by Sienna Blake
Dear. Fucking. God.
I was going to lose my mind. He was around me—his scent, his heat, his voice—everywhere except where I truly wanted him. Inside me.
“More,” I whispered.
“Not yet. Even as wet as you are right now, it’d still hurt when I pushed inside you. When I slowly stretched you around me. Add another finger.”
I whimpered. Did what he asked of me. But it was not enough. Still wasn’t enough.
“Fuck me,” I begged.
“What was that?”
“I’ve had enough with slow, Diarmuid. Fuck me.”
His fingers twisted into my hair, yanking my head back, exposing my neck to him, and I was pinned between him and the wall. It hurt but it felt deliciously good.
“Then take it hard,” he growled, “let it hurt a little.”
With his permission, I slammed my fingers into my body, wishing it were him, letting his hard voice spur me on.
“That fucking kid who took your virginity, I’d pound him out of your memory so that I’d be your first. Your only.”
Oh God, I wanted that too.
“I’d angle your hips so I’d hit your g-spot. Over and over, no mercy.”
His fingers gripped at my hip, cutting into my flesh. Pain blurred with pleasure.
“Curl your fingers for me. Feel what it’d be like.”
I did as he commanded, finding that sensitive spot inside me. “Oh God,” I hissed, as my body reacted, as I began to tumble. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Eyes open, selkie.”
I pried them open. He had pulled back so he could see me.
The second our eyes locked, my orgasm tore through me, waves of powerful pleasure slamming through my body, making my head knock back against the wall, while the edges of my vision turned to stars.
It went on forever. I felt lost in the two pools of his midnight eyes. If he wasn’t leaned up against me, I’d have collapsed.
When I settled back into my body I felt like warm liquid, sated and sleepy. He was still watching me, his eyes glossy.
“That was so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, his throat tight. “Thank you.”
He leaned in, his sweet breath swirling around my cheeks. His lips brushed mine, soft, tender. His fingers cupped my head tenderly like I was precious, adored. Loved.
This was more than just lust.
This wasn’t dirty or wrong.
It was love.
How could love be wrong?
Before I could deepen the kiss, he tore himself away from me, a cry of anguish leaving his mouth. Flinging himself around the corner, he disappeared from my sight.
I heard the front door slam, followed by the distant roar of his engine and the squeal of tires as he drove away.
I slid down the wall, my legs too shaky to keep me up.
49
____________
Diarmuid
What the fuck had I done?
Even after I’d fled Saoirse’s place, I had to take three goddamn cold showers to calm myself down.
Still, like the savage I was, I hardened to stone every time her face flashed in my mind, her mouth open, the sound of her coming against my thigh, her fingers making wet sounds as she pumped them inside her, watching her experience such an intimate, adult act.
She’d never looked so much a woman as in that moment.
It was wrong.
But it felt right.
And now I hated myself for it.
Technically, I hadn’t touched her. But in my words, in both our minds, I’d committed such depraved acts on her innocent body.
I could not be trusted around her.
I strode up the hallway to Coilin’s office, my footsteps not as sure as they usually were.
How the fuck was I supposed to explain myself? I couldn’t very well tell him that I lusted—lusted, dear God, what the fuck was wrong with me?—after a seventeen year old who I’d kissed. Who sent me dirty text messages that made my blood burn and my body ache.
She doesn’t look seventeen. She doesn’t act seventeen.
I shoved that voice of justification away. There was no justification for it. It was wrong. And I had to put some distance between us.
Getting her reassigned to another JLO was the first step.
First, I just had to get Coilin, my supervisor, to agree to it.
“Why?” he demanded when I asked him.
I couldn’t give the real reason without exposing myself. And Saoirse.
I shifted in my seat. “I just think maybe she’d be better off with…” with someone who wasn’t falling for her, “with a female JLO.”
Saoirse would hate me. She’d take it personally. She’d see it as another rejection. But if I spent any more time with her, it was only a matter of time before I did something stupid. Something irreparable. I had to get her reassigned.
Coilin let out a snort, looking a little too amused for my liking. “Why? She giving you, the infallible Diarmuid Brennan, trouble?”
“No,” I said, just a little too quickly. Ah, shit, I fucking put my foot in it using the gender card, I just knew it. “I just think maybe she’d loosen up with a female officer.”
Coilin folded his fingers together, his gaze going past my head. The asshole wasn’t even taking me seriously. “You and she just need time together. Maybe you should spend more time with her?”
Fuck, that’s what we should not be doing.
“Will you just do it, Coilin?” I let out.
He raised an eyebrow.
I regretted all those times I told him to fuck off when I was late with my paperwork. He was getting me back. He wasn’t going to pull any strings for me because I’d always been an asshole to him. Served me fucking right.
“I’ll get all my paperwork in on time from now on, I swear it,” I promised. Begged.
“Jesus, you really must be desperate to get rid of the girl if you’re offering me that.”
Shit on a stick.
“She’s not bad. It’s not like I can’t handle her.” Lies, the lot of them. I didn’t know how to handle myself around her. “It’s more for her that I think she should be reassigned.”
Coilin studied me for the longest time. “You know Kate’s on mat leave. She’s my only female JLO.”
I felt my hope sinking. “I thought Livvy was stepping up into a JLO role.”
He shook his head. “She decided to move into burglary.”
I let out a grunt, frustration building in me. “So what you’re saying is…?”
“I’m not going to reassign her.”
Fuck.
Despite my disappointment, I felt a trickle of relief. Then I wanted to slap myself.
“Besides,” Coilin continued, “there’s another reason why I want you on Saoirse Quinn’s case.”
What?
Before I could ask why, the door behind me banged open. In strode someone I’d rather not have seen again.
Niall fucking Lynch.
A royal pain in my backside.
A thick-set man with a stern forehead who waved his arms too much when he spoke. He was also the most persistent fucker I’d ever met when he got an idea in his head, like a bulldog with a bone.
Niall Lynch also just happened to be the top dog on the Limerick “drug squad”. He’d been on my case for the last twelve months about joining his team. I don’t know how many times I could say “fuck off” to this guy without punching him in the face to make sure the message was clear.
He’d been going around my back to my supervisor and our captain as well, trying to manoeuvre a transfer for me without my knowing. If there was one thing I hated, it was manipulative little bitches like this dickwad who always had their own agenda to push.
What was worse was that no one seemed to want to call him out on his game-playing bullshit. I guess that was why I’d always be a soldier in the trenches instead of calling the shots. I was no good at politics.
Niall grinned at me, then nodded at Coilin.
“Boys.”
That, I fucking hated. He called us all his “boys”. As if we were his little minions, little kids instead of grown-ass men.
I growled under my breath. If I had fangs I would have bared them. “Can’t you see we’re in a meeting here?”
I didn’t like the fucking twinkle in Niall’s eye. “Then I’m just in time.”
Ah shite.
I suddenly realised what this was.
An ambush.
“What the fuck is going on?” I shot a glare at Coilin. He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty.
Niall pulled out the chair beside me and sat down with a flourish. It took everything in me not to kick out his chair legs. He placed his ankle over one knee, his leather shoes spit-shined and his dress pants perfectly pressed, then leaned back, arm slung over the back of the chair, the arrogant asshole, sitting as casually as if this office was his.
“You may or may not know,” Niall started, as if he was the one leading the meeting, “but Liam Byrne, one of west Ireland’s most notorious drug kingpins, was just released.”
I grunted but didn’t say anything. I knew this and I had a feeling I knew where Niall was going with this. I didn’t like it one fucking bit.
Niall leaned forward as if he was about to reveal some great big secret. “Saoirse Quinn is his daughter.”
“What a revelation,” I spat out.
Niall’s eyes narrowed just a touch. “I know you were previously assigned to her when she was thirteen. You have a relationship with her. She trusts you.”
What relationship we had was complicated. And her trust in me, shaky. All these things I did not say.
“We’ve been trying to get something on Liam. So far we have next to nothing. I want him back behind bars before the year is out. Saoirse is our way in.”
Fuck.
No way.
“I am not using Saoirse to get to her father,” I snarled. “She doesn’t have anything to do with his business. She’s just a girl!”
Niall snorted. “Apples don’t fall far from the tree, Brennan.”
I bristled. “Your father must have been a right prick.”
“Brennan,” Coilin barked out in a warning tone. I knew I was toeing the line.
Niall just threw back his head and laughed, long and loud. He wiped under his eyes and wagged a finger at me. “You’re a riot, Brennan.”
“Glad to have entertained you.” I pushed up to my feet. “But I’ve gotta go. Got shit to do.”
I strode out of Coilin’s office, fuming. I’d come in here hoping to get Saoirse reassigned. Instead I had been ambushed and asked to get even closer to Saoirse in order to pin something on her father. All the while my supervisor, who was supposed to have my fucking back, watched on silently.
I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t hear him coming up behind me until he grabbed my arm.
I spun to face Niall once more.
The politician’s mask he’d had on in Coilin’s office was gone. In its place was the real, ruthless Niall, who only cared about his own goals, even at the expense of a child.
“You’ll help me, Brennan,” he said, his voice too low for anyone else to hear.
I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “Not a fucking chance.”
“You will. Every man has his weak spot.” A smile crawled over his face, terrifying me more than his scowl. “I will find yours.”
50
____________
Saoirse
I woke up to a warm hand shaking my shoulder and a low voice saying my name. For a split second I thought that it might have been Diarmuid; it’d been days since The Wall Incident, as I was calling it to myself.
I realised the voice was too croaky to be his.
I opened my eyes, squinting at the light filtering through my curtains.
“Da?”
My father was sitting beside me on the bed, his eyes wide open, cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes.
“Morning, girl. How did you sleep?”
Terribly. I tossed and turned for hours, Diarmuid’s mouth ghosting my lips, his voice echoing through the caverns of my soul, my body burning like a fever. When I had gotten to sleep, I’d dreamed of him.
“Okay,” I lied.
“I got the door fixed. I’ve installed an alarm system. I need my girl to feel safe here.”
I shoved the hair off my forehead and sat up. “That’s okay.”
“Who was the friend you stayed with?”
The reminder of the night I’d spent in Diarmuid’s bed hit me like a slap in the face. I shrugged, trying to play it cool, even as my stomach tumbled. “Just a friend.”
My da’s forehead creased. “I’ve been neglecting you lately. How about we go for breakfast?”
I smiled. “Sure. Just give me ten minutes to change and wash my face.”
He drove us out to a local café where we sat at a table by the window and ate eggs and bacon. I almost ordered the full Irish breakfast but stopped myself when Diarmuid’s face flashed in my head, sitting opposite from me in our breakfast booth in Dublin.
Why did everything have to remind me of him?
“I’ve heard you won the chemistry award back in your old high school,” my da said. “Took the gold at the science fair for the last three years running.”
I almost dropped my fork. “Oh, yeah. You heard that?”
My da smiled at me, the creases deepening around his eyes. “Of course, baby girl. I made sure someone was keeping tabs on you.”
I frowned. “You were keeping track of me?”
“Yeah, honey, of you and your ma.” He shook his head. “She was always a difficult woman. A lost soul. I sent her money sometimes for you but I know it never made it to you. I’m sorry I had to leave you with her.”
He reached out and placed his hand over mine.
I swallowed down a large piece of toast, my throat suddenly so dry that it scraped down the sides. My da cared.
“It’s fine,” I said in a near whisper.
“Well, I’m here now, and I promise you, baby girl, I’m not going anywhere. Okay?” He squeezed my hand.
“Okay, Da.” I smiled.
He promised he’d come for me and he did. My da kept his promises. He’d keep this one.
After breakfast we drank coffee—me a cappuccino, him a long black—and he asked me more about school, specifically about chemistry. I rambled on about my science projects and my math results, my head spinning a little at the fact that I actually seemed to have a captive audience.
My da beamed at me. “I knew my girl was smart.”
My heart warmed at his praise, his words unlatching a hunger in me for more.
I sat up. “I’m more than smart, Da. Numbers make sense to me. That’s why I love chemistry. It’s all about numbers and equations. Give me any complex equation and I can do it in my head, just like that.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
I nodded fiercely, ready to show off my brain to him. “Give me two numbers.”
He called out a series of numbers and I multiplied them in my head. He checked my answers on his phone calculator, his eyes growing wider and wider with each sum that I got right.
Finally he sank back into his chair, a look of awe on his face. “Holy shit. My daughter’s a goddamn genius!”
He was proud of me. I wanted to make sure he stayed proud of me.
“I think I want to apply for university next year,” I blurted out. “Something in science. Maybe become a chemist or something.”
There was a strange look in my da’s eyes. “What do you need university for?”
Miffed, I paused. I thought that he would have understood. “I can’t get a job in a lab or anything without it. I don’t want to work at the café forever.”
My da grunted. “No daughter of mine needs to work in a shitty café.”
He pulled out his wallet and threw down a bunch of bills. I spotted the thick wad of cash in his wallet. Where the hell did he
get all that money? I didn’t ask. I didn’t even make out that I’d seen it.
He stood, scraping his chair. “Come on, girl. Let’s go for a drive, yeah?”
We got into his car and he locked the doors, but he didn’t start the engine.
A thread of unease weaved through me as he turned to face me, a serious look on his face. “I want to take you to see where I go during the day.”
“Okay.” I had always been curious about his job. I knew it had something to do with farming, agriculture and distribution. I’d heard snippets of things said between him and the colleagues that showed up at the house occasionally.
“But I need to know I can trust you.”
I blinked. “Of course you can, Da.”
“I mean it, girl. No letting anything slip. Not to your ma, not to your friends, especially not to that JLO cunt.”
I flinched at his derision for Diarmuid. An instinct to defend Diarmuid rose up in me and I almost said something. I quickly caught myself, snapping my mouth shut.
I mimed locking up my mouth and handing my da the key.
He grinned. “That’s my baby girl.”
I loved it when he called me his baby girl. It made me feel all warm inside.
My da drove us to a remote farm about twenty-five minutes southwest of Limerick. The first sign that something wasn’t right were the two guards at the gate, long black guns strapped to their backs.
They spotted my da and waved him through. We drove through an overgrown field first, then the dirt road weaved through a stretch of forestland, the trees blocking out the sky completely and the air feeling colder, even though we were in a car.
Finally we drove out into another field. The road widened and rows of sheds lined it.
There were more guards with guns walking in pairs around the buildings, people darting in and out of sheds and trucks parked nearby. The side of the closest truck read “Jim’s Butchers”.
I frowned. It didn’t look like livestock were being reared here. Why the sign, then?
My da slowed his car down as we passed a shed, the doors partly open. Inside were rows and rows of glass cases, some kind of plants growing underneath glowing lamps.