by V. Theia
“I hear we have some Russian’s in common, Danny.” Rider reached over to shake hands. Out of the three men, Rider was the more approachable.
“I can’t say I’m pleased we have something in common,” he smiled, and the other man smirked.
“I bet.”
Danny went on to tell them everything he knew, which wasn’t much at all.
“Can we get confirmation of this?” Rider posed the question to Lawless, who only moved his head left and right. “I doubt it, he’s not gonna lay a body on main street. Whoever it was, is long gone. We just have the priest’s word for it that the Russian has been a bad boy.”
“She has no reason to lie,” interjected Danny. Why would she? It’s not as though she lied about being late to work or not paying for fruit in the grocery store. This was murder.
Protective and just a tad sensitive if they were about to call Aoife a liar, he straightened his spine and held Lawless’ stare.
The other man only smirked. “Down, boy. I owe him a favor, Prez. So, can we give him assurances that if Grigori is looking for his girl and his kid…”
“Wait, back up.” Rider interrupted. “She has a kid with him?”
Danny’s jaw grew tighter than titanium. He gave a nod.
“You just landed yourself in a game I don’t think you know how to play,” Rider whistled, though there was no hint of humor on his face. In fact, if Danny was into reading expressions he’d say Rider’s was this side of concerned. “If my boy here says he owes you a favor then we’ll honor it. Here’s what I’m gonna want from you. You keep communication open, understand? If she tells you something, you tell us. I won’t put my boys in danger not knowing all the facts.”
“I have no reason to withhold anything, Rider. I want her protected, lying isn’t going to help. She’s at my house right now. I just need to buy time until I can arrange to get her home to Galway.”
“That won’t be easy if he’s after her as you say. He’ll already have thought to have eyes at all the major airports and docks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t know where she is.”
“No one knows we’re associated. She hasn’t been here all that long. I didn’t even know she was here.”
“Never give the mob the benefit of the doubt.” Said a calm Rider.
Hawk had yet to say a word.
Lawless drank his coffee and then added. “I’ll get a prospect to hang around your place. Discreetly. You won’t see him. If the bad fish tries to climb through a window then you just have to yell for our boy.”
“What about keeping them closer to you? Your MC looks like a fortress.”
“We’ll keep it as an option, but for now we’ll see if Grigori does anything. He might not give a fuck about the girl or his kid.”
It wasn’t enough of a reassurance for Danny, but he could only accept what they were offering. He’d expected Lawless to tell him to fuck off.
“Do we have his number?” Rider asked Lawless.
“I can get it.”
When Rider got to his feet, and Hawk moved off from his centurion stance, it appeared the meeting was over. Lawless slid himself out too, so Danny followed suit.
“Don’t look so worried, Danny.” Smiled Rider, relaxed as if a serious conversation never took place. “I don’t think I wanna know what shit made this fucker offer you a favor, but now you have his backing and that’s as good as a hazmat suit as you’ll get for your girl.”
Danny would feel better once Aoife was far away from here.
Liar. His psyche chimed in.
He wanted her close. So close he could smell the scent of her freckles again.
He’d do the right thing, even if it wasn’t what he wanted to do. Because he knew it was the right decision.
Not so much when it concerned a girl who once owned all the real estate in his chest.
Climbing into his car a few minutes later after telling the MC men of his gratitude, he headed towards home. And Aoife.
To find out about the lost seven years between them.
SEVEN
“A matchmaker never retires, not when there’s love in the air.” - Cora
“There he is,” Cora remarked hearing the front door.
For a flash, Aoife felt her skin tingle with nerves in case it wasn’t Danny, but a second later he called out and just hearing his voice sent a different kind of tingle through her veins.
She fussed with her hair automatically, that thump of expectation in her chest used to be felt daily once upon a time. She hadn’t done anything to it other than combed it and now it hung down her back in wavy strands. Not much she could do about her appearance either since she was covered in flour.
They’d baked six dozen cookies and now sheets of them cooled on racks all over the kitchen counters.
He came through the archway leading in from the hallway, tall and imposing as ever with his arms heaving with overstuffed bags.
“Someone has been busy,” remarked Cora, with a smile for Danny who grinned back and dumped the bags plus a child seat on the floor by the table.
“I’m not the only one. What’s all this? Did I sign up for a bake sale during my insanity and don’t remember?”
There was no mistaking the ease in how Danny stroked his eyes over her from top to bottom before returning to her face.
She’d taken him for granted for years, the way he would love her. She’d expected it and therefore didn’t appreciate just how powerful a glance like that could feel like.
Intense, unrelenting lust.
She’d taken so much for granted that it would always be there.
His whole existence for starters.
This amazing man was in the world and she never appreciated the things…the love he’d given her.
She was hot all over and fidgety when she carried dirty bowls to the sink.
She’d gone seven endless years which felt like thousands without looking at those blue eyes in person … she owned a box full of photos she carried carefully from place to place she regularly poured over … now one day back within the Murphy atmosphere and she felt as though she’d been plugged into the power grid. A surge of heat and fizzle warped through her system, making her wonder how she’d do without him this time when he was the one to get rid of her.
Her heart ached even as she smiled in greeting.
“Cora and I were fancying a biscuit …cookie,” she amended, “we made three different kinds.”
“Oatmeal coconut?” He asked, his right eyebrow lifted up near his hairline and God in heaven, his smile set gasoline to her already blazing fire. “Of course,” she returned, a huskiness to her voice even she heard because he was pleased.
She’d pleased him with his favorite biscuits.
“But you can’t have one until after lunch.”
Cora chuckled behind her.
“Where’s Misha?”
“I put her upstairs to nap. I’ve been listening out for her.”
“You can root through the bags; I can see you’re dying to. It’s all for you and the baby.”
“Aren’t you a good boy, pastor.” Remarked Cora.
Aoife snorted. He never used to be a good boy.
He was good in one place, her brain filled in and made her body shudder. She busied her fingers by doing as he said and grabbed a bag. It was full of babywear, from little socks and hats to onesies and pink dungarees.
Her eyes filled with water at his thoughtfulness.
“I had to guess on sizes. I forgot to ask how old she was.”
“Four months. But she’s small for her age. These will fit her perfectly. Thank you, Danny. Eh..” she belatedly remembered Cora was still in the room and listening to everything. “I mean Pastor Danny.”
The man chuckled and handed her another bag. She noticed he was chewing, that little cookie thief. “Relax, Aoife. Cora is a locked box, isn’t that right, Cora?”
“Sure am. I never told a soul that winter you ducked out of choir practice because you were drunk after Ardan ha
d been to visit.”
“I swear I’d only been drinking Sprite.”
“You keep insisting on that, Pastor Murphy,” teased the older woman as she shooed him out of the way, so she could get to the pantry to put away all the ingredients they’d used.
Aoife watched on at the easy way the pair talked. It was obvious Cora cared for Danny in a grandmotherly way and took her task of looking after him and the household very seriously. It was nice he had someone.
Conversation took off as she went through the rest of the bags. Lounge clothes for her. Jeans and the simple type of T-shirts she preferred. He’d remembered her favorite colors and her size. He’d even gotten her a pair of pink and white Vans with rosebuds along the sides.
She put them on immediately and did a little catwalk runway along the kitchen. “How do they look?”
“They suit you,” Cora said.
“Good,” rasped Danny and when she looked at him he wasn’t even looking at her feet. He was staring straight at her. She froze right there. In the middle of the kitchen with her heart ramming up against the inside of her ribcage, she stopped breathing and was unable to draw her eyes from his intense gaze.
“Well…” announced the housekeeper. “I think that’s about me for the day.”
Blushing, Aoife was pulled from the intoxicating scene to see her smiling at the two of them like she was in on a big secret.
Danny showed her to the door and Aoife was busily folding the clothes on the table when he got back. Trepidation in her trembling fingers. “This was too nice of you, Danny. I’ll pay you back, I promise. I left my purse and cards back at the house.”
“Where did you live?”
“Just on the outskirts of town in an apartment,”
“You didn’t live with the guy?”
Aoife shook her head. “No, he stayed in town for business I think. I didn’t see him much.”
With a deep exhale, Danny stayed silent. Then muttered almost with a growl to his tone. A noise that had her head turning to look at him poised over by the sink. “What kind of relationship is that, Aoife? It sounds more like an arrangement than anything else.”
There was still so much he didn’t know. And it was the fear of him knowing and throwing her away before she could explain properly that kept her tight lipped for now.
It wasn’t a lie, she justified to herself.
“Whatever it was, is over now, Danny. I’m glad to be here,” she added on quietly.
“You’re on the run with a baby.”
“Still glad to see you.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me you were here in the states … in the same place I was? Was that even a coincidence?”
Oh, the biggie. He didn’t hold back.
“I applied for a job about a year ago as a nanny in Chicago. There was nothing left for me in Galway.”
“I bet your parents weren’t happy.”
He knew that answer as well as she did.
She snorted and rolled a shoulder. “Da hated losing his meal ticket, but there was nothing there for me,” she stressed looking directly at him.
Did he understand what she was saying?
He inhaled fast and held it. His nostrils flared and for a second she thought he did, she hoped he saw everything she wasn’t saying because her heart hurt so much, she didn’t know how long she could keep going.
“Why did you need the job .. I thought your husband was wealthy? Last I heard he owned several casinos.”
“He did. I wasn’t in his will. His grown-up kids got every penny and I was just happy he was dead, as wicked as that sounds, so I could be free. That’s all I wanted, so it was.”
He inhaled again, and she wondered was he like this now or did she just exasperate him?
Guilt chewed her up.
“You wanted freedom…That wasn’t the story I was told.”
The need to run across the space and press against his chest until she could feel his thumping heart under her ear was strong. She’d taken so many wrong turns in her life and he’d only ever been the right way and with every decision she took herself further away from the beating of her soul. She needed a real reminder of what brought her to this point.
Danny was always her anchor and though they were feet apart, she felt more alone than ever.
“I need to hear it all, Aoife.”
“I know this brings trouble to you too. I shouldn’t even be here. You’re a pastor now … It doesn’t look good me being here.”
“What looks right is the least of our worries. For now it’s no one’s business. I’m not going to be parading you through Sunday service.”
She knew he said it as part of her protection, but it stung in a place that hadn’t beat properly forever. It stung because to her begging ears he sounded ashamed of her. Ashamed he knew someone like her, who would get themselves into this kind of dangerous mess.
She recognized right away Danny was different now.
A grown-ass man as they say in this part of the world, and so responsible.
A respected member of his community.
For all intents and purposes she was just as reckless and stupid as she’d always been.
No wonder he wasn’t throwing street parties to show her off, she’d be ashamed of her too.
He deserved answers and the truth.
The truth most of all.
He’d help her because he was Danny. The most caring protector she’d ever had. The only protector. But that didn’t mean he trusted her.
His wary brows and hooded eyelids said about as much as Aoife suspected and though she caught flashes of desire in those same eyes, it would amount to nothing if she kept things hidden from him.
It was depressing realizing that running from a known mafia underboss was less scary to her than the prospect that this was her last chance to see Danny.
Silence went on between them and as Danny made his way across the kitchen floor, she popped up from her seat and grabbed his forearm.
Electricity licked all the way down her fingers to the very tips.
He was the only man to ever bring her alive, making the fine hairs stand on end across her body.
“I missed you, Danny. I know you won’t believe me. God, if I could do things differently…”
“And what? What, Aoife? You would still marry another man because he was rich, and I was dirt poor.” The burst of angry words through his clenched teeth caught her by surprise.
Not because it scared her or the speed in which his bumbled anger came rushing to the surface.
It was hot how fast it turned her on and made her sway in her new pink and white Vans.
“That’s not…”
“Not what? That’s exactly how it went. I had nothing, and some other guy offered you everything and you took it. You took it without a second thought, Aoife. You missed me so much that you married another man.”
There was no mistaking the anger and the pain laced through his voice, and in turn, hearing it killed her. It sliced her down the middle until all she could hear was her own babbling brook of agony.
God, she’d hurt him more than she imagined.
She squeezed his arm. Watched his head drop and his gaze go to the fingers gripping him.
He was breathing heavily just as she was.
Air thick as tar.
She owed him so much and didn’t know where to start.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” he warned darkly just as quiet. “That’s over with. I’ll help you but that’s it.”
“Danny… please, you have to let me—” she felt the rush of tears at the back of her eyes. Tears she hadn’t allowed to fall in years because she didn’t deserve the self-pity. She wanted to fall into his arms and bawl her eyes out and beg him to listen and to see she’d had no choices.
“Enough,” he hissed. Not loud enough he would wake the baby or alert the neighbors to a disturbance, but it was enough to rattle her rib cage as he grabbed her suddenly a
nd pushed her into the wall not three feet away from where they stood.
It was like seeing a snapshot of the big, beautiful Danny she’d once been privileged to adore. There he was shining back at her through stormy, angry eyes, with his brown floppy hair falling over his forehead and his teeth bared, breathing through them like a caged animal. “Enough, Aoife. I don’t want to hear any of that.”
The feel of him plastered to her body was enough friction to have her panting all out of sorts. The man always knew the quickest way to send her do-lally, so he did.
“Then what do you want, Danny?” Chin angled to a position where his eyes blazed like two banked fires, and the heat was felt through every inch of skin. He was the one holding her to the wall with just the sheer size of his body, he’d have to be the one to back up.
If he thought Aoife would have a logical thought in her head when she could feel his muscles and his heat, he had rocks for his own brains, sure of it. “Danny…” she whispered.
It was all she managed.
Pleading him.
Begging with her heart clawed open.
He crushed her mouth and absolutely consumed her.
One moment her mouth was free and single, happily minding its own business, the next it was robbed and taken hostage by a pair of lips God himself drew with charcoal and sex appeal.
Their mouths ravaged harder.
Danny the vibrant aggressor now, with Aoife struggling to adapt to his hunger.
Oh, Danny-boy, it’s so good, she about fell over from the want of him.
Loving it. Figuring out new ways to receive his tongue, stroke it, keep it forever.
She couldn’t get her mouth open wide enough.
More. Need. Need.
His kiss was always a thing of sexual hunger and she’d been starved of the taste.
If this was her one chance, then she was taking it. Timing, place or circumstances be damned. She wanted him more than she ever had and for the first time in a very long time … she was awake in her own body.
She was feeling every sensation in such technicolor, it was like regaining her sight.
She whimpered and clawed at him to never set her mouth free.
Breathing was for fools. She had Danny Murphy’s perfect lips again. If she were to die, she would do it happy and content.