by Koko Brown
She took the filled mugs to the living room and sat down, with her legs tucked underneath herself. Lonán jogged lightly down the stairs and thanked her for the drink.
“Definitely need this,” he murmured after the first sip. “I was going out of my mind.”
“I would have called, but one, Saoirse wouldn’t let me out of her sight and two…” Atarah lifted her shoulders. “I don’t have your number.”
“Yeah…yeah, awkward. Listen, I’m sorry.”
Atarah blinked at him. “What for?”
“Putting my hands on you to throw you out of here…” He wiped his face. “I’m in a quandary. I should thank you, but on the other hand, I can’t risk my daughter’s safety here. You…you represent everything that would come crashing down on me…”
Atarah tried not to let her discomfort and her curiosity show on her face. She’d had more than enough practice doing so; keeping her true feelings invisible to go home and cry about it later. “Why would it? What would I bring back here? The police?”
He shook his head, and met her eyes, his watery with tears. “Nicodeme’s people. Gael and Sybilla.”
Her mouth dried and her eyes widened. “Why… How… What?”
Lonán gripped his hands together, almost in prayer. “I…I used to be their cleaner. You know what I mean. I…faltered on something. Because it was a child and her parents they wanted to be rid of. I don’t know why, it wasn’t my job to ask, or really to judge. And I should have just done what they wanted. The trick is with this profession is to not have family. Stupidly, I did. And I trusted that family with them. Up until my daughter was used to teach me a lesson in doing what I was told.”
Atarah clapped a hand over her mouth. Lonán squeezed his knees, sucking in huge breaths, but unable to control his sobs.
“Bible says so, right? Life for a life? Protestant,” he explained. “And I should have done that. I really should have, just ended the life of a five-year-old girl and her parents, to shut them up… I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but if I had…Three clean shots, my daughter wouldn’t be in therapy. She wouldn’t have nightmares. I wouldn’t be hiding here like a rat. I could have killed Nicodeme myself, and I couldn’t. Leave quietly or die, and Saoirse needed me. Her mother’s…”
“I know she’s in prison.” At his expression, Atarah had to control her wince. “Saoirse told me.”
Lonán sniffed. “Saoirse must miss having a female figure in her life. She’s trusted you more than me.”
“I’m not her dad. Girls always want to make their daddies proud. She probably feels she hasn’t been able to make you proud in a long time.”
Lonán burst into tears and Atarah put her arms around him, weathering the storm inside the man until he was spent. “I’m sorry,” he said with a heavy sigh, wiping a hand under his nose and under his eyes.
“I’d be more judgemental if you weren’t crying,” Atarah said with a shrug, her own eyes sore with the onset of her own upset and her throat sore from the lump threatening to push her over the edge. “You could have gone back to kill him, at any time.”
“I couldn’t leave her!” Lonán burst out. “I can barely leave her on her own for five minutes, and I know what you’re to say, you’re going to tell me that I should pull myself together and let her live, but you know…that man attacked you. Do you want to be on your own? Don’t you dream about him every night? Think about how if you’d been stronger, bigger, faster, smarter, he wouldn’t have done as much damage to you as he did? Don’t lie,” he snapped as she opened her mouth to defend herself. “I saw the bruises on your neck. I was the interpreter for a con with the solicitor who’s representing that little Chinese boy…Wen?”
A tear finally fell from Atarah’s eye. “Wen? He’s got representation?”
“Your friend, the copper, sorted it for him,” Lonán explained. “I’m breaching all sorts of confidentiality here, but I need you to know. You stopped him. You fought the hell out of him for Wen. He’s okay because of you.”
“No,” Atarah shook her head. “He’s not okay because of me. He’s okay because he’s not a girl. That’s what wound up Nicodeme. He blamed me for not making sure that the child he took was a girl.”
Lonán’s face crumbled in utter misery. “Fuck! I should have taken him out myself. I should have.”
“And what if he’d killed Saoirse? Then what? You’d have nothing. And that little girl. Lonán, she’s incredible. She’s going to rule the world one day. That’s all down to you. Because she is so loved.” She cupped his face. “You did that. Don’t be ashamed of choosing life over death.”
He breathed out heavily, the air from his lungs soft and warm on her breastbone. “Look at me, Lonán.” He raised his blue eyes to hers. “You chose your daughter over everything else, it doesn’t make you weak.”
“It does if all I can feel towards you is jealousy. I mean how you finished him off...that was a lesson in brutality.”
She removed her hands from his jaw line and sat on them instead. It felt rather to nice to touch someone she didn’t have history with. Actually, it was nice just to touch someone at all.
“I think I blacked out. Whatever happened after, I doubt it was me.” She curved her shoulders in on herself, looking at the cold cup of tea.
“Do you want a proper drink?” Lonán announced, getting to his feet.
“If you’ve got whiskey, I would kill for a nip.” She pressed her lips together at the immediate silence that followed. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. That’s why I’m bringing you the drink.”
A hundred questions formed in Atarah’s head and all of them were discarded. He didn’t need her prying. He certainly didn’t need her asking for help. For backup. For verification that Nicodeme had been utterly evil. That would expose him and Saoirse to more than they deserved. She was on her own. That and the photos Xiu had taken of her injuries. Possibly Wen as well, but God only knew when that poor boy would be able to talk yet again, or worst case scenario, be deported.
She smelled the whisky first before she realised Lonán had a glass under her nose. “Sorry, thanks.”
“Fifteen-year-old drink, that,” he advised, sitting next to her again. Examining the crystal glass, he seemed down again. As if he’d reached bottom once more. “Try it.”
She did as bid and nearly choked. God, it was rough. “I think someone lied to you,” she wheezed. “That’s…”
“Missing a Coke?” he queried. “No point watering down a decent drink. Do you want a Bailey’s?”
She threw him a disgusted look. “I’m a classy bird. Hard drinking isn’t my thing.”
His mouth lifted at the corner. “I suppose not.” Gently, he took the glass from her and made to get up to bring her something else. She caught him by the belt loops and sat him back down. What else could she do to alleviate his pain? Distract from her own? And they were both so damn lonely.
Not releasing her grip on the waistband of his jeans, Atarah leaned forward to press her lips to his.
Surprise—well, she hoped it was surprise—pulled him back and he stared at her, eyes wide. He stuttered her name before he launched forward, to kiss her, parting her lips swiftly and his tongue stroking over her own. She groaned with delight, pressing into him, enjoying the grip of his hand braced on her knee, the other curling around her waist to meet her. Briefly, she wondered how long it had been for him, until he manoeuvred himself between her thighs with such ease, she couldn’t figure out how he’d managed it.
His mouth traced from hers over her throat, and with a light, almost reverent touch, he brushed kisses over her bruises, only now beginning to fade. A pulse beat between her thighs, rubbed harder by the stretch of her jeans rubbing into her sex. He leaned into her and she instantly felt discomfort. And not the type she enjoyed. Lonán seemed to understand immediately, and he lifted her onto his lap, allowing her to straddle his hips.
“Much better,” she murmured, reaching down to brace her h
ands on his shoulders and kissing him again. He tasted utterly delicious, as if the smoky whisky only enhanced his flavour. A divine rush of desire swept over her the moment his mouth dipped into her cleavage, rubbing his stubble between her breasts. She took his hands from her thighs and curved them about both globes and squeezed her fingers between his.
He swore softly, edging her bra aside, searching for her nipple. Hastily, she shucked off her chambray shirt and unsnapped her lingerie. Carefully, he held her back, allowing the soft muted light to play over her skin. She watched the flames from the fire chase shadows and cast a brilliant shine on his cheekbones to look deep into his eyes.
“Don’t,” she begged him, while he looked down at the healing scar from where Nicodeme’s knife had nearly disembowelled her. “Don’t think about any of it.”
He seemed mesmerised by her skin, his fingertips featherlight over the swell of her breasts and the small of her back, touching her scars and strange marks, without the question in his face that always contorted Xiu’s features whenever they had sex. Lonán seemed to know. The scar from a skimmed bullet, or where yet another knife had gone through the padding of her jacket and cut through a vein, none seemed to put him off once he’d caressed his palms over them. At last, he realised that he wore an abundance of clothing in comparison. He unbuttoned his shirt and leaned away from the sofa to throw it across the room.
With care, he placed her on the rug, and locking his gaze into hers, he unzipped her jeans and tugged them straight to her ankles. Wiggling one leg, he coaxed her out of the denim altogether, and cupped one buttock to bring her close to him. He rested his head on her stomach, inhaling deeply. She pressed her thighs together to assuage the intensity of sensations flooding her lower body. He rolled his palms over her arse, his fingers flexing and digging into her flesh, before he edged even closer and gently used a back and forth motion with his nose to reveal her clit. She released a shuddered breath and leaned away from his touch, the intensity too great for her to take.
“Don’t run away from me,” he whispered, pulling her back and capturing her sex in his mouth whole. She cried out as his tongue dragged at her opening and his top lip pulling at her clit. He made the same motion again, sighing against her as if she tasted as delicious as she thought he did. It almost surprised her how quickly she came apart under his mouth, but she’d been missing open, unbridled, honest touches.
In Lonán’s mouth, under his tongue, in the palm of his hand, there was nothing but honesty. She collapsed into his lap, her limbs limp with liquid satisfaction and pleasure. Hungrily, she found his lips, tasting herself on him and delighting in sharing it with him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, lifting her and parting her thighs with his own. She reached down to unzip his jeans and he lifted his buttocks from the cushions to push the denim to his knees. For a moment, she felt slightly embarrassed about how wet she was as he gripped his uncovered cock at the base and probed her opening. He felt thick, almost bruisingly so. His hand smoothed over her side to her hip, securing her in place before he slid all the way inside her. She couldn’t have held back the depth of the cry that emerged from her chest.
He caught her face between his palms and begged her, “Shhh.”
“I can’t… I can’t keep quiet. It’s alien to me.”
Lonán’s grin caused her whole body to flex. “Then come here. Just keep it down or you’ll have to bite on a cushion.”
She kissed him lightly, pushing down until she was completely full. “Can’t I bite on you?”
“Whatever you want,” he offered, before sighing deeply. “I have to move, sorry. This may be quick.”
Atarah did not care. He’d given her so much already. She looped her arms around his neck and held him tightly to her as he began to withdraw. Biting down on her bottom lip, she tried to tamp down her groan. His movements started slowly, building a rocking rhythm, simultaneously using her arse to move with him. She’d almost forgotten how much she enjoyed the sensation of being fucked raw. Lonán felt incredibly good inside her, even more so when he parted her cheeks, the sensation of being spread quickly driving her back towards climax. She rocked into him, pushing down hard each time he thrust up into her. Her cream streamed over her thighs and began to pool in the thatch of rosy hair above his cock. Despite warning her to be quiet, his own grunts increased in volume.
“Please,” he gasped the word.
Not quite understanding what he wanted to do, she couldn’t stop her yelp as he turned her onto her back and eased one leg against the sofa and the other he held away, spreading her wide. His movements between her thighs were almost a blur, a slither of their combined liquids running underneath her, his pubis rubbing into her clit. The rush of heat volcanoed from her sex and exploded over her whole body. Her back arched and her limbs seized before shudders rocked her. The aftershocks followed as Lonán filled her with his own hot essence, turning rigid above her, only to collapse on top of her. She welcomed his weight, wrapping her legs around him tightly. His sweat made his back feel slippery but she held on, tucking her face into his damp neck. They waited for the pulsing beat of their hearts and blood to slow to normal.
He raised himself up on his elbows and pushed the hair from her face, picking small strands sticking to her forehead and pulling them into some semblance of neatness. “Hi. Do you want me off? Are you okay?”
It honestly hadn’t occurred to her to feel threatened or scared or triggered. She shook her head and continued to hold him. It did eventually occur to her that he would want her to go, so he could sleep and keep an eye on his daughter.
She nudged him in the side with her knees and he got up, moving away from her and sitting down. “I should probably turn the cushions,” he suggested, resting his hands on his bare thighs.
“I would,” she agreed. He got to his feet and kicked his jeans off entirely, venturing into the kitchen and returning with paper towels and a glass of water.
Without waiting for her to do it herself, he dipped a folded sheet of towel into the water and handed it to her, then cleaned himself from her drenched sex. She gulped the water, feeling more than awake and refreshed. She could have gone for a rave right about then, but Lonán sat next to her, stroking the back of her neck.
“Are you ready to go to bed?”
She choked on the water. “Bed? I thought you’d want me to go home. What about Saoirse?”
“She’d love to see you tomorrow,” he reminded her, leaning forward to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Just stay. Have a cuddle.”
He coaxed her mouth open, his tongue slipping between her lips. She fell under his spell, leaning into him, his kiss, his probably-not-too-clever idea. “Are you staying?” he whispered against her mouth.
“Okay,” she agreed. He grinned at her and got up.
“I’m going to lock up and you tuck in. The electric blanket’s on so you may want to turn it off.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Is there a repeat performance on the schedule?”
“Whatever you want, as long as you stay.”
No messing about. She gathered their discarded clothes and tiptoed up the stairs. As he had told her, the electric blanket made the entire room toasty warm. She folded it back to the end of the bed and dropped their clothes at the bottom as well. A full-length mirror was angled in the corner of the room to make it look bigger.
She caught her reflection. Amongst the bruises and the scars, she glowed. Thanks, Lonán, she thought with a giggle.
Rather than getting into bed naked, she grabbed his shirt and dived into it. Eventually, Lonán snuck through the doorway and partly closed it. He slid in next to her, scooping an arm around her waist and gathering her to him. His mouth trailed kisses from her cotton-covered shoulder and buried his face in her hair.
My kingdom for a silk pillowcase, she thought with a yawn. Soon enough, she found herself sleeping, something she hadn’t done properly for a long time. Small fingers on her shoulder woke her up. She squinted
in the darkness to see Saoirse standing in Black Widow-printed pyjamas.
“I had a nightmare, Rae. Can I come in?”
She silently lifted a corner of the duvet and Saoirse dived inside, snuggling against Atarah. It took her all of five minutes before she was asleep and Atarah found herself trapped between the two redheads. Wide awake.
How did I get here, she thought. How?
Saoirse woke them up.
Lonán found his face buried into the soft, silky strands of Rae’s hair. He had a suspicion that Rae wasn’t her real name, but she answered to it readily enough. She’d responded with utter abandon when he’d touched her, entered her…the memory of being inside her sweet, tight body caused his cock to harden and press with determination into the generous curve of Rae’s bottom.
Could he simply close his eyes and forget everything he knew about them both? Pretend that they had moved to the cottage in the south of England as a family?
“Rae, didn’t you bring the red velvet cake with you?” Saoirse demanded, rocking Rae back and forth in the bed until the woman rolled onto her back.
“Hold that thought,” she murmured to him, reaching under the duvet and patting him directly over the bollocks. Ridiculous woman, he thought, grinning. Sitting up and resting the folds of the duvet on top of his erection seemed like a much smarter idea than letting it stand to attention to tent the sheets.
“Good morning Saoirse,” Rae said with a smile. She held out her arms and Saoirse threw herself into them without hesitation. Lonán found it incredible that her trust seemed to have strengthened in her friendship with Rae.
“Good morning,” she murmured back. “Cake?”
“No cake for breakfast,” Lonán groaned. “You can put the kettle on and I’ll make us something”
“What?”
“Food that isn’t actually cake would be very good. I think I have some bacon or something around to feed you both appropriately.”
