The Last Name I'll Ever Take

TheMorning After the Sin

The grey, unforgiving light of a Dublin dawn filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Blackwood library, illuminating the wreckage of the night before. I woke with my cheek pressed against the cold leather of a first-edition volume, my body aching in places I hadn’t felt in years.

Memory flooded back in a hot, shameful rush—the friction of the mahogany desk, the crushing weight of Cormac Blackwood pinning me down, and the raw, rhythmic thrusting that had shattered my hard-won composure. I had come into this den of lions to steal his secrets, to dismantle his empire brick by brick, but in the dark of the night, I had let the enemy claim my body.

I sat up slowly, the black velvet of my dress rustling like a warning. It was torn at the shoulder, the fabric hanging limp. As I looked down, I saw the evidence of my betrayal of self. My skin was marked with faint, purple bruises in the shape of his large, possessive hands—angry brandings of his lust that seemed to throb with the memory of his touch.

"Awake, I see. I was beginning to wonder if I’d broken you."

The voice made me bolt upright, my heart hammering against my ribs. Cormac was sitting in a wingback chair by the cold fireplace, a crystal glass of whiskey in his hand despite the hour. He looked like a king surveying a conquered territory. His silk shirt was still unbuttoned, the gap revealing a hard, sculpted chest and a dusting of dark hair that disappeared into his trousers. He looked relaxed, predatory, and entirely too satisfied. His silver eyes tracked the movement of my hips as I scrambled to stand, trying to smooth the ruined velvet over my legs.

"I have work to do," I said, my voice rasping and thick with the remnants of my screams.

I reached for my lace panties, discarded like trash on the expensive Persian rug. My fingers trembled as I tucked them into my clutch.

"Sit down, Lana." It wasn't a request. It was the voice he used to liquidate companies and destroy lives.

I didn't sit. I stood my ground, even as my legs felt like water. "The archives are finished, Mr. Blackwood. You have the files you wanted. Our arrangement for the night is over."

"I don't give a damn about the archives." He stood up, his massive frame instantly shrinking the room. He walked toward me with a slow, measured pace that made my breath hitch. He stopped inches away, his gaze dropping to the swell of my breasts rising and falling in a frantic rhythm. "Last night wasn't about business, and you know it. It was about the way you looked at me when I was buried deep inside you. Like you wanted to kill me... or like you’ve known me for a thousand years."

My heart stopped. The air felt thin. Did he know? Had the mask of Lana Rossi slipped during the height of the s*x, revealing the vengeful soul of Saoirse O’Malley?

He reached out, his thumb tracing my lower lip, which was still swollen and tender from his mouth. "You're a puzzle, Lana. Most women who find their way into this library want my name, my money, or my influence. But you? You look like you want to burn my world to the ground."

"You're imagining things," I whispered, though every nerve ending was screaming as his fingers drifted lower, brushing the pulse point on my neck where my blood was racing.

"Am I?" He leaned down, his lips ghosting over mine, the scent of smoke and expensive skin surrounding me. I could feel the heat of his c**k beginning to stir against my thigh, hard and demanding even after the marathons of the night. He was a predator, and I was still very much in his cage. "If you're just a secretary, why is your touch so desperate? Why do you moan like a woman who has lost her soul and is trying to f**k her way back to it?"

Before I could find a lie sharp enough to cut him, my phone buzzed on the mahogany desk. It was the only thing that broke the spell. I lunged for it, seeing a text from my contact in the underground.

'Blackwood safe code found. Third floor. Move now. They’re onto us.'

I looked from the screen to Cormac’s predatory smirk. The internal conflict was a physical pain in my chest. If I stayed, he would take me again, right here in the cold morning light, and I would drown in the lust until there was nothing left of my mission. If I left, I might finally get the evidence to destroy him once and for all.

"I need to go," I said, trying to dodge around him.

He caught my wrist, his grip like iron. "You're not going anywhere until I'm finished with you, Lana. I haven't even begun to satisfy the hunger you woke up in me."

He jerked me forward, his mouth crashing onto mine with a possessive, whiskey-stained hunger that demanded total surrender. My back hit the desk again, the wood groaning under our combined weight. As his hand slid roughly under my skirt to find the slick, aching heat he had created, the office phone rang—a piercing, direct line from the high-security gate.

Cormac froze, his eyes dark with a mix of frustration and sudden alertness. He pulled back just an inch, his voice a low growl against my lips. "This isn't over. I'm going to spend the rest of the day making you scream my name."

He picked up the phone, his gaze never leaving mine as his hand remained firmly on my hip. "What? I told you not to disturb me."

His face went from flushed to deathly pale in a second. He dropped the receiver, the plastic clattering against the wood like a bone.

"Lana," he said, his voice stripped of its arrogance and replaced with a sharp, cold urgency. "Get out. Now. Use the service lift behind the bookshelf."

"What’s happening?" I asked, my heart plummeting.

"The Gardai," he hissed, grabbing his discarded shirt to cover the marks my nails had left on his chest. "Someone tipped them off about the O’Malley documents. They're at the gate with a warrant. And they aren’t just looking for files, Lana. They’re looking for a woman who was supposed to have died in a car fire three years ago."

My blood turned to ice. My cover wasn't just blown—I was being hunted by the very people who were supposed to protect the law.

The sound of tires screeching on the gravel outside echoed through the library.

"Go!" Cormac shoved me toward the hidden door. "If they find you here, we're both dead."

I ran, my heart a frantic drum, but as the bookshelf slid shut, I realised the most terrifying truth of all: Cormac hadn't asked who I really was. He already knew.

The library doors burst open behind me.