Padraig

by Mia Malone

  “That’s right, Jenny,” he murmured. “I’m not gonna come in your mouth, but you're gonna come in mine, so you need to hurry.”

  It built quickly, mostly because of the way his tongue was teasing my clit but partly because it was so naughty. This was not a very private spot, and someone could come walking any minute. I moaned around his cock, and his hands dug into my ass. I moaned again, and when he pushed me harder against his mouth, I came. If my mouth hadn't been full of his cock, my cries would have been heard all the way back to the campground, and the orgasm burned through me in long hot waves.

  Before I could catch my breath, he moved again, got us up on our feet and pushed me against a big tree.

  “Too rough?” he rasped out.

  “Fuck me,” I replied, and the grin I got was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

  Then he put two hands on my ass, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I felt his cock against me, and then he slid inside.

  “I love you,” he said against my ear as he started pounding into me.

  “God.” My voice hitched, and I tilted my head to the side when I felt his mouth move in the curve between my neck and shoulder. “Love you,” I said brokenly.

  It was happening again, and I moaned softly. Paddy kept moving through my orgasm, but his movements were becoming jerky, and he groaned with every push. Then he planted himself deep and came, smothering the sounds he made against my shoulder.

  When our heartbeats had slowed down, he turned and carried me back to the blanket. He slid out of me as we got down and I shivered.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “Happy,” I answered.

  “Can’t believe I took you against that tree,” he said. “Did I scrape up half your back?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  He moved to look over my shoulder and then he started chuckling.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your back is fine,” he shared. “I might have, uh...”

  “Uh, what?”

  “You have a hickey,” he said.

  I started laughing and tried to see, but he put a hand on my cheek and grinned.

  “Sorry,” he murmured.

  “You’re giving me all my teenage fantasies, one after the other,” I said.

  “You used to fantasize about me,” he murmured, not putting it as a question.

  His eyes had darkened suddenly.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “You love me,” he stated.

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  “You love me,” he said again.

  “Yes,” I said, wondering if he still doubted that I did.

  “You’re going to move in with me.”

  “Yes.” Then his words registered, so I added, “No, what?”

  “I like your first answer better.”

  “But –”

  “I love you, Jenny. Please move in with me.”

  My belly flipped, and there was a tightness in my chest suddenly.

  “Paddy…”

  “Unpack your bag. Start moving your things. No need to rush, but please start moving your things.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why do you think I wanted Annie to wait with finding a place?”

  That had not been what I expected him to say, and he saw it so he kept talking.

  “We could live in your house, but it’s a lot smaller than mine, and there’s no way to rebuild because it’s crammed in as it is. So, mine is better. Your place would be perfect for Annie, while she pretends to think about moving in with Cal.”

  “You –”

  “So, yeah. I’m sure.”

  “You’ve thought about this.”

  He tilted his head to the side and looked at me like I was just a little bit stupid.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jenny

  A month had passed since that day when three men got into Paddy’s house and took me away. My blisters had healed, and I had a pink scar on my arm which still made Paddy scowl each time he saw it, but it made Lee and me laugh. It wasn’t identical, but it was in exactly the same spot as the one she had on hers from when she was shot, and she'd told me it was a badge of honor, and it made us sisters. We'd cried a little when she said that and then laughed through our tears because of those tears and the ridiculousness in crying about something which made us so happy. She was my sister in so many ways, or perhaps a better version of one. She was what everyone imagined a sister would be like, even though they so very rarely were.

  I’d moved most of the things I wanted to Paddy’s house. Annie pretended she slept in my house, and we let her, although both Paddy and I knew she spent most nights in the cabin with Cal, or else he was with her in my house. They looked good together.

  Paddy cleared out some of his things to make space for the pieces of furniture I wanted to keep and told me he’d bring a crew in to paint some of the walls, so if I wanted to change anything when they were there anyway, I should let him know.

  The excuse he made for repainting the walls was that it hadn't been done in years, and it was due, which was ridiculous, but I didn't call him out on it. He wanted to paint the walls because there were still faint marks from where I'd tried to hold on, and from the bloodstains. Paddy was trying hard to pretend he wasn't overprotective, and he thought I didn't notice that sometimes he got out of bed in the middle of the night to check the house. He did it less and less, and I didn't lose any sleep over what had happened, but I still didn't want to be reminded of it on a daily basis, so I just nodded when he wanted to paint, and then we settled on a lovely pale beige which Paddy with great authority told me was, “latte.” That got him a stare from Joke and a quiet chuckle from Mac. Gibson just shook his head, but Day protested and said it was more, “desert sand,” than latte. I started laughing but it turned out he meant it for real, and he and Paddy entered into a discussion that lasted through dinner.

  When the crew got to the house, I asked them about a few ideas I had for the kitchen. One thing led to another, and then we gutted Paddy's kitchen and tore down the wall to the room that had been Marybeth's. Paddy had used her room for storage when she moved out, but when we opened that area up, we got a fantastic open space from the kitchen through to the living room. I also got a fabulous kitchen.

  Then we had a huge fight because I wanted to pay half of the remodel. Paddy predictably refused but I had several arguments all of which were excellent. At least, they were excellent to me until Paddy shot them down one after the other.

  “Do you own this house?” he snapped, finally.

  “No,” I said sourly, not feeling happy about the reminder that I was living in his house.

  “That’s right. And until we’re married, it’s my house so I’ll pay. Once we’re married, you can pay me which since we’ll have joint accounts will be like paying yourself.”

  I blinked.

  “We’re getting married?”

  “Damn right we are.”

  “When was this decided?”

  “Oh, I don’t know?” he asked sourly. “Right about the second you told me you love me?”

  “What?”

  He was about to say something else but caught the look on my face and closed his mouth. Then he sighed.

  I sighed too, although loudly and only to make a point.

  “You’re gonna have to ask me, Padraig,” I murmured.

  “Will –”

  “And not while we’re having a fight.”

  “But –”

  “And not while we’re having sex.”

  “Ok –”

  “And not when anyone else is around.”

  He started grinning and the way it transformed his face, making it look young and soft and happy, made my anger melt away.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just told me when and where?”

  “No,” I snapped, but added with a grin. “But
I’ll share this; I’m not too fond of diamonds.”

  “I know,” he murmured. “So, you’re not getting one.”

  Had he already bought the ring?

  “Pad –”

  “Nuh-uh,” he said and wiggled an annoying finger in my face. “I decide when and where, remember?”

  Well crap. I had told him that.

  “Okay,” I agreed, but couldn’t stop myself from adding sourly, “I guess I’m not paying for the remodel.”

  “I own a construction company,” he stated calmly.

  I held back another grin. Sometimes Paddy just made things way too easy.

  “I’ll pay for the groceries instead.”

  “What? No.”

  “You have a construction company, so you pay for the remodel. I own a restaurant, so I pay for…” I smirked.

  His brows went way up on his forehead, and I could see how he was frantically trying to come up with some viable retort, which incidentally also was something he failed miserably at.

  “Just accept it, Pad,” I said. “The quicker you do, the quicker we can have make up sex.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Yes,” I agreed affably. “I believe that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

  He couldn't hold laughter back then, and we got to the make up sex quickly, although he made it last for the rest of the evening, telling me it was my punishment for being stubborn.

  I didn’t protest.

  ***

  Summer was mostly over, and we were high in the mountains, camping. It was still warm, and the forecast had predicted fantastic weather, so when it turned out all of them could get away from their respective jobs, they decided to go. It started out as a boys-only trip, but then Day informed everyone he’d rather spend the nights in his tent with earbuds plugged in and Metallica on, at the highest volume, than look at Gib and Paddy pouting. An invite was promptly extended to Lee and me, and when Annie assured us she’d handle Jenny’s, we decided to tag along.

  It was such a relief to have backup. I'd had temporary help in the kitchen over the years, and had a crew of reliable waitresses, but I hadn't been comfortable leaving the place for longer stretches of time. When I kicked Martin out and took off myself, I'd just put a sign on the door that we were closed until further notice. I'd paid my waitresses during the weeks I'd been gone, even though they'd said I didn't have to, which was sweet of them but of course, I had to. They had lives to live and bills to pay, so I couldn't just leave them hanging when the bad choices I'd made came back to kick me in the butt. Or face, as it were. Now I had Lee taking on most of the bakery part and Annie as a full-time cook. I trusted both of them completely, so letting Annie handle the diner while I was off for two days was not a problem for me.

  The criminal group called Muerta had been decimated but not extinguished, so we still had to be careful, and we were in a secluded area of the mountains, but not so far away we didn’t have coverage for our phones.

  Both Lee and I had opted out of hiking up to some place where you could see something neither of us cared about and had spent the afternoon soaking up some sun and talking. I was still on a blanket by the lake when Joke sat down next to me. He looked tired, and sweaty, and happy.

  “Good hike?” I asked.

  “Worth Metallica,” Day answered and sat down next to Joke.

  “I’m not that loud,” I snapped.

  “Oh, sweetie. I don’t mind hearing you,” Day said with a cheeky grin. “Don’t want to hear Paddy.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Joke grunted.

  “Don’t wanna hear you either,” Day said.

  “Okay,” Lee chirped. “Should we perhaps get started on dinner?”

  “I’ll get the fire going,” I said and got to my feet. “There’s a cooler with beer and some things Annie made in the back of Paddy’s truck. The blue one. Will you get it, Joke?”

  Annie had apparently gone a little bit overboard, and the men laughed at the fancy mini-pies and asparagus stems wrapped in bacon. I noted with a smirk that there were chips left in the bags when we sat down to eat but the plates which had been filled with her hors d’oeuvres were empty.

  Day had brought wine for the grilled meat and potato salad I'd prepared, and there was some grumbling about being beer-men until they tasted the Italian red he'd apparently brought back with him from his latest trip.

  “A moron,” Joke chuckled. “Who would have known wine with that name could taste so good?”

  I started laughing. My brother owned a bar which was mostly a local hangout and claimed he was a simple beer-man, but he was quite knowledgeable when it came to wine, so he knew well that what we were drinking was an Amarone, and an incredibly expensive one too. And he tried really hard to convince everyone he was a good ol’ boy, waving his can of lager, but we all knew he preferred the ales from the local micro-breweries. What most people didn't know was that he'd invested in two of the breweries when they started up and still worked with one of them on their recipes.

  We sat long into the night around the fire, talking and laughing. The manly beer-bottles came out, Lee and I opened a bottle of white, and slowly, we all got more than a little bit tipsy, which felt really, really good. It felt a little like the rest of the world had ceased to exist and we were the last people on earth, all alone in our little bubble of happiness. When Day suggested we’d play spin the bottle, I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt young and carefree.

  Mac brought out a notepad from his pocket and declared that we were to write our answers down before we spun the bottle, and there wouldn’t be any dares. The bottle pointed at you, then you answered the question. Since we were who we were, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t share so it made sense.

  The first few questions were easy ones about our favorite teachers or the worst dates we'd been on. As we got into it, the questions became racier, and then Day cleared his throat.

  “Who did you think of the first time you got yourself off?”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “I’m not sure I remember,” Gibson snorted. “It was a few years ago, buddy.”

  “The first one you can remember then.”

  I wrote the name on a piece of paper and put it in front of me, upside down, not worried at all I’d have to tell them the name on it, but hoping it would be one of the others, mostly because I was curious about what they’d written. Day leaned forward and spun the bottle.

  It pointed at Joke, and I grinned.

  “Jesus,” he grunted, picked up his paper, flipped it around, and muttered, “Olivia Newton-John.”

  “Who?” Paddy wheezed.

  “The blond chick in Grease,” Gibson said with a grin.

  I couldn’t hold my laughter back then. Of all the names I could have guessed on, that wouldn’t have been on my radar. My brother had been a boob-man all his life if the women he dated was any indication, and I would have thought someone more like Dolly Parton would have been his fantasy of choice.

  “Let’s do one more spin,” Joke said, clearly hoping someone would have an even more embarrassing name.

  Before either of us could protest, he leaned forward and spun the bottle. It slowed down, and I held my breath, but it ended up pointing at Mac. He shrugged, flipped his paper around and grinned.

  “Marjorie Cunningham.”

  There was another stunned silence.

  “Who?” Lee asked.

  “Seriously?” Gibson asked.

  “She must have been thirty years older than you?” Joke said.

  “Who?” Lee asked again, a little louder this time.

  I was still too stunned to speak.

  “She was our math teacher,” Gibson murmured.

  “Fifteen years older, and what a great teacher she was,” Mac said and wiggled his brows.

  I couldn’t believe what he was implying. Mrs. Cunningham had been a widow, and the fifteen-year-old me had thought she was a pretty but old and rather straight-laced woman. I couldn’t
reconcile this with a teenage boy’s sexual fantasies. Or perhaps more than fantasies judging from Mac’s grin.

  “You did Mrs. C?” Paddy asked hoarsely.

  “I’m not one to talk,” Mac smirked. “Let’s just say she gave me a very, very nice birthday present when I turned eighteen.”

  “Oh, God,” I whispered.

  “That’s what I said,” Mac retorted with a grin.

  “I don’t want to know,” Paddy said, leaned forward and spun the bottle. “One last spin.”

  It stopped, pointing at Lee and I grinned at her. She’d probably have a name none of us knew, so it’d be an easy one.

  “Oh, God, no,” she said hoarsely. “Why me?”

  “What?” Gibson asked.

  Lee had a panicked look on her face and quickly picked up the piece of paper.

  “I'll eat it,” she said and scrunched the paper into a ball.

  Gibson calmly took hold of her hand and pulled the paper out of it. His brows went high on his forehead when he read what she’d written on it and turned to stare at her.

  “What the hell?”

  “I know,” she moaned. “It’s all Paddy’s fault. If we hadn’t kept going, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “What the hell did she write?” Joke asked.

  There was a long silence, and a grin spread slowly on Gib’s face. Then he handed the paper back to Lee and started laughing.

  “Day,” Lee mumbled.

  “Yes?” Day asked.

  He didn't get it, but I did and started laughing too.

  “You didn’t?” I chuckled.

  “His poster was right above my bed,” Lee wailed.

  It wasn't such a surprise she'd had a picture of Damien, Day, Lewis there. Day had been the poster boy for the national slalom team, winning gold in the junior world championships before he moved on to win Olympic gold, and promptly quitting.

  Day had caught on by then and was grinning widely.

  “That’s pretty damned weird,” Gibson muttered.

  “I still have some old posters left in the attic if you want one, Lee,” Day shared gleefully.