Still, Fiona had never wanted that for Finn, and her Finn was the same as the one standing before me here today. In my tea room, which looked far too small to contain the might of this man.
She’d be so disappointed. So heart-sore to know that he was up to his neck in dirty dealings with the Five Points, and as he’d pointed out, the cost of his shoes, his clothes, and his jewelry, was enough to speak for itself.
If he wasn’t high up the ladder in the gang, then I wasn’t one of the best bakers of scones in the district.
Like Jenny had said, I had five star ratings across most social media platforms for a reason. I was good. But apparently, this man wasn’t.
Before I could utter a word, before I could even cringe at how utterly sorrowful Fiona would be about this turn of events—not just about the Five Points but what her son was making me do—the door clattered open.
Like he’d predicted, a team of people swarmed in.
Finn motioned to the floor. “Want anyone to see those?”
With a gasp, I dropped to my knees and collected the shots, stuffing them back into the envelope with a haste that wasn’t exactly practical.
Two shiny shoes appeared before me, followed by two expensively clad legs, and I peered up at him, wondering what he was about. He held out his hand, but I clasped the photos to my chest.
“You’re making more of a mess than anything else, Aoife.” His voice was raspy, his eyes weighted down by heavy lids.
For a second, I wondered why, then I sawwhy.
He had an erection.
An erection?
I peered around at the staff, but they were all men. Not a single woman in sight, well, save for the seventy-year-old with a clipboard who was barking out orders to the guys in what sounded like Russian.
So that meant, what?
The erection was for me?
The blush, the dreaded, hated blush, made another goddamn appearance, and to cover it, I ducked my head, then pushed the photos and the envelope at him.
For whatever reason, I stayed where I was, staring up at him as he calmly, coolly, and so fucking collectedly pushed the photos back into the torn envelope—it was some coverage. Better than none at all, I figured.
Being down here was. . . .
Hell, I don’t know what it was.
To be looked at like that?
For his body to respond to me like that?
It was unprecedented.
I’d had one sexual experience with a boy back in college, and that had not gone according to plan. So much so I was still technically a fucking virgin because, and this was no lie, the guy hadzerounderstanding of a woman’s body.
Craig had spent more time fingering my perineum than my clit, and every time he’d tried to shove his dick into me, he’d somehow managed to drag it down toward my ass.
I’d gotten so sick of him frigging the wrong bits of me, that I’d pushed him off and given him a blowjob. It had been the quickest way to get out of that annoying situation.
Yeah, annoying.
Jenny, when I’d told her, had pissed herself laughing, and ever since, had tried to get me to hook up with randoms, so I could slough off my virginity like it was dead skin and I was a snake. But life had just always gotten in the way, and I’d had no time for men.
Shortly afterthathad happened, we’d lost Fiona. Then, I’d graduated, and after, Mom and I had set up this place thanks to some insurance money she’d come into after her husband had died. It had been crazy building the tea room into an established cafe, and then mom had passed on, too.
So, here I was. Still a virgin. On my knees in front of the sexiest man on Earth, a man I knew, a man whose mother had half raised me, one who wanted me in his bed as some kind of blackmail payment.