Page 12 of Twisted Secrets (The O’Malleys #3)

Olivia moved to help him, trying not to notice how freaking good he looked without a shirt on.

The tattoos on his neck wound down, connecting with his sleeves and a giant mural over his left side, the ink only serving to accent a body that would have made her stop and take notice under any circumstances.

Her fingers trailed down his chest as she finished unbuttoning his shirt, his skin almost hot to the touch.

It was so strange that he’d been inside her but she hadn’t touched him like this.

She stopped when his stomach tensed beneath her touch. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, nothing like that.”

She made herself stop stroking him and rocked back on her heels. “Right. Okay.” The tattoos created such a strange contrast—the pretty boy and the multitude of artwork inked into his skin—that she wasn’t sure what to think of him.

Hell, she hadn’t been sure what to think of him from the start. Nothing he did was on par with what she expected. It was enough to make her head spin.

She pushed to her feet, needing some distance between them since the whole of a king-sized bed wasn’t anywhere near enough.

“Let me wet a washcloth and we’ll see about cleaning you up, since a shower is out of the question.

” Doc Jones hadn’t explicitly said that, but getting the bandages wet seemed like a pretty dumb idea.

“A sponge bath? Careful there, sweetheart—keep acting like that and I might actually start to think you like me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She couldn’t help a small smile as she ran the water until it was warm, and then wet the cloth.

But her humor faded as she came back into the room, faced again with all that skin.

Just do it. Nurses do it all the time and it’s not weird .

Sure, but she wasn’t a nurse. She was a bartender who was having uncomfortable thoughts about a man who was injured.

Uncomfortable sexy thoughts.

Like the fact that they hadn’t been this naked when they’d had sex. Or that just seeing him without his shirt was enough to have her reconsidering her promise to herself that it was a onetime thing.

Olivia debated how to go about it for half a second and then went to her knees in front of him.

There were faint red tracks down his chest that had bled through his shirt, and his hair was matted on the one side.

“Hold still.” She ran the washcloth down his arm, figuring that was safe enough to start with.

She bit her lip. She was sure she could feel the heat of his skin through the warm cloth. I’m imagining things .

What she wasn’t imagining was how he tensed again the second she touched him. She froze. “Are you sure I’m not hurting you?”

He huffed out a laugh. “It’s got nothing to do with hurt, sweetheart, and a whole lot to do with pleasure.

” Then he turned those dark eyes on her, and her breath caught in her throat.

It didn’t matter that he was walking wounded or that she wasn’t even sure she liked this guy.

He seemed to reach out and run his hands over her body without moving a single muscle.

She tried to hold back a shiver and failed miserably.

If he could do that with a look, what could he do if he actually touched her?

Oh, right. You already know exactly what he can do if he touches you.

Bad idea. Really, really bad idea .

It took far too much effort to break his gaze and go back to what she was doing. In an effort to distract herself, she said, “Tell me about your tattoos.”

For a second, she thought he might not do it, but he sighed. “What you see is what you get.”

Somehow, she doubted it. She focused on the ones wrapping his forearms. They were both pinups—an angel and a devil—but the angel was posed more like a porn star and the devil was downright demure.

It made her smile despite everything. Things were rarely what they seemed to be, a truth that he apparently held as tightly as she did.

Both women were framed by roses but, again, they weren’t what she would have expected.

They were the traditional colors—red for devil and white for angel—but the white roses were framed by deadly looking thorns, and the red were filled to the brim with green vines that were so lifelike, she reached out to run her finger along one.

The feeling of skin against skin, even so innocent a touch, was almost too much. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d casually touched someone who wasn’t Hadley. It had to have been Sergei, and that was more than a year ago. A whole year.

That had to be the reason she was reacting so strongly to this O’Malley. The reason she’d thrown caution to the wind and actually had sex with him. The reason she was having a seriously difficult time taking her hands off him.

Focus.

Right. Focus.

She took her hand back and went to work on his side.

The tattoo there was massive, stretching from his shoulder over his chest and down his side to disappear into the band of his slacks.

She paused. “A dragon.” It was wrapped around a naked woman, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell if it was protecting the woman or about to take a chunk out of her.

“Have you ever heard the story of Saint George?”

She glanced at him. “I’m not Catholic.” The Romanov family was Eastern Orthodox, but she’d never been required to attend the Divine Liturgy and she hadn’t felt the lack at all.

What kind of church took money from people who were known criminals?

A confession shouldn’t be enough to absolve certain crimes.

But as long as the funds kept flowing, no one said a single word.

It was hypocrisy in the worst form as far as she was concerned.

“Saint George was a soldier for some Roman emperor or another, and was a pretty badass warrior. He decided that he didn’t like the way the emperor was killing off every Christian he could get his hands on, so he told him so to his face.”

She moved up his body to his chest, which held the head of the dragon—right next to a scar of what had to be a bullet wound. The scar didn’t distort the tattoo, but it butted right up against the back of the dragon’s head. “What happened?”

“Oh, he died. Torture and beheading.”

She blinked. Didn’t expect that . “Oh.”

“Most of the saints went out in gruesome ways. Sometimes I wonder if it actually got them any extra cosmic points or if it was all for nothing.” He gave himself a little shake.

“But Saint George is my patron saint. Traditionally, the art depicting him shows him facing down a dragon to save a damsel in distress.”

Olivia leaned back. There was no warrior in sight. “So where is he?”

“Not on me.” He grinned unexpectedly. “See, the dragon typically represents the wickedness of the world, and I happen to be a big fan of wickedness—or at least I used to be. He’s made up of the seven deadly sins.”

He was? The scales of the beast were…She moved closer.

There were scenes etched into his hide. Olivia silently counted them.

Seven. His head was obviously lust, the depiction of the man and woman…

and another woman…in a naked embrace so intricate it was a wonder she hadn’t realized it was there before.

“This artwork is amazing.” Without thinking, she trailed her washcloth down to the woman.

Olivia couldn’t figure out if her face was frozen in fear or ecstasy. “And the woman?”

“She’s supposed to be God’s holy truth.” From his smirk, he’d tweaked that meaning as well.

She went back up to his shoulder. The blood was almost gone now except for on Cillian’s head, but she was hesitant to break this curiously intimate moment.

And maybe, just maybe, I’m prolonging the time I’m going to have to stop running my hands over his body.

“And what does your priest think about your interpretations of your patron saint?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s resigned himself to my being fed to the fires of hell when I die.” He shrugged. “But he never stops trying.”

She finished with his neck and sat back on her heels. “I think your hair is going to have to wait until you can shower, so you’ll have to talk to Doc Jones about that.”

“Thanks.” There it was again, that look that threatened to curl her toes. He reached out and took the washcloth from her and tossed it onto the nightstand. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

She should object, move away, do something other than rest her hands on the top of his thighs and tilt her head up. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Didn’t the last few years teach you anything? Apparently not, because she wanted Cillian to kiss her again, and she wanted him to kiss her now .

Truth be told, she wanted him to do a whole lot more than that.

Olivia licked her lips. “Okay.”

His lips quirked up at the edges. “I can see I’m blowing your socks off.

Let’s see if I can do better.” He cupped her face with one hand and then his mouth was on hers, soft and teasing, testing—nothing like the forceful kiss that started everything last night.

She opened for him immediately, driven by the lightning dancing just beneath her skin.

She wished she could blame it on being skin-starved, but the truth was that this man was doing more with a near-innocent kiss than Sergei had ever done with his entire body and hours at his disposal. I am in so much trouble .

Then Cillian’s tongue stroked hers and she was lost. She gripped his thighs as he explored her mouth, giving herself permission to do some exploring of her own.

He was all lean muscle, as if he’d been melted down and stuck in a forge, only to come out new.

She ran her hands up his legs, stopping just short of his hips.