by V. Theia
“Why are you persisting in trying to shove me away? I know I fucked up. I did it in a spectacular way, but I really want to make up for it. Please, you have to let me.”
He looked at her. Really looked deep into her eyes and saw so much sorrow it nearly choked him. Without self-censor he cupped the side of her face. Skin like satin, he rolled a thumb tip against her freckled cheek and watched how glassy her eyes sparkled.
“I don’t know if I can handle taking a trip to the past, Aoife. It killed me the first time. I would never throw you away, it’s just self-preservation. But I’ll hear whatever it is you want to say.”
Her bottomless green eyes filled, and he felt like a piece of shit for making her cry.
Like any man in the face of his girl, not your girl, Danny, and her tears he was a weak-weak man and was about to offer her his own head on a spike even as his groin tightened, when she visibly brought herself back together in seconds.
“Stop being such a big baby, Danny-boy. It’s me who should be crying into my cornflakes not you. I screwed up and I’m here to make it right. So, no more nonsense. Now, unless you’re about to kiss me,” his cock jerked this time and he internally cursed and let his hand fall. “Then I should take this little girl to bed or she’ll be up all hours of the night wanting to play.”
Danny moved and turned his back, hands shoved down in his pockets, mainly so his body could get back under control.
A hand stole up his spine and he trembled from her slight touch.
“I wish so many things, Danny-boy. But the thing I wish the most is having never hurt you.” Silence, he swallowed through his returned grief. He was about to turn and take her into his arms … after that he didn’t know, but she’d already silently padded out of the room.
Divine intervention again? He didn’t know.
But when he exhaled it was a loud noise in his kitchen and he set his eyes to the ceiling. Unsure if he was looking up to God, or the women just beyond that floor in his bedroom.
“What are you doing to me?” He murmured.
Again, he was unsure who he directed the question to.
Maybe both of the mystical beings that at two points in his life had shaped the person he is today.
Because Danny felt as if he were being tested for something and pulled in all directions.
Only as yet, he didn’t know where.
His heart thumped, reminding him how very much alive he was, and he liked being that way.
He liked breathing and knowing he was inhaling every moment of the day.
He liked his head being clear and not fogged down by the veil of drugs.
He hadn’t asked for that flamed-haired vixen to crash land back in his life again.
If he had, he would have been more prepared.
He would have had his raging cock under control if nothing else.
Reaching down, Danny heeled over his hardness and willed the thing to go away. The ceiling above creaked with Aoife’s footsteps and like clockwork his shaft ached as if attuned to her every noise.
As with all free will, he knew God wouldn’t step in and give him a hand.
Nah, he would watch Danny sink or swim.
With Aoife, he’d always dove in head first regardless of the consequences. That was the problem. He wasn’t thinking like a man of faith around her. The man to always have people’s solutions to their problems.
He saw only one solution and he didn’t think climbing into bed beside her would help with the mess she’d brought with her.
Being celibate by choice had never bothered him all these years. Having never connected with the few women he’d dated.
Being under the same roof with his past lover and love of his existence for the last two days, Danny felt like his body belonged to a stranger.
A fucking horny stranger.
He grabbed his thick leather-bound bible from the counter and headed out of the back door, trekking across the snow-covered lawn to the open door of the church.
He needed to clear his head and there was no better way than reading about his favorite passage in the scriptures.
If Job could resist temptation, then surely one redheaded, freckle faced brat couldn’t sway Danny.
He was a pastor; he was allowed to have relationships.
That wasn’t his issue for giving in.
If he fell in Aoife again, he had a feeling he wouldn’t emerge alive this time.
And he’d made a good life for himself.
He’d dragged himself back to the surface with a new faith that was bigger than him.
As if by magic, he heard his own voice mirrored back through his mind.
Reminding Danny of how lonely he’d been.
It might be a good life, he loved helping people.
But he couldn’t deny the clap of loneliness.
Right before he stepped through the church door he cast a glance back and saw a light pop on inside his house. He was out of his damn mind, seriously off his mental reservation because he smiled at that one lone light.
Because it felt like she was there … to welcome him home.
NINE
“Clearing the air and filling it with lust.” – Aoife
“Right. Sit there, Danny,” Aoife directed him the moment he stepped through the doorway to the spacious living room, with its gray couches and cream carpeting.
It was obvious this wasn’t his style, probably inherited the furnished house with the job.
But it was so comfortable, she felt instantly at home with her legs curled up beneath her.
She’d waited over an hour for him to come back from the church, pacing back and forth to peer out of the window and muttering to herself about idiot boys who like avoiding talking. Impatient, she had to warn herself not to follow him there and allow him to come back on his own steam.
Danny Murphy was a stubborn one, so he was.
Even this new incarnation of his former self.
Now she looked him up and down, her eyes betraying her calm exterior as her heart went nuts inside her body. Her love for that man was mirrored by her desire. Being around him again and her body didn’t know what to do with the constant arousal and heart thumping beats. She’d felt that way for years, from the moment she understood what desire meant and then his innocent touches on her body, even holding her hand, became something more… something bigger than meant a whole lot more.
She pointed to the chair with the steaming mug at the side. “I made you a cup of tea. Drink it.”
He arched his eyebrow at her, making him ten times as handsome. She swallowed and watched him fold down into the soft cushioned chair. He was just big all over. She never took his size for granted. It was lovely.
“Bossy, aren’t we?”
“You knew that about me already. I’m bossy unless…” She stalled as her cheeks flamed, and she caught his nostrils flaring.
They both filled in the blanks.
Aoife was overbearingly bossy as they day was long, unless she was in his bed and then she gave over full control to the dominant man with muddy colored hair and kind blue eyes that turned to pure flames when he was turned on and his desire monsters were unleashed.
She hadn’t meant to direct the conversation there; it was just an inevitability where they were concerned.
Much of their history was carnal to say the least.
The moment they discovered sex, that was it, they perfected everything until they thought they might die from over-stimulation.
Aoife was guided by feelings and instinct in most cases where Danny was logical and analytical. How they matched so well was anyone’s guess.
With her insides quivering like nervous little rabbits, she couldn’t for the life of her peel her eyes off his face. He was too handsome, overly manly and just there. With a long stretch of time since she’d looked at anyone with his kind of pretty, it could be forgiven that she stared.
Several of the Russian men hit on her as if they’d expected her to fall on her ba
ck.
She’d risked life and limb telling them all basically to fuck a goat.
No man affected Aoife like Danny did.
Their basic molecular chemistry was made up of the same substance. Forever drawn to the other, no matter what.
“This would be so much easier if you’d grown into a middle-aged troll with a pot belly.” She huffed almost to herself. The way he was just there … with his hands latched together over his flat belly and his hair in his eyes. The Aoife of old would have already crawled up onto his lap for a good kissing. And they wouldn’t have stopped there.
“I’m twenty-nine, hardly middle age.” He retorted, with sarcasm on his tongue.
Good to know some things don’t change.
She was still wrapping her head around him being a man of faith.
She supposed it was better than being a priest.
A priest wouldn’t have kissed the life out of her, that was for sure.
Well, maybe a deviant priest would have.
And at times, her Danny was particularly deviant.
“You know what I mean. I’m nervous and you looking like you isn’t helping.”
“Should I be putting a bag over my head?”
She grinned feeling some of the tension leave her limbs.
“If you wouldn’t mind, that would be grand.”
“Get on with it, Aoife.” He said with tone. The command rolled off his tongue, slithered across the floor and scuttled heatedly up Aoife’s legs and settled in the apex.
He was hot, and he wasn’t doing anything to showcase his hotness, other than he existed on this mortal coil.
Roiling heat all tangled up in jumping nerves ignited her belly.
Taking a fortifying breath, and with Danny’s eyes calmly on her, she started.
“Do you remember my twenty-second birthday? You and I went out for that fancy meal in Kinvara. You saved all month, and I wore my best dress.”
“It was blue with shimmer on the front.”
The thick, foggy rasp to his voice caught her attention and she pinged her eyes across the room, feeling the stormy thud of her heart that he’d remembered the little detail.
Their relationship had taken some significant hits in the last seven years.
She’d face the whole lot of dangerous men head on with her chin held high and not a lick of fear on her face, if it only meant she could make things right with Danny first.
Regret stole each breath, every day, for the last seven years. There was not a damn thing she could have done about it until she’d about fell on his doorstep.
In truth, she could have come to him forever ago.
The day that wanker she was forced to marry croaked it on the golf course, her first instinct was to get to Danny.
Even when she took the job in Chicago which eventually transferred to Colorado.
It was only her own guilt and cowardice that stopped her.
How could Danny forgive her, when she couldn’t forgive herself?
While she stayed away and closeted herself in the warmth of her own lonely grief from missing Danny, she could still pretend there was a lick of a chance he’d forgive and forget.
Facing up to the mistakes you caused wasn’t always easy but a necessity for a modicum of peace.
She’d had no peace all this time.
“We had such a good date. I ate that fancy pate for the first time on those little cracker things, you laughed at me because I couldn’t stop moaning about how yummy it was.”
She left out how they’d made love feverishly several times in the back seat of his car. How she went home that night sore and happy with the knowledge her boyfriend loved her and that one day very soon they’d leave their little town, get married and live in sated bliss wrapped up in the obsession they felt for each other.
She’d been so sure of their plans, that what she’d walked into when she let herself into her house, poleaxed her like nothing else.
He must be filling in the extra too when she dared look over his way, because his eyes darkened to two stormed pools, and his fingers were knuckle white gripping the cup so tightly.
Aoife cleared her throat and shoved a lock of her unruly hair behind her ear. Why she bothered she didn’t know, because it would spring free in seconds.
Habits were hard to break.
“I got home, and I intended to call you. I missed you already, though you only dropped me off moments before. I was going to shower, slip into bed and talk until we fell asleep.”
They’d talked that night about finding a place together and Aoife had been so happy.
Cloud nine happy.
A few minutes changed all that.
“Mammy and da were there, arguing as usual. About money, no surprise there and that’s when he told me his gambling debts were being settled, but only if I married Padraig Doyle. I thought he was joking, Danny. I really did.”
A two-year marriage later it was no joke.
“Da basically said he was dead if I didn’t do this for him and how I had to stop being so ungrateful and contribute to the family. Padraig owned all those casinos in Dublin and Cork and da was into him for a lot. More than we could ever raise. He also said that if I didn’t get him out of his mess, that I was going to be thrown out of the house and I’d be dead to them. Mammy backed him up without saying a word in my favor.”
Aoife sat silently when she let him adjust to how she’d destroyed both of their lives in moments. She looked over and saw how tightly he was grinding his teeth from the rapid flex of his cheek muscle.
Anger meant he still cared.
That what happened bothered him to a degree he was losing his cool.
She had to grasp onto that tightly in hopes it meant something positive for them eventually.
“I begged, screamed and pleaded with them for hours, Danny. I want you to know I didn’t agree just like that. I didn’t have a choice. You know how da was then, his gambling would have gotten him killed by the wrong people. He forbid me to tell you, because he feared you and the rest of the Murphy’s.”
When his voice came it sounded raw, grated over burning coals. And it hurt more than she could have anticipated.
“You didn’t even consider me, Aoife, Us?” When his head lifted from over his clasped hands his eyes were turbulent, and she had the urge to weep. “Do you recall what you did that night?”
God, she did.
Her belly clenched in cold, greasy pain filled grips.
She’d lived with that memory on a loop. She’d been so desperate and filled with hurt.
“You sneaked into my bedroom window and asked … begged to be fucked hard. Don’t hold back, Danny, you told me. I consumed you, Aoife, for hours. Unsure why you seemed withdrawn and yet possessed. It was only when I woke and found you gone and then I couldn’t reach you for hours that day that I realized what your declaration meant. I’ll forever love my Galway boy. You got a last fuck out of me and then you agreed to marry the local thug for his money and never considered talking to me about what your da was throwing at you. Your fucking note wrecked me, Aoife. You’d left with that guy even before I knocked your front door down and your da told me to leave you alone. That you’d found love elsewhere.”
His tone was low… animal-rough and it tore at Aoife from all corners.
She’d lived this truth for years and yet it cut her deep to hear how he reacted to it.
She felt a sob brew in her throat and she about threw herself off the couch and rushed across the floor, dropping to her knees in front of him.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I swear to you, I swear it, Danny. I broke my own heart because I knew if I talked to you, you would have done something about it. You would have killed da, or worse … done something to pay his debt and then you would have hated me for making you resort to your own da’s level. You would have done it, Danny, don’t deny it. They would have had a hold on you forever. I knew you were trying so hard not to turn out like your brothers
.”
Openly weeping, she swiped at the tracking tears unable to stop their heavy flow, her eyes imploring him to please believe her.
She’d been in the worst possible position of her life, the tunnel had no light, whatever way she turned it was dark and cloying and she’d been so lost trying to protect her love and her stupid family.
Laying her head on his lap she cried for all the stolen years.
For the lonely moments and the millions of seconds she’d missed what they’d made between them.
He laid his hand on her head, tangling his fingers in her hair. Stroking her scalp.
“What’s done is done, sweetheart. You have to forgive yourself and move on and be happy.”
The thrill shooting through her made her head come up, and his eyes were so very grave, gazing down at her. Full of empathy and forgiveness but none of the passionate man who’d just been given the truth of why his life was so different.
He’d replaced man with pastor so easily.
“I can’t be happy, Danny. I’ve been stuck in this nightmare all this time, hating myself because I chose wrong. I should have walked away. I should have run as fast as I could to you and beg you to leave with me. I should have let da deal with his own troubles and not allow him to emotionally blackmail me.”
“Do you still see them, your parents?”
Aoife wiped her eyes using the sleeve of her T-shirt.
She’d never subjugated herself … not really, though she’d given in so often to other people’s wants it sometimes felt like she was one person’s personal punching bag after another. But sitting at his knee with a glimmer of hope in the air, because she’d finally been able to voice everything she’d wanted, it felt right to be there.
She played with the seam lining of his jeans, aching to climb up into his lap.
“Not if I can help it. Mammy calls sometimes but I’m not interested in whatever scheme da is up to these days. He wasn’t pleased I didn’t get anything in Padraig’s will. Like I’d take his damn money.” She hissed her disgust. Even now her father didn’t own up to his culpabilities. If anything, he still blamed Aoife for walking away without a penny. She’d told him she wasn’t his cash cow and until he could be a proper father, she was no longer interested in seeing him.
