by A. S. Kelly
“Sunday they’re going to play against Zebre. Ha, those poor Italians – they have no idea what they’re up against.”
I smile.
“They’ve got this player, the one that just got called up to the national team. Number…er, 11, yes, number 11. What’s his name?”
I open my mouth to answer him, but the air gets blocked in my lungs.
“Ian O’Connor,” says a voice from behind me, as a hand runs slowly down my arm. “His name is Ian O’Connor,” Riley repeats as I grab her hand with all the desperation in my heart.
“The house is simply stunning, Karen,” Riley admires the tree that dominates the living room, reaching from floor to ceiling.
“Thanks, dear,” my mother hands her a glass of wine and smiles before going to check up on my father.
I go over to her anxiously, aware that I need to say something, to explain and apologise for not having told her about my family’s problems. I hold her tightly around the waist and rest my chin on her shoulder.
“I should have told you.”
“Would you have? If I hadn’t come and figured it out for myself, would you have told me sooner or later?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
“I’m sure you have your reasons for not telling me but I’d be happy knowing you trusted me.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It’s not easy for me either, trusting someone. But I’m giving it a try.”
“It’s just that they’re my problems. I’m not ready to share them yet.”
Riley stiffens in my arms.
“And it seems like you haven’t been completely honest with me, have you?”
She pulls away from me to look me in the eyes.
“Well, maybe this thing between us isn’t the greatest idea, Ian,” she says seriously. “We’re both closed in behind our walls and I don’t let you in and you don’t let me in. There are no windows or doors. I just wonder sometimes what we’re doing,” she concludes, before leaving me standing there.
I look at my father in the armchair and my mother next to him. She speaks to him, caresses him and reassures him – and he lets her. Despite his confusion, he trusts her even if he doesn’t know who she is at times. He trusts her blindly. Maybe their love is stronger than any illness. Stronger than anything.
And maybe what Riley and I feel for each other looks nothing like this.
Maybe it doesn’t look like love at all.
63
Riley
The mood at the table is tense, not at all like the last time we were gathered here. Everyone is trying to force a bit of cheer and some conversation, a few laughs. Ian doesn’t raise his eyes. He’s sitting opposite me but he feels further away than ever, as if he’s keeping me at a distance – or as if he’s just realised that this thing we have isn’t wasn’t what we thought it was.
I sigh, disheartened as I try to eat a few bites of turkey but my stomach is so full it hurts me terribly, enough to make me feel nauseated.
A loving hand rests gently on my arm.
“Excuse me dear, could you remind me what your name is?”
“I’m Riley,” I tell him kindly.
“Riley,” he repeats to himself as if he were trying to connect me to something in his mind. “And why are you here?”
“Karen invited me.”
He smiles upon hearing his wife’s name. “And are you a friend of the boys?”
“I’m Ian’s friend.”
He looks his children over and then returns his eyes to me.
“You know,” he says starting back up to eat. “Ian came to us when he was 15 years old. He was angry, hurt and suspicious. He wouldn’t let anyone get close to him.” Without realising, he raises his voice. “They advised us against taking on a boy like him because the wounds in his heart were too deep.”
I can barely hold back the tears that threaten to choke me.
“But I – we,” he corrects himself, looking at Karen who isn’t holding back anything, “We did it. We knew his rage wasn’t directed at us, and that his hard shell wasn’t because he was bad…I don’t know if I’m explaining this well.”
“You are,” I say taking his hand in mine.
“He was just a boy then, but he’s become a man now.”
I can feel Ian’s eyes on me. I can feel how upset he is, his anguish and his desire to jump across the table and put a stop to the conversation. But I also feel his pain and his need for it to come to light.
“He’s been through a lot,” he says, shaking his head and drying his eyes. “And no one noticed him, what he was going through. He was left alone in the world and for days at a time lived under the steps at the stadium outside the school. Who knows how long it had been since he had eaten something,” he says innocently, shaking his head. “We had our two boys, you see,” he points to Nick and Ryan, who aren’t doing a very good job of masking their emotions. “But we didn’t consider it even for a minute. A look between Karen and I was enough and our decision was made.”
I look at Karen, who is holding Ryan and Nick’s hands.
“When Nick brought him home to us that night, cold, scared and lost, something in my heart broke.”
That same thing is breaking mine right now.
“He didn’t have anything, and we—”
“And they gave me everything,” Ian interrupts. “They fed me, took care of me, dressed me and sent me to school. They allowed me to play rugby, to have a house, a family and…a life,” he says calmly and raising his eyes to look at mine. “They gave me what I needed and a lot more.”
I’m tied to him, to his eyes and everything he’s telling me without saying a word.
His torment and his pain, that feels a lot like mine.
His desire to open up and his fear of being abandoned again.
His immense heart that is always trying to hide away, instead of letting it show, even though he doesn’t realise it.
I stay tied to him, to what I’m feeling, to what I want: Ian O’Connor.
Always.
64
Ian
When I close my bedroom door behind me, I find Riley looking out the window.
“Hey,” she says, turning to me. “Everything okay down there?”
“I put the kids to bed. Hopefully they won’t try to suffocate each other in their sleep.”
She smiles sadly at me and looks outside again. “I think it’s going to snow,” she says after a few minutes of silence.
I go towards the window and set my hands on her shoulders. “That would be nice. A white Christmas.”
“It would be nice,” she echoes, sighing.
“Riley, about what happened…”
She shakes her head and walks away, going to sit on the bed. I let my arms fall by my sides and ball my fists, staying where I am.
“It’s not easy for me to talk about it,” I start, aware of the fact that it’s now or never. If I don’t do it now, I will seriously lose her.
I asked her to trust me and not to hide from me, and here I am doing the opposite.
“I came to this house when I was 15 and it was Nick who brought me to them. We went to the same school and were on the same rugby team.”
“Why did he bring you here?”
“He’d gone back to the field after training – he’d forgotten his jersey in the changing rooms,” I sigh painfully. “He found me under the stairs. I was trying to stay out of the rain. He didn’t think about it for a second, he took my arm and brought me to his house.”
I feel her eyes on me but I don’t have the courage to turn and look at her.
“I was living with my mother in a flat in Ballymount. Small, mouldy and claustrophobic. I came here to school in Santry. I took the bus when I could and walked when I couldn’t afford to.”
“And your father?”
“I never knew him.”
I hear her sigh.
“My mum had different men,” I say, gritting my teeth. “But n
one of them ever stuck around for very long. Until she met Mike. He and I didn’t get along too well. You could even say when he was there, I preferred not to go home.”
“Was he violent?” she asks, the fear in her voice palpable.
“No,” I shake my head. “Just allergic to children. My mother always looked for men she could lean on, men who gave her nothing - but she depended on them. It’s just that she wanted someone to be with her at all times. I wasn’t enough for her.” I say feeling a knot in my throat. “When Mike left her too, she just gave up. She wouldn’t do anything all day and stayed in bed. She was depressed, unresponsive. She drank. I tried to help her, to do what I could, but I was just a kid, you know? I was going to school, I had to study, I did the food shopping, the cooking and was trying to get both of us by on welfare.”
“Then what happened?”
“One day I woke up and she wasn’t there. She’d left with him. In the middle of the night. She abandoned me. I stayed there alone for a few weeks, until the owner of the building noticed she wasn’t there anymore. I was left with no mother, no house, nothing. The night Nick found me was the fifth night I’d slept at the stadium. No one noticed me except for him.” I smile despite myself. “Nick’s a bright guy, a lot brighter than people think, himself included. His family accepted me into their home without knowing anything about me. They gave me everything, Riley. But most of all, they loved me and helped me to trust people again.”
I turn to her.
“When you were telling me your story the other night on your sofa…I felt everything. I felt it all. Your loneliness was already mine. Your soul was already chained to mine. That night, Riley, you took my heart. I saw you for what you were and what you were trying to hide from me, because I saw myself in you. I saw and felt all of it, as if it were happening to me. It was a tie between us, Riley. Something that you only feel once in a lifetime. I knew it from the first day. I always knew you were special. You were the only person that could give me what I was always missing. But I was scared that I would never be enough for you…and that one day you would leave me. I couldn’t have gone through that again. And that’s what would have happened if that night…” he shakes his head. “I was convinced that you would’ve left me. Everyone leaves, it’s just a question of when. The day I walked into this house, I decided that I would stay alone. It was my choice, you know? I had to defend myself then, had to defend myself against you. But you seeped everywhere like a spilled glass of water, Riley and I couldn’t avoid it. You were dangerous and I had to protect myself, so I let you go before it was too late for me; I swore to myself that I wouldn’t ever get in so deep again. But when I saw you again…everything came charging back. What I felt for you, my fears…” I say gritting my teeth trying not to give in. “If I hadn’t had the O’Connors, what would my life have been? They adopted me. I was almost 17 when they gave me their name. Can you believe it? They took in a perfect stranger – a potentially dangerous boy who was angry at the world. Who would have done that? And now my father doesn’t even recognise me half the time—”
She stands up from the bed and throws herself into my arms. I hold her up as she wraps her legs around my hips. I bury my face into her hair and breathe in deeply.
She’s still here.
“You’ve become a wonderful man, Ian O’Connor,” she tells me, squeezing me tightly. “Your family is proud of you and I…I’m even more proud.”
I take her face in my hands and look her in the eyes.
“Don’t go, please. I couldn’t bear it.”
And she kisses me. Sweetly.
She takes my lips in hers and gives them life. She loves them. She puts her hands in my hair and pulls me to her and the kiss becomes more passionate.
Her tongue in my mouth, her hands on me and her…
Her. Everywhere.
65
Riley
He squeezes my hips and pulls me to him.
“Make love to me, Ian O’Connor.”
He looks at me with frightened eyes.
“All I’m asking you is to make love to me,” I tell him, already short of breath, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
He brings me towards his bed without tearing his gaze away from mine. I unbutton his shirt slowly, then let it slide down his arms. I run my fingers along his skin and he watches intently. I scratch his back with my nails before he pushes me to the mattress and presses his body onto me.
I wrap my legs around his hips and feel his stiffness through his jeans. I let myself moan a little as his tongue runs along my neck before catching my lips in one of those kisses that takes your breath away.
He unbuttons my shirt, looking me in the eyes. There’s a sweetness there that’s tinged with his desire - two emotions are battling it out inside him. On one side, there’s his desire to have me, and on the other, his will to feel and taste everything along the way.
He sighs onto my breasts. He caresses them with his face, lips and tongue before taking my bra off and using his hands on me.
He doesn’t bite. He doesn’t mark his territory.
There’s no need.
He lets his hands slide down my abdomen and stops at the button on my jeans, opening them with an unnatural slowness before sliding them off of my legs. I lift myself up to undo his button and when we’re both completely naked, he lays over me again, breathing onto my lips.
He caresses my thighs and slides his finger inside me.
“Ian,” I exhale his name.
“Riley,” he whispers against my skin.
He moves inside me as he continues to hold my gaze, transmitting everything he feels for me in this moment.
Desire, passion…and love.
Ian is loving me.
He’s giving me everything he has.
And I want to give it all back to him.
The first wave of pleasure bends me in two. Ian has to suffocate my yell with his hand so that the entire house doesn’t hear us. When my breathing becomes regular again, he removes his hand and we both laugh.
And then he loves me, again and again.
Ian O’Connor loves me.
And I…I love him.
We wake up in the morning with a lightness in our hearts. I am on my stomach with my hands under the pillow as Ian caresses my back with his fingertips.
I keep my eyes closed, enjoying this moment of pure intimacy, his delicate touch and the shivers it leaves along my spine, as he slides up the same spine leaving a trail of wet kisses.
He ducks under the covers and grabs me by the hips, turning me to face him. He holds me by the buttocks as he draws me to his mouth. I feel his breath and grip the sheets tightly the moment his tongue enters me.
His movements are slow and deep, his teeth biting and his mouth calling to me.
Ian moans and my entire body quivers. Ian breathes and my mind races. Ian loves me and I let myself be loved by him.
Heat rises in me and I pant, waiting for the pleasure to strike me again.
His hand runs slowly over my skin and I bend at the orgasm exploding between my legs, unable to suffocate a yell that vibrates through the room. I slowly loosen my grip on the sheets and cover my face with my hands.
Ian comes back up my body, kissing every centimetre before popping out from under the covers with a cheeky smile. He comes to my face and captures my lips with his teeth.
“Good morning,” he says with a face I’d like to smack.
I look at him with a raised eyebrow.
“What?” he asks with fake innocence.
“I definitely woke up the whole house.”
He laughs, enjoying it, before giving me another kiss. Then he stands there, looking at me for a few seconds before I realise why he’s concerned.
“I’ll do it,” I tell him, stroking his beard.
His face lights up hopefully.
“I don’t want to force you to tell me about something that hurts you, Riley. But I’m sure that it will help you: I’m here now, and y
ou won’t have to go through anything alone.”
I smile, grateful to him. “I know.”
He slides out of bed and stands up, goes to the window completely naked. I bite my lip, trying to control my desire for him to take me again.
Then he turns to me and extends his hand.
“Come and see.”
I get up too, also naked but confident as his eyes devour me. I go to him and look out the window. The ground is covered in snow.
“Oh my God, It’s beautiful!” I say, observing the white blanket that covers everything.
“Really and truly,” he whispers onto my skin before sliding something around my neck.
“What?” I look down.
“This way, everyone will know that number 11 is yours,” he murmurs into my ear.
I turn and he sits on the windowsill.
I take the chain he gave me, the number ‘11’ charm in my hands, moved by the gesture.
“Merry Christmas, Riley,” he says, kissing me.
“You got me a present,” I say feeling stupid and childish, “But I…” he stops me with his mouth.
“This is the best present you could give me. You and me in this house together…anywhere, Riley Murray. I want you everywhere.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.
“Mine?”
“Hell, yes,” he exhales deeply against my neck before biting it.
I’m naked, exposed in front of the window: and couldn’t care less. The only thing that matters is the look in his eyes the minute I grab his erection tightly in my hands. I squeeze it and feel it pulsing. I bite my lip, then I bite him.
I knew this would happen.
I rest my back up against the cold window as I let him inside me. I let myself be invaded by him, by his body and by the love that he is willing to give me.
Because Ian O’Connor gives.
He gives himself.
And I want all of it.
And only with him.
