When there was nothing but the bar separating them, he leaned onto it, making that space even smaller as the corner of his mouth tipped up, revealing that dimple in his left cheek. “That’s no way to treat an old friend.”
God, even his voice was enough to conjure an image of their time spent together, back when he had his hand around her throat and whispered dirty promises in her ear… Thankfully, she wasn’t freaking out physically the way she was on the inside.
“What are you doing here, Niklaus?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I came looking for you?”
He sounded thoughtful as he asked, the emotion reflected in his eyes, but despite that, she didn’t believe that for a second. Not at all. Shaking her head, she asked again, “Why are you really here?”
He scanned her face for some time before a small smile bloomed, one that made her chest tighten. “It’s good to see you.”
Despite the way those words made her feel, Reagan refused to let them soften her towards him. She couldn’t. Not after what he’d done.
Shaking her head, she came around the bar, refusing to meet his gaze as she didn’t stop until she had a hand on his chest, ready to push him out the way he came if necessary. But at the moment of contact, his hand came up to cover hers, forcing her hand to remain in place even as she wanted to pull away. Even through the fabric of his shirt, he burned hot, his warmth seeping into her skin, the strong beat of his heart echoing against her hand.
He was there. In that moment.
“You can’t be here,” she said on a whisper, forcing the words out though she wanted only to hold them in.
Niklaus’ other hand came up, his fingers drifting along the side of her face, along her jawline before he tucked them beneath her chin, forcing her eyes up and on him.
Up close, she got a better look at him. She almost wished the years had been unkind to him, maybe then she could have been unaffected. But if anything, they had only made him better.
His hair was a touch shorter, proudly displaying the lines tattooed on the side of his neck, along with the angry looking brand that was on his nape. He’d always been careful to keep them concealed from her, and had seemed a little reluctant to share what they had meant, but now he was proudly displaying them.
What had changed?
And it didn’t look like he had lost an ounce of muscle that she could feel beneath the layers of clothes he wore.
No, Niklaus was just as physically attractive as he had always been, and here she was, looking just as disheveled as she had the first day they had met.
Fate was fucking cruel.
But none of the really mattered anymore. Maybe it would have months ago, before Rourke, before Liam, but now? It didn’t.
“You don’t want me?”
Maybe if the question had been asked with some feeling, she might have told him the truth—the truth couldn’t hurt after all—but the way he’d asked as though the answer didn’t matter at all. She wouldn’t bring herself to be used by him, not again.
“No.”
Only when that single word was left between them did he finally relent, releasing his hold and taking a step back, but not far enough away that she didn’t still feel overwhelmed by him.
“I’ll see you around, Reagan.”
Before she could curb the impulse, she said, “You can’t!”
A single brow shot up. “Says who?”
“Says me. You left. You can’t just walk back into my life out of nowhere and expect me to welcome you with open arms, like the last time we were together didn’t happen.” She pressed her lips together, wishing she hadn’t added that last little tidbit, but pressing on, she pretended like she hadn’t. “And nothing you say in the next five seconds is going to change my mind.”
Now, he was amused, that blank expression drifting away. “No? I’m around though, so I’ve got time.”
“But this time I don’t want you around.”
This time, he didn’t let the bar remain between them, coming around it instead so that he was now in her space, filling her senses with everything that was him. She couldn’t help but breathe in the warm, heady aroma that was Niklaus.
Why did it have to be him? There’d been other guys that were interested over the years, but none had made her ache the way Niklaus did. None of them ever made her feel like she was more than what she was the way he did.
He’d ruined her.
“I’m not going to leave again.”
Forcing her eyes up on him, she shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not like you would tell me if you were.”
He didn’t respond, just stood there for a moment until he reached for her hand, bringing it up to his lips. He didn’t kiss her knuckles as she’d anticipated, but turned her palm over and pressed his lips to her inner wrist, the heat of his mouth making her heart kick up.
God, would there ever be a time when she didn’t want him?
With a careless wink, he dropped her hand and drifted back out the door, disappearing into the night as quickly as he had come.
Only when he was gone did she feel like she could breathe again.
Niklaus was back in town.
Shit.
Chapter 18
It was true then.
Niklaus wasn’t sure why he still lingered outside the pub, leaning against the lamppost, turning a cigarette over between his fingers. He had yet to light it, his attention solely focused on the girl he left behind—how long had it been since he had last seen her? She had changed since then.
Gone was the frizzy red hair that she kept up in a bun, now bone-straight and a deeper shade of auburn. Her breasts were fuller, her hips wider. No, she was just as beautiful as she’d always been.
There was one significant difference between her then and the version standing more than a dozen feet away in her place of business.
Her eyes.
What had attracted him to her in the first place was just how innocent she had looked, how she hadn’t seemed tainted with all the shit that life threw at you. Now? Something, and he wasn’t quite sure what that something was, had made her hard.
Maybe it was good he came back when he did.
Niklaus remained there until she finally ventured out, pulling her coat closed around her, then locked up, dropped the gate, and headed down the block pocketing her keys.
Call it paranoia, but he followed behind at a safe distance, scanning the street for any threat. The likelihood of her being in danger was slim, especially since no one knew of her connection to him, but he couldn’t curb the impulse to make sure she got home safely.
These streets had taught him that.
Finally, after walking two blocks, she stopped at a nondescript building that looked like it was in its prime two hundred years ago. It was painted a pale green, the building connected to it on its right, pink, and the other on its left was undergoing renovations. A man smoking a cigar sat out on the fire escape, staring down at her, the television inside his apartment blaring loud enough for Niklaus to hear. Reagan paid him no mind as she punched in the code on the keypad, slipping inside her building, the door slamming shut behind her.
Niklaus waited, wanting to see what the man would do now, but he remained in his spot. When a light came on two floors up, he looked to it, waiting to see if he could catch another glimpse of her, but he could only make out her shadow behind the closed curtains at her window.
She might have told him to walk away, and maybe she had every reason to be upset with him after what he had done.
But he had found her at a bad time, one when he wasn’t ready to contemplate a life with anyone else, working too hard on old promises that needed to be fulfilled. Even now, he wasn’t sure he was open for that.
He was too hard.
Too jaded.
But whether he wanted that something more, he hadn’t been able to fight his impulse to seek her out.
Maybe they could be friends, if such a thing were possible.
But e
ven as Niklaus headed back for his car, he was already rejecting that idea.
He didn’t do friends.
In this life of his, his friends wound up dead.
Chapter 19
Reagan’s apartment was nothing to write home about.
It was smaller than what it was worth, had a steady leak whenever it rained hard, and neighbors a floor above her that had to be wearing shoes made of concrete with the way they stomped around. But there was one thing Reagan loved about it: it was hers.
That wasn’t to say she had hated living with her parents, but after a while—especially after she was old enough to want to do her own thing—it got tiring coming home to her father questioning where she had been and with who. Then, after his drinking had progressed, she almost missed those days, definitely preferred them over his raging.
After she had opened the pub, and they were finally a step above poverty, she took what little money she had left over and found this place. And despite wanting to stretch her wings, she still hadn’t gone too far.
From here, she could walk to the pub, and when she was feeling up to it, even to the two-bedroom apartment her family had lived in.
No, she still hadn’t been able to leave them behind.
Dropping her bag on the chair, she shrugged out of her jacket, tossing that as well before pulling the band from her hair, running her fingers through it. It had been a long day, and that was even before she got to the pub.
She had contemplated everything she had overheard, what little there was, and the cryptic things Liam had mentioned after he had dropped her off. Rourke had mentioned a problem, and if she was right, that problem would be presenting itself soon enough. She had no doubt.
But currently, her only problem was a six-four Russian who she knew nothing about, but cared for like she had known him her entire life.
God, had it only been a couple of weeks that they spent together all those years ago?
And of that time, she had spent most of those days in his bed, but in that short period, he had consumed her, taking every last bit of her that he wanted until there was nothing left. Reagan knew better, had even warned herself that she didn’t need to get attached to someone like him, but at some point, the rational side of her brain had clicked off, replaced with someone that was too intrigued to walk away.
But he had walked away from her. No note. No promises of calling her. Had she not gone by his motel room days after the last time she had seen him, she would have never known that he was gone in the first place.
That was why she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—believe that he was suddenly back in Hell’s Kitchen for her.
And yet, that still begged the question as to why he was back.
She knew for a fact that he wasn’t from around these parts, not even from the north at all. If she recalled correctly, he’d said he was from Florida. Maybe he was a traveling salesman, and came up here for business of some kind.
And he just happened to find her in a city this big?
That thought made her edgy. It wasn’t like the pair of them exchanged last names or anything, and she doubted she was the only Reagan in the state. So that begged the question, how had he found her? He didn’t sound surprised as he called to her. In fact, his entire demeanor spoke as though he had tracked her down.
Would you believe me if I told you I came for you?
At first, no. But now? She was strongly considering it.
Before, she might have been happy by that possibility.
Now, the only thing she wanted to know was who the hell he was …
The next morning, after a hot shower, painstakingly straightening her hair again—she rarely left it in its natural state nowadays—and getting dressed, Reagan headed for her parents’ place. Thankfully, the rain had let up, but storm clouds still lingered in the sky as though ready to open up at any time.
Her parents’ building was not much better than hers, but the familiarity of it made it special. Along the sidewalk, when the city had been redoing the concrete there, Jimmy had snuck down when her parents weren’t around and stuck his hands on it, forever embedding his child-sized prints in the sidewalk. To this day, the sight of them still made her smile.
Opening the front gate, she headed up the breezeway, punching in the code to let herself into the building, then up to the apartment. Despite having moved out, she still had a key, her mother wanting her to keep it in case of emergencies. Thankfully, it had been a while since there was one.
Even as she stuck the key in the lock, giving it a slight jiggle and twist before disengaging and unlocked the door and pushed it open, she knocked on the heavy wood, announcing her presence.
“Ma?”
“In the kitchen!”
She closed the door behind her, locking it once more as she went in search of her mother, looking around the space as she went. Not much had changed, just the slight shift of the furniture, more pictures adorning the fireplace mantel, but there was one thing that was drastically different.
Her father wasn’t perched in the lounger with a bottle of whiskey clutched in his fist.
Reagan didn’t know whether to be thrilled or nervous about this.
When she rounded the corner, she finally caught sight of her mother, Isabelle, standing at the stove with an apron around her waist and a wooden spoon in her hand as she mixed what smelled like stew in the giant pot.
Isabelle was five-five, a few inches shorter than Reagan’s five-eight—Isabelle had always said she got Conor’s height even if he was six feet—and was just as round in her hips as she was in her middle. Her unruly muddy-brown hair was swept up into a bun, curling strands escaping it to frame her face. She had laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, ones she had always had since Reagan could remember.
If there was one thing to be said, she was her mother’s daughter.
“Hey, Ma, how are you?” Reagan greeted warmly, wrapping her arms around her mother and giving a squeeze. Moments like these, when it was just the pair of them, Reagan missed her terribly, wondering why she didn’t come around more often.
“All’s well. How’s my favorite girl? And the pub?”
“I’m fine, and the pub is too.”
Even if the world was coming down around her, Reagan would never tell her mother anything else. She already had to deal with a drunk for a husband, she didn’t need to worry about the stress Reagan was under too.
“I’m glad. Your brother should be here soon.”
Reagan nodded. Jimmy never missed Sunday brunch, even the one time when he was hungover to the point that he threw up as soon as he cleared the entryway.
After she said the words, Isabelle’s eyes skirted past Reagan towards one of the framed pictures. Reagan didn’t have to look to know which one had her attention. It was the one she always looked to when she made reference to Jimmy.
No, Jimmy never missed brunch, and back when her other brothers were still around, they would never miss brunch either.
But that was before Conor made it clear that they weren’t welcome anymore.
Reagan had seen them maybe twice in the last seven years.
There wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t think about her brothers, and when she came home, sitting around the dining table with Jimmy, Conor, and Isabelle, she felt their absence more than ever. They all did.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Reagan asked changing the subject.
“Almost finished here, love.”
And even if she weren’t, she would still do it all herself. That was who Isabelle O’Callahan was. She was a wife and a mother, and her main priority in life was caring for her family. Reagan admired her for it, even if she couldn’t understand the sentiment completely.
She loved her mother and her brothers unconditionally. Her father…well she had learned to tolerate him. But she couldn’t imagine giving up everything for someone like her father—and she knew that was a shitty way to feel. He might have been different, back when they
had still lived in Ireland, but now, she was only plagued with the bad memories.
“Why don’t you go and relax—wait for your brother to get here.” Isabelle’s voice pulled Reagan from her thoughts.
Seeing no other choice, she did as asked, pulling her phone from her pocket as she went. There were a couple of texts from Liam, but she didn’t bother to read them—a couple more hours of ignoring him couldn’t hurt. Instead, she scrolled through her contacts until she reached Shannon’s name.
As she clicked on it, opening up a new screen, she sent a text that made a chill run down her spine.
I saw Niklaus last night …
More than anyone else, she would know exactly who she was talking about. Shan had been the only person around that Reagan let know how hurt she had been when Niklaus disappeared out of her life as quickly as he had entered it.
Her phone chimed with another alert, but before she could read it, the front door opened, Jimmy stepping in. He looked annoyed—one of his usual expressions when he was asked to come for brunch—but when he glanced over at her, he did smile.
Jimmy came straight over, pulling her into a fast hug before kissing both her cheeks. “How was last night?”
He had wanted to stay behind and close with her, but after she insisted she could handle it, he had taken off. Now that Niklaus had popped up, she was glad she had sent him away.
She was more glad that Liam’s guy, Bobby, had already left for the night. She didn’t want to think about what Bobby would have done if he had seen Niklaus—especially with the reaction she’d had to him—not to mention when he told Liam.
Rourke might have been the scarier of the two, but Liam could hold his own. Reagan had witnessed that firsthand.
“Is that my boy?”
Isabelle called from the kitchen, sounding a touch more excited than when Reagan had come in, but she didn’t mind this. Reagan was the “good child” as her father liked to put it during one of his rare bouts of sobriety. She came around to see her parents often and did, mostly, whatever they wanted—in his eyes, that constituted as good.
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