by Jory Strong
She left and Etaín cleaned up, repacking the kit then folding the mat and placing it on a shelf before putting the incense out and doing the same with it. It was a relief to escape the room.
Surprise came at finding Cathal waiting in the hallway for her. Pleasure, but dismay, too. She needed to retrieve her bike and show a few more artists the Harlequin Rapist’s distinctive tats.
“I told you I was fine with catching a cab.”
“And I stayed because I wanted to give you a ride home. It’ll be your choice when we get there whether you grab your bike and bolt or invite me in.”
His smile had heat blossoming in her belly and remembered pleasure tightening her nipples. She didn’t think she’d be able to let him go without having him inside her one more time. A quickie, she promised herself. Just a quickie.
“Okay then, let’s go.”
Sixteen
The scent of roses drifted past Denis as he stepped into the backyard. The need for solace drew him to a pink-streaked flower in an extensive garden of them.
He forgot the name of it though he remembered it had cost him a small fortune to acquire. There were more like it. And others he’d imported for Margo in those last few months when they’d both stopped pretending she was going to beat the cancer.
He reached out, stroking a soft petal. Remembering how he’d compared the flowers to her skin every time they’d come outside together. Remembering when they’d been young and newly married and he still sent her roses any time business took him away from her.
“I need you,” he whispered. “Brianna’s all that’s left of us and I’ve already failed with her. I didn’t keep her safe.”
The failure tore at him, striking at the very core of who he was. He touched his lips to the silky petal of the rose. “I don’t know how to break through, Margo. I don’t know if I can ever bring her back.”
He closed his eyes. Hoping for a sense of the wife he’d loved since the moment he first laid eyes on her, for the peace her presence always brought him.
He didn’t find the first. But the second came slowly, among the flowers that had always given her pleasure.
He walked on, moving along a pathway through the well-tended bushes, stopping occasionally to bend over and inhale deeply.
His thoughts returned to breakfast at Aesirs and he felt better about holding off, giving Cathal breathing room to step up and do the right thing.
It was important to Niall for his son do this. It was important to him as well.
This was about family. Not business.
The scene around him disappeared as another took its place. The day he’d stood with Niall in the maternity ward, looking through the glass at Cathal, both of them in agreement that it was fine for a son to make his own choice whether or not to follow in his father’s footsteps. Then the day Niall had stood with him, looking at Brian.
Pain pulled Denis into the present, a fist gripping his heart with thoughts of his son. He rubbed his chest but the ache wasn’t something that could be massaged away.
The rose garden ended, opening up into the pool area. He stepped forward, closing himself off from thoughts of the dead.
The water in the pool sparkled. Chairs and tables were set up steps away from it, an invitation to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.
Maybe this was what Brianna needed, he thought, taking out his cell phone and calling inside. He spoke with the cook first, telling her that he and Brianna would take lunch at poolside. Then to the nurse, ordering her to bring Brianna out.
Closing his phone, he placed it on a table, a gesture from the old days, when he’d made a show of shutting out the other aspects of his life in order to be fully there with his family. He retrieved cushions for the heavy wrought-iron chairs, finding pleasure in action as he set things up to enjoy lunch with his daughter.
The door opened and she was led outside in a bathrobe, the belt pulled tight, emphasizing her rail-thin body. Pain returned with the sight of her, a savage, raw clawing in his chest. He’d put the animals responsible for this down like the rabid dogs they were.
His hands gripped the back of a chair as she was brought forward, her eyes dulled by sedation. He should have had her dressed in a shirt and shorts.
The nurse guided Brianna into a chair and Denis pushed it forward. “It’s too beautiful to be inside,” he said. “I thought we’d have lunch out here. The food will be out in a few minutes. You hungry?”
She didn’t answer, nor would she eat. Starving herself was another way of trying to die, an attempt he thwarted by forced feedings.
His stomach cramped, his appetite gone though he’d finish what he’d started.
“You can leave us,” he told the nurse, not wanting her to witness his painful attempts to communicate with his daughter.
Lunch was brought out and served, the cook fussing over Brianna, pretending everything was normal. When she was gone he picked up his fork, stabbing it into the potato salad.
“I saw Cathal this morning,” he said, starting a one-sided conversation with Brianna that lasted through the meal and then petered out in a silence filled by sounds from the past, from better times.
Squeals and splashes.
The spring and bounce of the diving board.
Watch me, Daddy! Watch this!
Brianna tan and healthy and smiling.
Brian doing flips and diving into the water with barely a ripple. Jumping from the side, arms around his knees, a human cannonball showering his parents and sister when he struck water.
Tears came and Denis couldn’t stop them. He stood and took several steps away from the table, turning his back on the pool and the past, on the emptiness of his present.
Grant me strength, God, he prayed, even as he did it, knowing he would get through this. The pain would fade, maybe one day to the point he would consider taking another wife and trying for a son with her.
A splash had raw fear gripping him as he spun around. Terror bursting through him at seeing Brianna in the deep end of the pool.
He raced to the edge and dived into the water, frantically kicking, barely able to accept what he saw.
She’d managed to use the belt of her bathrobe to tie herself to the heavy wrought-iron chair. And against all instinct to survive, she’d willfully inhaled water in the seconds it took him to reach her.
There was no struggle in her. No life.
She was facedown, the chair pinning her to the bottom of the pool.
He wrenched it to the side, fumbling with the knots. Ripping at them as his heart thundered in his ears and his lungs burned, his mind screaming.
It took minutes to free them. A living hell of horror and desperation.
Grabbing her, he pushed off the bottom, kicking furiously to the surface and getting her out of the pool. He yelled at the top of his lungs, bellowing for help before administering first aid.
A frantic eternity passed before Brianna vomited water and began breathing. She curled in a ball, silent, defeated, unresponsive to his fury or his pain as he spoke her name over and over again, unable to stop the torrent of it.
His entire body shook. His hands trembled in the aftermath of what had nearly happened.
No one had heard him yelling. No one had come.
He wanted to rail at Brianna. To plead with her.
Emotion howled through him. A wild storm he rode until his hands were steady and he’d gotten himself back under control.
Keeping an eye on her, he retrieved his phone and called the nurse, decision crystallizing in him. As soon as Brianna was seen to and he got to his study, the next call would be to Cathal.
Killing Brianna’s rapists might not be therapy for her, but it would be for him. He was done waiting. Cathal would bring Etaín here by the end of the day, or he’d see to it himself.
You coming up?” Etaín asked as Cathal pulled into the driveway.
He turned off the engine. “What do you think?
She glanced down at where his cock made
a hard, desperate plea against the fabric of his pants, then up at his face, her smile sexual invitation and the promise of carnal sin.
Without a word she got out of the car.
He followed her up the flight of stairs, managing to keep his hands off her until she stopped in front of the door, but then he wrapped his arms around her waist and touched his mouth to the place where her shoulder met her neck.
Satisfaction surged through him at the subtle melting of her body against his. “It feels like it’s been hours since we were with each other,” he murmured.
“That’s because it has been. At least in the way you mean.”
The huskiness in her voice had his hands moving up to cover her breasts. “Did you think about this when we were apart?” he asked, rubbing his palms over hardened nipples and reveling in the small sound of need he elicited from her.
“Do you really need to hear me say yes?”
“I’m a man.” He bit the soft skin of her neck, following it with a quick suck. “What do you think?”
“That I want you again.”
There might as well have been a hot wire from her mouth to his dick. His hips jerked. Fuck. In another minute she’d have him humping against her where they stood.
His hand left her breast and went to the front of her jeans. She didn’t protest when he unsnapped them, pushing his way underneath the waistband of her panties to verify the truth of her statement.
His moan echoed hers as he found wet heat and a stiffened clit. “Open the door, Etaín, or I’m going to take you right here.”
He barely recognized himself in the threat-rough voice and raw command. In how little he cared about privacy or public decency or the possibility of getting arrested over the lack of it.
“Do it,” she dared, her clit a hot throb against his palm.
Make me, came instantly.
He opened his mouth to say the words but they clung to his tongue, held there by some small measure of sanity and self-control. He wasn’t sure if she was serious or not, but a shudder went through him with the silent acknowledgment that she had the power to make him. And if he wasn’t careful, he’d get to the point where he was happy she did.
His phone rang, the tone indicating it was his uncle. He pulled his hand from her panties, sliding arousal-wet fingers over her belly and growing harder as a result of it.
“I’ve got to get this,” he said, breaking the physical contact and taking a few steps away from Etaín.
“You with your new lady friend?”
Cathal tensed, knowing his uncle hadn’t called to check up on his progress. That’d be his father’s responsibility. “I’m with her.”
“Brianna nearly died today.”
The heat of seconds ago disappeared in a cold rush of fear. “How?”
“The pool.” A long silence followed, as if his uncle was trying to get himself under control. “I almost didn’t get to her in time.”
“I’ll come by the house and visit her.”
“Make it by tonight, Cathal. Those names you mentioned at breakfast aren’t going to change how I feel now. The time for words is over. Niall will understand that after I tell him what happened.”
The call dropped, the message as clear as if his uncle had spoken it directly, leaving Cathal’s heart pounding as if he’d run a mile. He was caught in the middle with no way out.
Pocketing the phone, he turned around and saw Etaín standing in her doorway. His body responded, the heat returning in a rush so all he wanted to do was get naked and lose himself in her for a little while.
“You need to head out?” she asked.
“No.” Just the opposite, he needed to stay with her and use the time he had to convince her to help his family.
Etaín didn’t know whether to be glad or not. It unnerved her to think about how far they might have taken things if the call hadn’t interrupted them. She was comfortable with her sexuality, but making a public show of getting fucked wasn’t something she ever intended to do.
He closed the distance between them, bringing the hum of desire with him. His hands settled on her hips as he nuzzled her cheek, her ear, sending a shiver of need through her.
“Where were we?” he asked, touching his mouth to hers.
“Probably on the verge of getting arrested,” she said, covering her uneasiness with humor.
He smiled against her lips and she felt it all the way to her toes. “Maybe we should go to bed instead of jail.”
“Good idea.”
She entered the apartment first, setting the tattoo kit just inside the door. She didn’t bring many people home. Jamaal and Derrick and Bryce came by sometimes if they were on this side of the bay, but mostly she went to their places because they lived in San Francisco and that’s where she spent most of her time.
For the first time in memory, she saw her apartment through the lens of someone else’s eyes. It was comfortable, lived in, the same way Cathal’s was, and yet it didn’t have the same sense of permanence. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did when she realized that nothing was irreplaceable. If she had to, she could leave everything behind and disappear, like her mother had always been able to do.
He didn’t say anything and she welcomed the silence as they moved in unspoken accord to where the mattress lay on the floor. His hands went to the front of her shirt, slow seduction replacing rough urgency as first one button and then another gave way.
His mouth claimed hers, his tongue sliding between parted lips to rub against hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her breasts swelling, anxious for the feel of his hands on them.
A moan came when he rubbed his palms over taut nipples. She pressed her lower body to his, grinding against him until his hands moved to her shoulders, forcing her away long enough to rid her of shirt and bra.
“You’re beautiful,” he said in between kisses, his fingers tight on her nipples, squeezing, tugging, twisting. Sending pleasure straight to her cunt. “Have you ever posed?”
Her hands dropped to his waistband, undoing his buckle and then the front of his pants. “For a skin mag? So some guy can jerk off looking at me? Or for a lover?”
Cathal bit her bottom lip. A sharp rebuke, maybe, for reminding him there had been other men before him, and would be after, though the thought of not having whatever it was she’d found with him sent an unfamiliar ache through her.
“For other artists,” he said. “Or ads.”
“No.”
She freed his cock, absorbing the smooth heat of him through her palm as she pressed her lips to his, drawing his tongue into her mouth and sucking, ending the conversation for long moments.
“You’re a major distraction,” he said.
“And you’re not?”
“We’ll see.”
He kissed downward. Pausing to take each nipple into his mouth, every pull of his lips and press of his teeth intensifying the desire and making her grow more wet and swollen.
She tangled her fingers in his hair, unsure whether to hold him to her breasts or push him lower, to her cunt.
He took the decision away from her after tugging her jeans and panties to her ankles, then stripping them off her along with her shoes.
“Get on the bed and spread your legs,” he said in the same threat-rough tone he’d used at the front door.
She reacted to it, turned on in the same way she was to the inherent danger Eamon represented. She obeyed, heat rushing to her breasts and swollen folds as she watched Cathal shed his clothing, his eyes riveted to her cunt as he did it.
She lifted her hips when he knelt between her thighs, silently ordering him to deliver on the promise his gaze and parted lips had made.
This time he was the one who did as commanded, putting his mouth on her, pleasuring her with the thrust and swirl of his tongue, with sucks that became a carnal demand she willingly surrendered to.
She came.
Then came again when he used his upper body strength to hold her buttocks a
nd lower back off the sheets while he remained on his knees, the angle allowing him to drive his cock in deep and hard, as if he meant to reach her very core. She tightened on him in climax and was rewarded by the flush of pleasure on his face and the liquid hot release of it in her channel.
He covered her with his body when the last of his semen had jetted through his cock, then rolled so she sprawled across him. She closed her eyes, savoring the lazy caress of his hands on her back and the feel of his fingers combing through her hair.
This is dangerous, she thought, admitting to herself how much she liked their continued physical contact after sex. Worried that even knowing she should roll off and away, putting distance between them, she didn’t move.
It’s the novelty of it, she rationalized, placing her palm against his side, where smooth, tanned skin was a sensual contrast to the thick mat of hair on his chest. Any other lover—except Eamon possibly—and she’d have to be very, very careful not to allow the tattooed eyes to touch him after this much contact.
Cathal’s voice was a rumble in her ear. “Why the shelter? Why are you involved with it?”
“Justine.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“She did teen outreach for a while. Still does, though it’s unofficial, and she doesn’t have much time to dedicate to it.”
“You were in trouble? Living on the streets?”
She took refuge in asking a question of her own, her usual dodge. “What makes you think that?”
“You live in a studio apartment and unless you’ve got pictures in the bathroom or in your closet, I don’t see a single one. Not you alone. Not you with friends. And, most importantly, not you with your family though you take your brother’s calls and stay out late when he needs your help.”
She had a deep-seated aversion to having her image captured. Another of her mother’s legacies, and something more, a survival instinct so thoroughly engrained that even as child wanting to please the only father she’d known, she’d battled furiously against being photographed.
“You’re very observant,” she said, deflecting, turning the conversation. “Maybe you should be cop instead of a club owner.”
