by Henry, Jane
“Easy, there,” Cormac says, gently taking the flask out of my hand. “Remember that line between tipsy and banjaxed? Tiny thing like you’ll get knocked on yer arse in minutes, drinking like that.”
I nod sagely. I feel somehow braver and more knowledgeable. “Very wise, Cormac. Very wise.”
I’m not so sure why both of them are hiding smiles, but I see them.
I sit back on the bed, kick off my shoes, and sigh.
“What will they do with the men they brought back?”
“You don’t wanna know that, girl,” Nolan says, taking a pull from the flask that would knock me on my backside for a week. He sighs in contentment, leans back, and laces his fingers at the back of his head.
“Aye,” Cormac agrees. “What goes on behind closed doors is best staying behind those doors.”
“They won’t come out,” I say, trying to face the truth with bravery. Nolan looks to Cormac, and they don’t answer.
“Let’s pass the time telling her about Keenan,” Nolan says with a grin. Cormac smiles back, pulls a chair out beside his brother, turns it around and straddles it.
“Now yer talkin’.”
We talk easily, while they share stories of their youth. They tell me of their travels, their schooling, how Keenan was the star football player and all the girls would pine for him, how he’d have one girl at the front door and one at the back and Nolan would manage to sneak one of them away. How they snuck out of school to party and how Malachy caught them red-handed. How Keenan, as eldest, would boss them around and how they’d play tricks on him in retaliation, how the three of them got into a fight and knocked Maeve’s rocking chair straight through the living room window and spent all summer earning money to pay back the repair.
They tell me stories that make me laugh so hard I wipe tears from my eyes, stories that make me wish I knew them all when they were younger. And to think, while all this happened, I was secreted away just miles from their home, drinking tea and reading books and wondering what the world was like outside my window.
These men are to be my brothers, I remind myself again. I like that.
They pass me the flask, and I take a few small sips, and soon I’m pleasantly warm and at ease. I lay on the bed with my hands under my cheek, listening to their deep voices and lilting brogues, and don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until I feel one of them tuck a blanket around me. I try to open my eyes, but they’re too heavy. They shut off the lights, but don’t leave. I’m dimly conscious of Cormac’s heavier footsteps pacing by the door and Nolan pacing by the window.
Despite the circumstances, despite the raw brutality of the night we’ve had and will have yet, I feel safe, and warm, and comfortable.
So this is what it’s like to have someone care for you. This is what it’s like to have family.
I doze in and out, and I’m half asleep when there are footsteps outside the door. Cormac opens it, and the men speak in hushed voices. I hear Keenan’s familiar voice, and try to open my eyes, but they’re so heavy. A pleasant sort of warmth fills my chest just hearing him speak to his brothers, then the door shuts, and I hear him come to me.
“Let’s get you ready for bed, sweet girl,” he says, his voice tired but clear as day. He lifts the blanket. “You’re still fully clothed.”
I turn over toward him and yawn widely. “I didn’t want to get changed into those skimpy little nightclothes with your brothers here.”
Bending down, he wraps me in his arms and holds me. “Good girl,” he whispers in my ear. “That pleases me.” He pauses, then, “Caitlin, have you been drinking?”
I yawn again widely. “Mmm,” I tell him. “Loads. I’m very sleepy and warm.”
But he isn’t amused. He takes my jaw in his large hand and I open my eyes with effort. “Loads?” he repeats.
I shrug. “Well. Loads for me,” I say. I yawn again. “It just made me sleepy.”
His beautiful eyes darken, but a corner of his lips quirks up. He leans in and kisses me questioningly, as if to taste me, his lips gentle and probing. “You taste like whiskey.”
“Is that a good thing?”
He snorts with laughter, which pleases me. He can’t be that angry, then. “There are worse things.”
He lifts my arms, removing my dress, and it isn’t until I’m sitting in front of him in my undergarments that I remember. Tonight was the night. How could I have forgotten? But that was before everything else that happened.
“Keenan?” I ask, as he reaches for my bra clasp, and helps me out of it.
“Yes?”
“Do you still… are we… do you want to…”
He slips the silky garment off and lays it at the foot of the bed, then reaches for the elastic waistband of my panties, but doesn’t reply or move, his thumbs hooked into the fabric. The feel of his warm, sturdy hands undressing me with confidence, and the way his eyes roam hungrily over my body, makes me shiver.
“Shh, lass,” he whispers. And I know then that is a yes. The plan hasn’t changed. If anything, he wants to be with me more than ever. He needs me tonight.
“How did everything go tonight?” I ask him politely, even as pressure builds between my thighs and I clench them together. I shake with nerves and anticipation. I’m not sleepy now.
“As planned,” he says. “We have answers, and tomorrow we’ll have to make our move. Now no more questions, Caitlin. I don’t wish to talk of anything else. The less you know the better.”
There are so many questions I want to ask him, but I want to honor his request. He’s had a tough night of it. And I know now it will be like this often, between the two of us, Keenan having a difficult evening, making a challenging decision, seeing the men he cares about hurt or worse, killed. And he’ll want to come back to me. He’ll need me to be ready for him. He’ll need me to need him. To let him hold me, to let me absorb the darkness he dwells in and give him a glimpse of light.
I reach my hand out to touch his cheek. Closing his eyes, he holds my hand against him, brings my palm to his lips, and kisses me. A deep, abiding sense of longing pervades me, and I whisper, "Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
His eyes flutter open, and he looks at me.
“Say that again.”
I swallow and repeat the line from Macbeth, “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
“What is it?” he whispers.
“Shakespeare.”
“Motherfucker.”
I laugh out loud at his reaction, but he isn’t laughing, he’s dragging my panties down my legs and pulling them off my feet, his gaze fixed on mine. He stands and begins to remove his own clothing. There are specks of blood on his shirt, and a long, angry red scrape along his neck.
“Oh, Keenan,” I say, sitting up. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine, lass,” he says. “Hush, now.”
He shrugs out of his shirt and undresses unhurriedly. I swallow when I note how hard he is, as if he’s been waiting for this, as if he’s been waiting for me. I have to be honest. I’m nervous about this, too.
But Keenan will be my husband. And he promised he’d take the very best care of me he can. That matters. I repeat the words he vowed to me, “As mine, I’ll take care of your every need.”
I wonder if it’s odd, that he’s about to take me as his own for the very first time after what he’s done today. But I have no social cues or expectations to reference what we’re doing, what we’re planning to do. This is who he is, and though it might fly in the face of what’s proper, I wouldn’t know. So I accept him, just as he is. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my limited view of life, from what I’ve learned in the pages of my books, it’s that we need to love each other just as we are, without question or conditions. Just as they are.
I’ll do my very best to do that. To love him as he comes to me. To love what he has to offer me. To be the woman he’ll love back.
His clothes fall to the flo
or in a jumbled, forgotten heap, and he stands before me naked. Unblinking. His eyes focused on me as if I’m a puzzle he’s trying to sort, and I notice for the first time since I met him, his hands are trembling.
I open my mouth to ask him if he’s okay, if he’s sure he doesn’t need to see a doctor or something, when he puts his finger to his lips to remind me of what he said. A thin sliver of moonlight illuminates his beautiful green eyes, as bright as the depths of the Irish Sea, as he begins to walk toward me.
This is it. Tonight is the night he takes me as his own, and I don’t need anyone to explain to me what that means.
“Keenan,” I whisper, lacing my fingers together to keep my hands from shaking.
“Yes, lovely?” He kneels on one knee beside me and strokes his fingers through my hair.
I swallow hard. I like that. Lovely.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Leaning down, he laces his fingers at the back of my head and brings my ear to his mouth, the heat and vibration of his voice making me shiver. “Exactly what I tell you.”
I close my eyes and nod. He kisses the shell of my ear, and I gasp when his tongue skirts the outer edge. He grasps my earlobe between his teeth and bites, the sharp pain quickly melding into trembling, expectant heat that suffuses my limbs.
Pressing one hand to my shoulder, he lays me down. My arms encircle his neck while he kisses his way down my jaw, fluttering, sensual caresses of his lips against my naked skin, down the column of my neck, then back up to my jaw on the other side.
“Tá mo chroí istigh ionat.”
I love the sound of the ancient words, though I’ve no idea what they mean. I want to ask him what he said, what this means, but he’s asked me to be quiet. I hold the words in my heart. Maybe I don’t need to know what they mean. But he doesn’t make me wait.
“Do you know any Gaelic at all, lass?”
I shake my head, running my fingers through his hair, and keen with pleasure when he kisses the valley between my breasts.
“My heart is in you. It means my heart is in you.”
I close my eyes, overcome with emotion.
My heart is in you.
“That’s beautiful,” I whisper, but his finger comes to my lips to silence me.
“You’re beautiful,” he counters, framing my body with his and returning to my breasts. He drags his warm, soft lips under first one breast then the other, before his tongue laves my hardened nipple. I stifle a moan. It feels so good, the heat between my leg intensifies, the pounding need for pressure overtaking me, and it’s like he knows this, the way he cups my backside and presses me to his hard length.
“I want you fully ready,” he says. “Ready to take me.”
“One more question?” I ask, then remembering what he’s instructed. “Please?”
He nods. “Aye.”
“Will it hurt?”
He holds my gaze, and his hand cups my breast. “It will hurt like this,” he says. “Pay attention.”
Pay attention? I’m hardly distracted. But I nod.
He brings his mouth to my nipple, clamps the peaked bud between his teeth, and gives a quick, sharp bite. I hiss in pain, but before it’s even registered, he’s suckling my nipple. The pain quickly shifts to pleasure. My pulse spikes, and I’m trembling beneath him.
“It will hurt, lass,” he says, his voice tender but determined. “And then I’ll make it better. But before then, I’ll ensure you’re ready for me.”
I wonder what that means, but I’ve exhausted my limited questions. So I only nod. Holding my gaze, he returns to my breasts, licking and suckling, weighing them in his rough, large palms, until wetness forms between my thighs, and I’m swollen with need. Is this what he means? I’m slick and swollen and aching, though I’m still a little nervous.
He rocks his hips against mine, then kisses me, gently at first before he slides his tongue in my mouth. I shiver at the intimacy, my pulse racing. My eyes close involuntarily as I drown in his kiss, and my heart beats quicker.
He takes his mouth off mine to whisper in my ear, the guttural Gaelic of his homeland, and somehow the words prepare me as much as his ministrations.
“Spread your legs, lass.”
I open my legs, welcoming his expert, purposeful touch. While suckling my nipples, he fingers my swollen folds. My hips writhe as ecstasy builds, needing more, so much more, when he dips his fingers lower. It feels so intimate, I duck my head from him, suddenly shy and nervous.
“Look at me, Caitlin,” he orders, just as he thrusts two fingers into my core. “Christ, you’re sopping.”
Does that mean I’m ready?
I feel ready. But how would I know?
He sounds pleased with that, though, so I only nod. His eyes crinkle at the edges and he cups my jaw, bringing his mouth to mine again. My pulse quickens at the softness of his lips and roughness of his whiskers, his masculine scent pervading my senses. There’s a hopeless possession in his kiss, as if he’s staking his claim with his mouth on mine, and I can tell he’s holding himself back, that he doesn’t want to hurt me.
While still kissing me, he drags the heel of his hand down my belly, past my pelvis, and gently fingers the curls at my entrance, before he glides his fingers in my core once more. He pumps gently, in and out, sending frissons of heat and awareness through me.
Like that. It’ll be like that, only his fingers are… much, much smaller.
All I’ve learned of human anatomy and biology, I learned from old, hardcover books from the library I read when I hit puberty. The dusty tomes were clinical and detached, and hardly prepared me for what I’m about to do.
He brings his mouth to my ear. “I want to fuck you, sweet girl. I want my cock inside you. Now.”
I nod. Even though I’m holding my breath in anxious fear, I want that, too. I want to feel it. I want to own this. I want the togetherness.
“I won’t ever forget this, Caitlin,” he whispers, his brogue thick with lust and need. “I won’t ever forget how you gave this to me. That you trusted me.”
“I will love you, Keenan. I may already.”
As soon as I say the words, I want to take them back. Is that the least romantic thing any woman on the verge of giving up her virginity has ever said?
“I will love you as well, Caitlin. And I may already.”
Then we’re laughing and holding each other in this quiet interim before our moment, his forehead touching mine and our breaths mingling like wind and fog.
“Are you ready?”
I don’t know. Am I? But trusting him means taking this leap of faith.
So I swallow my fear, and take a deep breath, and whisper the words I know he needs to hear. “Yes, sir.”
It was the right choice.
He holds me to him, chest to chest, my naked skin against his hard, firm body. Bracing himself on one arm beside me, he glides the tip of his cock at my entrance, stroking up and down until I tremble with anticipation. I’m holding my breath, bracing for the pain he promised, but he takes it so slowly it’s maddening. Just the very tip, then again. I spread my legs further, as if to silently welcome him in, and he takes the invitation. His hands come to mine, our fingers entwine, and he pushes his swollen cock inside me.
I gasp with the pain and sensation. I’m splitting in two, the ache between my thighs growing when he pumps his hips. He said he’d make it better.
“Relax,” he breathes. “Don’t tense, sweetheart.”
I take a breath then let it out. He doesn’t move at first, until I take another breath. I can’t imagine how this would feel good. All I feel is an ache and fear, like someone’s tearing me apart.
And then he shows me. And it’s beautiful.
He glides out then in again, the pain still present but abating, the walls of my channel clenching around him. The frissons of pleasure he built earlier return, and I can’t help but moan when pain and pleasure become one.
“Jesus, you’re tight,” he g
roans. “Christ, that sweet cunt…” his voice trails off. I’ve never heard these words and I know they’re dirty, but it pleases me to know I please him. A man like Keenan joins love with possession, and I know as he takes me this means more to him than he can say.
My body aches and throbs with the need for more, and even as it hurts, the pleasure builds. Pain can heighten pleasure, he told me. And now, I think I finally understand how.
With perfect, gentle, but purposeful strokes, he glides in and out, his body trembling with the effort of holding himself back, filling me so tightly I’m stretched and aching. My pulse begins to quicken, my breaths shorten, and my skin begins to tingle.
And still he works his slow, deliberate magic, thrusting in and out and fondling my breasts, kissing my lips, my jaw, the column of my neck. I’m panting with desire when his body tightens. “Come with me, Caitlin,” he growls in my ear. “Let yourself go.” Another firm, glorious thrust, and I’m splitting apart, splintering, my breath caught somewhere between ecstasy and oblivion. He groans, his body tightens, and his hot seed lashes inside me. I close my eyes, hold his neck, and fly.
Spasms of pleasure ripple through me, weaving through my body and taking my breath away. He groans again, still pumping his hips, and my hands anchor on his hips, holding onto him for dear life as a second wave of ecstasy washes through me. It’s exquisite and mesmerizing, and absolute utter perfection. I don’t even realize I’m moaning out loud until he chuckles, but when he looks at me he sobers.
“You’re crying. Oh, God, lass. Did I hurt you? I tried not to—”
I shake my head. “No,” I say, still riding the aftershocks of bliss, my words coming in pants. “I mean it hurt, but it was perfect. I don’t know why I’m crying. It was just… more intimate than I imagined somehow.”
He holds my gaze for long seconds before he drops his head to mine and kisses me.
“Christ, woman. “Tá mo chroí istigh ionat.”
Chapter Nineteen
Keenan
I’ve done terrible things on this earth. I’ve commanded an army of criminals without regret. And yet, somehow, somewhere I’ve done something good in my life to have earned this privilege. This woman. This moment.