by Sienna Blake
Five days that have felt like five years.
I stood in the shower, my forehead leaning against the cold tiles basically holding me up, hot water beating down on my back, trying to wash away my sins. Hah. They were too ingrained for that.
I missed Saoirse.
Missed her sass.
Missed her cooking.
Missed her presence beside me in the truck. On my couch. In my bed.
Under me. Over me. Pressed between me and the mattress. The counter. The wall.
Even missed her yelling at me. Because even when she was yelling at me, at least she was talking to me. At least I had hope of talking my way back into her good books.
Every day when I went over to her house she refused to even answer me even as I knocked for ages. So long that the neighbours started staring from their windows, glaring at me with eyes that said, keep that up and we’re calling the Gards.
I didn’t do it right, when her dad was arrested. I should have taken the time to explain it to her. I shouldn’t have let her run off.
I knew she was going to be mad, but…
I had no choice.
That fucker of a father was going down. I was not going to let him take her down too. Even if it meant bending rules. Rules I thought I’d never break.
Until her.
She broke all my rules.
A knock banged through my house. I growled and turned off the shower. Can’t a guy wallow in peace, for fuck’s sake?
I wrapped a towel around my waist, my long hair dripping water onto my shoulders, and strode towards the front door as it banged again.
“I’m coming,” I yelled. “Fucking calm down,” I added in a mutter.
I undid the latch and yanked open the door.
Saoirse stood on my porch, the Irish drizzle sparkling off her hair like snowflakes.
She was here.
She came back to me.
Her eyes flashed with anguish when they locked onto mine. She’d been in just as much pain as I had these five days apart. Five days too fucking long.
“Diarmuid, I’m—”
I grabbed her, not caring who might be watching, yanking her against me and crushing my lips to hers.
Suddenly I could breathe again.
She moaned into my mouth and wrapped her legs around my waist as I stepped us inside enough so I could kick the door shut behind her.
I drank all her apologies on her tongue. I didn’t need to hear it. She had nothing to be sorry for.
Actually, she did have something to be sorry for.
I tore my mouth off hers and glared at her.
She whimpered even as she clung to me like a monkey, her fingers tangling in my wet hair. “Are you mad?”
I nodded.
“I’m sor—”
“I gave you a bloody key,” I growled. “What the hell are you doing standing out there in the rain waiting for me to let you in?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s what you’re mad about?”
I nodded.
Her eyes softened. “I didn’t feel right just coming in. We haven’t spoken in days.”
“I gave you a goddamn key. Which means you come in whenever you want. No matter if we’re fighting. Or if I’m mad at you. My house is open to you. Period.”
Tears rimmed her lashes. Fuck, I’ve made her cry.
“What’s wrong, selkie?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “I love you.”
That was all I needed.
I took her lips once more, infusing my kiss with the claim over her I’d been so afraid of until now.
Saoirse had been right when she accused me of using the overseas scholarships to push her away. I had been. Just like I used her father’s arrest to push her away. To sabotage us.
Because deep down I didn’t believe she was mine.
But these five days without her—these five days thinking I’d lost her—made me realise this. Made me pray to fucking God that if he gave me one more goddamn chance, I would grab onto her and never fucking let go.
I’d prayed to God to bring her back. And here she was on my porch. He gave her back to me.
She was the sky my soul circled in. Without her, my world had no air.
She was mine.
Not caring that we were both wet, I carried her into my bedroom. I stripped her of all her clothes, kissing each inch of skin that it revealed, making her moan louder and louder.
“I’m going to make you scream until you’re hoarse,” I promised her. “Until the neighbours call the fucking Garda on us.”
Oh, the irony.
I held her hips down and plunged my tongue into her wet sweet centre. She thrashed on the bed and cried out my name.
Just before she crested the wave, I pulled back.
“Asshole,” she yelled at me, shooting me a glare that would make the balls of a lesser man shrivel.
“I want to feel you coming around my cock. Need to feel it.”
She shuddered as she looked up at me through damp lashes. “Okay.”
As I reached over to the nightstand to grab a condom, her soft little hands wrapped around my dick and stroked it, running her thumb over the tip to spread the wetness around the head of my cock.
A shiver racked through my spine. Fuck. I almost came right there.
“Love your hands on me. But I need to be inside you more. I need to put this on.” I waved the condom packet. “Five days is too long, selkie.”
“I’m clean and I’m on the pill,” she blurted out.
Bareback.
Oh fuck me.
My pretty little selkie wanted me to ride her bareback.
I might have died and gone to Heaven.
She chewed her lip. “But if you don’t want to—”
“I do.” I threw the condom aside. “I’m clean. Got tested right after Ava. Haven’t been with anyone else since.”
She opened her thighs for me as I settled between them. I twisted my fingers into her hair, pulling it firmly so she was forced to look at me.
“Everything in my life has been preparing me for you. Here. Now,” I muttered, my voice as soft as my hands were rough. “Couldn’t love anyone else ’cause I was waiting for you.”
I thrust inside her.
Claiming her.
Marking her soul with mine.
She let out a cry which I drank. I drank all her moans as I slammed into her, her body taking me, feeling like a piece of wet heaven, my soul drunk, my body burning as if soaked in whiskey and set alight.
It must have been all too much. The time apart. Her desperation after the wave I’d not allowed her to crest before.
She began to shake underneath me, thighs trembling, her hips bucking up to greet mine.
I watched her face as she came, the most beautiful fucking thing I’d ever seen. No inhibitions, no masks, just her pleasure open like a rose just for me.
My beautiful selkie.
But it wasn’t enough.
I pulled out of her. Grabbed her hips and flipped her around, lifting her ass so she was on all fours.
“Diarmuid, what—?”
I slammed back into her, aiming right for that g-spot on the front wall of her pussy.
I knew I’d hit it when she let out an “oh my God” in a high-pitched voice, her surprised voice.
Yes, beautiful girl. You’re going to come twice.
My thrusts turned into a relentless pounding. I reached around her and vibrated the pad of my fingers against her clit.
“Again,” I demanded.
She screamed. Her body wracking and shaking. Her pussy clenching around my cock so hard I thought she might break me.
I couldn’t hold on. My orgasm flashed through me like lightning and I let out a roar as I came inside her.
I clutched at her and collapsed, rolling to the side so I didn’t crush her.
One day, I was going to come inside her when she wasn’t on the pill.
One day. When she was ready.
; I let out a sigh. So contented. So sated with my beautiful girl right here where she belonged.
I softened and felt myself slipping out of her.
Saoirse turned over to look at me, her cheek resting on my arm. “I’m all wet.”
I smirked. “You’re always wet around me.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, silly. More wet than usual.”
She reached down between her legs, then held up a dab of my come glistening on the end of her finger. Her eyes burned into mine as she stuck it into her mouth and sucked it right off, moaning under her breath.
Dear fucking God.
“That was so fucking hot.”
It was her turn to smirk.
I rolled us so I was on my back and she was straddled over me. I lay there my eyes greedy for her, memorising her every curve, each freckle on her creamy skin, the exact shade of pink of her nipples. She rocked her hips back and forth along my length that was growing again.
I would never get sick of this woman.
I would never get sick of her, but…
I paused, my fingers stilling her hips.
She gave me a questioning look.
“So,” I said, clearing my voice, “you still wanna stay here in Limerick? Be…someone’s?”
Mine?
But I was too chicken shit to say it out loud.
She shook her head.
My heart dropped, cracking against the floor.
“I don’t want to be someone’s. I want to be yours.”
The grin that burst from me hurt my cheeks.
“You are mine.” I grabbed her hand and placed it on my selkie tattoo, right over my heart, right where she’d burrowed her way in and would never get out.
“You have my skin,” she said as she slid down on me again.
“And you have mine.”
The next morning, I woke up before my selkie. I slipped out to the kitchen to make her breakfast.
I scrambled up the eggs just like my girl taught me, seasoned them, kept the heat on low so they’d get nice and fluffy. I put the toast on at the last minute so it would be done just as the eggs were done.
I plated them up and placed the plates on a tray with napkins.
Perfect.
I strode into the bedroom, a shit-eating grin on my face and froze.
Saoirse was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, playing with something tiny in her fingers. The bedside drawer was still open from last night when I grabbed the condom that I never used. She must have spotted the damn thing in there…
I slid the tray to the bedside table and sat down beside her.
She lifted the thin gold band to the light. “I forget that you’re married to someone else.”
The sadness in her voice broke my fucking heart. I would give anything—anything—to take it away.
“She and I are over. We’re so over I forgot I even had this stupid thing.” I took the ring off her and tossed it in the trash.
“Diarmuid!”
I grabbed her hands and kneeled in front of her. “I want to be with you. I’m yours, selkie.”
“Not completely.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I was still a married man. I was a selfish fucking bastard for wanting her to stay with me even before my divorce was final.
I opened my eyes to face her. “If you’d rather wait until I get divorced—”
“No!” Her eyes widened. “Diarmuid, no. I…forget I said anything. Forget that I even found the ring…” her voice trailed off.
I knew she wouldn’t forget it.
If only I could go back in time, reverse the day I wed Ava out of a sense of duty. If only I could go into the future where I could put a ring on Saoirse’s finger and one on mine claiming me as hers.
Saoirse and I got into bed and ate our now cold breakfast. As always, the room soon filled with laughter and smiles. But that ring was like a splinter in both our hearts. One that both of us tried to ignore, digging in every time one of us smiled.
On the first day I could, I vowed, I would apply for that divorce. The next day, I’d have a ring on Saoirse’s finger.
Until then, I had to hold on to my girl as best as I could and hope life didn’t find some reason to tear us apart.
71
____________
Saoirse
Life was perfect.
I had Diarmuid and he was mine, truly mine this time.
Except we still snuck around like teenagers. We still barely went out in public together. If we did, we never touched in case someone was looking. We mostly stayed at his place, cooking dinner, watching movies, reading old Irish stories and legends to each other from a book he’d been given by Brian.
Diarmuid got me a part-time job at O’Malley’s gym doing the accounts. I was able to keep padding out the money in my accounts, aiming for university.
Until that letter came in the mail.
The letter postmarked from Australia.
I was home alone, Diarmuid having dropped me off before he went to work. I tore it open, my heart beating in my throat, knowing full well where it came from.
Congratulations, Miss Quinn. We are pleased to offer you a full science scholarship to the University of Queensland, one of the top universities in Australia…
I’d gotten in.
I’d forgotten that I’d applied to all those college scholarships in a rage after Diarmuid and I had that fight.
They’d awarded me—me—a full scholarship. That meant I didn’t have to wait to study. I didn’t have to pay for tuition, for books. They were even offering housing for the full three years.
Oh my God.
Here was my chance to get out of Ireland. To see the world. To see what else was out there…
Diarmuid. I had to tell Diarmuid.
Except… My heart twisted. He’d make me accept it. How could I pass up this opportunity? He’d make me take it. He’d never forgive me if I didn’t.
But he’d never leave Ireland. His job was here, his passion, his life’s purpose. He’d be here and I’d be there and… Australia was so far away. Literally the other side of the world.
My heart cried out, tearing in two. The degree was three years. Could I stand being apart from— No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t be apart from him for even three days…
Three years.
We’d already spent three years apart.
I wasn’t doing that again.
No. I was staying in Ireland with Diarmuid and that was that.
I couldn’t tell Diarmuid about this letter.
I wouldn’t.
I didn’t need this offer.
I was happy. Right here. With him.
I reread the letter, allowing myself a moment to dream.
Of Australia. Land of sandy beaches, palm trees, koalas. Of beautiful weather and vast sunburned horizons and the bluest sky you’d ever seen. At least, that’s what I’d read.
I had four weeks to accept or decline their offer via a link to their website.
I should log onto that link and decline it. Right now.
Except something made me fold up the acceptance letter and slip it into the bottom of a bag in my closet.
Where it would burn a hole. For the next few days, at least…
72
____________
Diarmuid
Days later I’d almost forgotten about the ring incident.
I’d certainly forgotten about it when I got this text from my girl as I was sitting at my desk at work.
Saoirse: Guess what’s for dessert tonight?
Me: You. Naked.
Saoirse: Diarmuid…
Me: Saoirse…
A media message came through. It was a picture of an unbaked apple pie. I let out a laugh.
Me: We never did get to get that apple pie four years ago, did we?
Saoirse: Better late than never!
Me: Then I’m eating your pie
Saoirse: Diarmuid!
Me: ;)
I placed down my p
hone onto my desk piled with papers and files. My girl—my fucking girl—was in my house cooking our dinner. I couldn’t wait to see her.
I didn’t think I’d ever been so happy. I didn’t think I could be this happy.
It might just have been a perfect day.
Of course, something had to come and fuck it up.
It came walking right up to my desk wearing a pair of red shiny stilettos.
“Mr Brennan.”
I looked up at the devil wearing tight skinny jeans and an even tighter white jumper that showed off her cleavage.
Fuck my life.
“Who the hell let you in, Ava?” I growled.
The front desk knew not to let her in. She must have sweet-talked a newbie or slithered her way in somehow.
“Why wouldn’t they let me in? I’m still Mrs Brennan.” Ava pouted and tapped her lacquered nails on my desk as she bent over, showing off her cleavage.
I merely sneered at her attempts to ensnare me. They wouldn’t work.
Not now.
Not ever.
“Not for long,” I said, slapping a finger to the calendar on my desk, to a date I’d marked in a red circle a few months away.
Ava flinched. “What’s that?”
“The day I serve divorce papers on your sorry fucking ass.”
“Diarmuid!”
“Go away, Ava. You’re wasting your fucking time here.”
Her eyes softened and she looked about to cry. I was not falling for her crocodile tears.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
“Jesus, Ava—”
“Are you seeing someone else? Tell me, I have a right to know.”
I slammed my fist on my desk, making a loud bang. I sensed my colleagues’ heads snap towards us, but I ignored them, focusing instead on the face of the woman who I almost had a family with. I hardly recognised her.
“You,” I pointed a finger at her, “have no fucking right. You moved in with that asswipe two weeks after we separated. You lost your fucking rights long ago. Now, get out of here, before I have you escorted out.”
Her lip trembled. Ah fuck. She was going to cry. Liquid manipulation. Boy, had I fallen for it too many times. I would not hang around long enough this time to allow her to manipulate me. Not again.
