx tiles with a sludgy thud. I’d hate to think how much it costs if it’s ruined, so I don’t think. Instead, I revel in Lorcan’s hypnotized gaze as I slide into the warm bathwater. “Will you join me?”
“In a minute,” he murmurs, his gaze sliding down to my breasts. My nipples instantly stiffen, breaking the surface of the water. “For now, I’d like to enjoy the view.”
Laughing, I reach for the sponge balancing on the rim of the bath, but Lorcan gets there first. He dunks it in the water and begins sliding it up my calf, up to my thigh.
I study him as much as he’s studying me. Wondering what makes him so much more hypnotic than usual tonight.
“You didn’t drink.”
Lorcan turns his attention away from the mound at the top of my thigh to meet my gaze. “Mmm?”
“Tonight. You didn’t drink.”
“No, I didn’t.”
My voice is small, timid. “Why?”
After a moment, a tight smile forms on his lips. “Dancing with you was a memory I didn’t want to drown out.”
I know that’s not the truth, but I’m in too much of a state of bliss to break it with a line of questioning.
Instead, I cock my head and say, “I like it when you don’t drink.”
His body stiffens and he doesn’t reply.
Just when I think I’ve soured the evening, he looks at me from under his thick lashes. “Let’s get you to bed, China Doll.”
He wraps me in a fluffy white towel and picks me up. “I could get used to being carried everywhere,” I say, enjoying the rumble of his chest against my cheek when he laughs.
When he drops me on the bed, I reach up and cup his face, stroking the thick hair of his beard. The air swirls hot and heavy between us.
“Say it, China Doll,” he all but whispers, trailing a light finger over my collarbone. “I can tell you’re thinking something.”
He’s right. The words are burning the back of my throat, desperate to be let loose. Three words. And if I allow them to escape, they’ll be the most insane three words I’ve ever uttered.
So, I settle for a different way to phrase it. “I…don’t hate you.”
It slips out of my mouth in a champagne-fueled jumble. As soon as it reaches Lorcan’s ears and his biceps tense, I know I’ve said the wrong thing.
He breathes in. Out. In again. Then his eyes turn dark.
“Hate me, China Doll,” he eventually says. His voice is ice-cold, a stark contrast to the warm hands that were just on my body. “It’s a hell of a lot easier that way.”
I’m stupefied on the bed as he brushes his lips against my forehead. Then, he stands up, strides across the room, and closes the bedroom door with a quiet click.