“She’s not Protestant, is she?” he continued, asking the age-old question that concerned all Irish parents.
“She’s Catholic,” I confirmed.
That had him beaming brighter than if I’d told him I’d just deposited thirty million into his accounts. “You doing right by her?” he inquired, tilting his head to stare down into my eyes. “It’s too much to ask that my lads don’t dip their wicks everywhere they go, but are you treating her right?”
“She’s the marrying kind,” I informed him softly, and Aidan stilled at my side before he released a gentle laugh.
“One of my boys has finally been snared, hmm? Then I definitely need to meet her.”
I tensed. “She’s not ready for that.”
Aidan sniffed. “She’ll never be ready for it. She knows what you are, no?”
“Aye, she does, sir,” I replied, and I realized I couldn’t have sounded more Irish if I’d tried.
Sometimes, on Sundays, after service with the very Irish Father, and then with the lilting accents around the place, it was easy to pick up on that if you had a good ear.
I had a very good ear, which meant I sounded like I was being an ass.
Not great when Aidan was around.
“She knows to keep quiet?” he questioned.
That had outrage flooding me. “Of course. You think I’d—”
He laughed. “No, son. No. Just making sure. You ashamed of us?”
Was he purposely trying to piss me off?
Apparently, my expression said it all, and he beamed my way again as he pulled away to clap me on the back. “Good, good. Never be ashamed of your roots, boy.”
“I’m not,” I groused. “I just don’t want to overwhelm her.”
“If she’s the marrying kind, then that’s the only way this will work.” He shrugged, and though it killed me to admit it, he was the only voice of experience I knew.
My father had been a cunt. Handy with his fists and other things. . . . I couldn’t think back to that time.
Wouldn’t.
When I did, the nightmares would start, and I was too fucking old for them now.
But my old man hadn’t exactly taught me the ways of a good marriage, neither had my mother who’d just sat back while her bastard husband had done things to me that no fucker should ever do to a boy.
Be it his son or not.
Aidan wasn’t the best father out there. He was deranged half the time, half-loopy the rest. His moods swung so hard from left to right, it was enough to give everyone in the vicinity whiplash, but the craziest thing of all?
He loved us.
He fucking loved us.
And I was included in that circle.
Aidan was the only one who knew what my father had done to me; was the only one I’d shared that part of my past with. He’d taken my shame and he’d done right by me. Not only had he taken me in, loved me as if I was one of his own flesh and blood, he’d taken the monster that was my sperm donor for a swim among the fishes.
Because of Aidan, I could hold my head up high. I ruled my part of Manhattan. I had millions at my command, and an investment portfolio that would make any entrepreneur envious.
Aidan had given me the world, and he and Magdalena were the only ones who’d given me an example to lead by.
“You’ll be kind to her?” I asked, my tone hesitant.
He scowled at me. “You think I’ll be mean to the first girl one of my boys brings to a roast? Not even Dec brought that Deirdre around,” he grumbled.
I winced. “Not mean, just . . . you know, don’t freak her out?” I was well aware I was pleading with him, and knew that could go either one of two ways.
It would stir his amusement or prick his temper.
“Like me to pretend to be a plumber or an electrician, would you?” he asked, and I was relieved to see the twinkle in his eye.
“Not exactly,” I muttered. “Just don’t mention the time you black-balled Jimmy the Fish, or the time you managed to knee cap two men who were tied together with one bullet.”
He snickered. “Gotcha. I’ll be on my best behavior. Go on with you. Get your lass and bring her to meet the family.”
God, help me.
Or I really meant, God help Aoife.
❖
Aoife
I was so sore.
Seriously, my aches had aches and yet, I’d never had a bigger smile on my face. My body felt well used and loved.
Finn was. . . .
God, he was so rough with me. So dirty and hard, but then he could be so tender.
The dichotomy was enough to make me squirm as I stared up at the ceiling in my small two-bedroom apartment deep in the heart of the neighborhood I’d lived in since I was ten. When ‘Dad’ had died, and Fiona had decided to move in with us, we’d gone from the old building two streets away to this one.
It wasn’t much better, but there’d been no black mold in the kitchen in winter, and there had been some room to swing a cat.
When Fiona had died, I’d moved into her room after years of sharing the other bedroom with Mom. Finally having privacy hadn’t been worth Fiona’s loss, though.
It was hard to reconcile the Fiona I knew with the Fiona that Finn had.
Why had he left her?
Why had he never come back to visit with her?
I knew she’d cried every day over him, over his loss—I’d heard her. Every morning after she prayed to St. Anthony—the saint of lost objects—trying to get him to find her son for her, I’d heard her weep.
Yet, Finn had evaded her for all those years. He hadn’t even attended her funeral, and he had to have known. Right?
My thoughts troubled me, and though it was dumb, I shoved them aside. I hadn’t meant to think on things that couldn’t be changed, but I wondered so much about the boy who’d left this neighborhood all those years ago and who had been forged into the man who fucked me senseless at night.
Just thinking of what he did to me was enough to make me rock my hips.
I was alone, of course.
Finn never took me here. He collected me in his car—either with him, or just Samuel behind the wheel—and we went to his place.
I wasn’t about to argue over spending time there. It was a delight. Comfortable and homey, even if I had seen a man tied and bound there as though it was as regular a sight as a vase in the corner or a dining nook.
Not even that thought was enough to ease the ache inside me.
I was naked under the sheets. After a lifetime of sleeping in PJs, I no longer liked the feel of them against my skin. On the nights when I wasn’t with Finn—only three of the past twenty days—I’d taken to stripping before bed.
It felt deliciously naughty and with my breath hiccoughing from my mouth, I slid my hand between my legs to touch my clit. The soreness was still there. Finn fucked me hard, and he fucked me soft, but when he was done with me, I was like a limp rag. I loved it, but when would I build up some stamina?
Before I could grumble, I gently rubbed my clit. I never rubbed it like Finn did. Could never seem to get the same friction, but I tried.
In fact, I tried so hard, I began to sweat under the sheets.
Shoving them down, aware that my breasts were on display, I swallowed thickly and tried to give myself a release that Finn pumped from me so easily.
By the time I was a panting wrecked mess on the sheets, I’d given up. My body ached, this time from need, and Finn had told me not to expect a call from him today. It was church and family time, and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by that knowing what little I did of the Donnellys.
When a knock sounded at the door, I stilled.
It was probably Jenny, and I really didn’t want to see her in this state. Ignoring the knock, I strained to hear if her heels clacked against the hall floor—yeah, the walls were that thin. Except they didn’t. I heard buttkiss. A louder knock came, and Finn growled out, “Aoife.”
His voice sent molten shivers
through me.
He was here, and I was a hot, needy mess.
Seriously, had God answered my prayers or what?
I jumped out of bed and dragging the top sheet free, I rolled it around myself and hurried out. He knocked again, this time sounding more impatient, but I unlocked it and giving him no time to take in my disheveled state, I grabbed his hand, dragged him inside, then shut the door and locked it behind him.
My hands were at his belt before I knew what I was doing.
I needed his cock. I needed his fingers. I needed the release he could give me.
I’d managed to pull his belt free, and I was scrabbling with his zipper when he grabbed my wrists and yanked them over head. With no support, the sheet fell to the ground and with those cool eyes of his, he traced my body from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“Didn’t I work you over well enough last night?” he asked, and I could hear a mixture of amusement and surprise in his voice. “I thought you’d be too sore to fuck until Tuesday.”
“I am,” I rasped.
That had him tilting his head to the side, then as he stared at me, took me in properly—the heaving breasts, the flushed skin, the feverish eyes—his mouth flattened. “You touched yourself.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips, and, feeling like a naughty girl, I dipped my chin. “Y-Yes, Finn. I’m s-sorry, Finn.”
He growled at me. “Which one is your bedroom?”
I pointed to it and then shrieked as he picked me up as if I weighed nothing—trust me, I did—and carried me over to my room.
“Naughty girls don’t get to come,” he warned me, but I saw my bed, saw it and knew what he’d do to me in it.
Surely, when he was inside me, he’d forget this. Forget what I’d done.
I was panting, ravenous for him by the time he lowered me to the floor. When he ordered me to turn around and bend over, I complied. When he told me to put my arms above my head and rest them on the bed, I obeyed even though it made my thighs ache.
When his hands gripped my ass, and I heard his zipper, I felt like crying with relief. Then, his cock was there.
I was so wet.
So, so, so wet, it was almost painful.
He shoved inside me, heading deep, and it didn’t even hurt I was so ready for him, for his cock.
“I give you pleasure,” he ground out as he began to fuck me, and I didn’t even care that he was hard or rough. I had an internal itch that only he could scratch, and each thrust of his dick bestowed that upon me like no other could.
When his cock hardened inside me in the way I knew was the warning he was about to come, my eyes flared wide with surprise.
“N-No,” I wailed as he orgasmed, his cum pumping inside me, filling my core, stuffing me full of him. Since I’d admitted I was on the pill, he’d stopped using condoms, and I was glad. I loved the feel of him inside me, but bare? It was enough to make my eyes roll back with need. “I need more,” I begged.
“I told you. I decide when you get pleasure.” He slapped my ass. “Your pussy’s getting too greedy. It’s time we taught it a lesson.”
When he pulled out of me with a squelch, I felt him grab the sheet, and then with the faint rustling sounds, I quickly turned my head and watched him wipe his cock on them before he tucked himself back behind the cage of his fly.
I licked my lips, knowing enough to maintain this stance until he told me what to do.
It never occurred to me that it was weird that I always did as I was told. Never occurred to me that lovers pleased one another with no expectations of obeisance.
Mostly, it never occurred to me because I loved this. Loved what we did. It turned me inside out and made me happy, and after months of grieving, this was exactly what I needed. Something physical. I didn’t need to talk, I needed to do, and Finn was very, very good at doing.
“Lay on your back, legs spread,” he commanded, and though my cheeks flushed, I was too used to his dictates to even hesitate.
It was amazing how any embarrassment could disappear in a few short weeks.
I rolled onto my back and spread my legs.
“Slide your fingers through my cum,” he ordered, folding his arms across his chest as he watched me, his gaze focused on my pussy, a stern look on his handsome face. He was stark in an expensive suit with a shirt so white, it hurt my eyes to behold. He looked heavenly with just a dash of devilish to mar his pristine perfection.
Doing as he bid, I touched myself and felt, just from the brush of his eyes, something that had been missing when I was alone. I could come so easily, and the feel of his seed against my sloppy self was enough to make me want to weep with joy.
“Thrust your fingers inside,” he told me, and again, I complied. “Feel me in you, Aoife. Feel all I have to give you.”
I did. I truly did, and I moaned my gratitude.
“T-Thank you.”
He laughed. “You won’t be thanking me in a minute.”
My eyes popped open wide after lazily drifting shut.
“Clean your fingers now, suck them dry. We’re going out.”
“Out?” I blinked at him.
We never went out.
Well, not unless ‘out’ was him finding me and taking me to his home.
“Yes. Out,” he repeated gruffly, his cheeks staining with heat.
“Where are we going?”
“Never you mind. Just get dressed.”
“Dressed?” I squeaked. “I need to shower.”
“No. No shower. Serves you right for getting yourself turned on without me there.”
I reared up at that. “Fuck you!”
“I want your fire, my beauty,” he told me, a muscle twitching in his jaw, “but not right now. Get dressed.”
“I’m not leaving all sweaty and stinking of you.”
He shrugged. “Use some perfume to cover it. It’s your own fault.”
My bottom lip trembled, and I knew I was reacting like a spoiled child, but he couldn’t expect me to leave the house smelling like him and of my arousal and of sex, could he?
I stank.
There was no kind way to put it.
“P-Please,” I whispered, uncertain why I was begging but knowing that was the wisest course of action.
His eyes flared with white hot fire.
My discomfort, my plea, satisfied him.
God, I should have hated him then. Should have loathed him for this, but I didn’t. Something inside me was panting like a bitch in heat at his dictates.
“Are you going to touch yourself again?”
“Not without your permission,” I said immediately, my eyes widening as far as they could while I tried to look as innocent as possible.
“Good answer,” he mumbled, rubbing his chin, his frown turning pensive as he stared at me. “You can shower.” Just as joy leaped through me, he murmured, “Just don’t wash your pussy. I want my cum leaking from you all day.”
Though his words made me blush, everything inside me screamed that this was exactly what I wanted, too.
My eyes closed in delight at the command, and though I rocked my hips to try to satisfy the ache deep inside, I didn’t mess around. Finn was never very patient, and the last thing I wanted was him taking away my shower.
As I climbed out of bed, I felt his eyes on me. Mostly on my tits and ass. As he was standing near the door, I had to pass him, and when I did, he grabbed my arms and dragged me to him.
Before I could even gulp in a breath, he was there. His mouth on mine. He fucked his tongue into me, thrusting it hard and fast against my own. I was left panting and shaken against him, clinging to him for support as he robbed me of air, as he claimed my lips for his own.
When my fingers bit into his leather coat—something I knew he only wore to church because, and I quote, ‘it was fucking freezing in St. Patrick’s even when it was high summer’—he released a growl.
Pulling back, he stared deep into my eyes as he shoved a hand between us and slipped h
is fingers between my legs.
“Do you want to come?” he grated out, his voice a harsh rasp that made my nerves sizzle.
“O-Oh, God, y-yes,” I half-sobbed, my body flaring to life once more at his touch.
He dipped his head and gave me his customary kiss—a harsh bite of my bottom lip that had me rocking onto tiptoes and pushing myself harder against him.
I knew this wasn’t in his plan, but I was just glad he’d changed his mind. Until I realized what he was doing.
He pressed two fingers to my clit. Left them there, just covering it, then he whispered, “Get yourself off.”
A whimper escaped me, but I didn’t argue, didn’t complain. I just pushed my forehead to his chest and rocked my hips, trying to grind down against the minimal pressure he exerted against my hungry nub.
The gasps that escaped me sounded tortured, and that was because they were. I was in agony, absolute agony. My stomach muscles burned, but there was no way I was moving away from him without coming. And yet, after God only knew how long, he moved his fingers away with a tut.
“Time’s up.”
I wanted to scream. I could feel it burst inside me, the rage and the indignation curling in my veins as my hunger, a hunger that only this man could appease, roared to life.
I loved the way he bossed me around in the bedroom—I truly did. It turned me on something fierce, so why I countermanded that, I’d never know. I leaned up, bit his lip as hard as he did mine, and spat, “Fuck. You.”
His eyes flared at that. Deep in their ice-blue depth I saw warring emotions. Wrath, which made my own anger pale in comparison, but satisfaction, too. The latter made no sense, but when he pushed me back and I landed on the bed. I wasn’t surprised when he pulled his cock from his pants again.
He was hard.
Thick.
Like he hadn’t just climaxed moments before.
When he shoved it inside me, I released a keening shout of relief.
“Thank you,” I cried out, and repeated the two words like a litany.
“Your pleasure is mine,” he ground out, bracketing my head with his forearms as he pumped into me. “I own it, and I own you, Aoife.” He fucked me so hard the bed rocked, and I didn’t even care if my neighbors knew what was happening. Didn’t care if they could hear. I just needed this man inside me, needed to come so badly I felt like I’d go insane.
Screw You: A Screwed Duet (Five Points, Hell's Kitchen Book 1) Page 13