by V. Theia
She’d punished herself enough already and the last thing he wanted was to see her unhappy.
Selfless acts shouldn’t be held against a person who tried to save her father’s life.
If he had a grudge, then he was no better than the father who emotionally blackmailed her.
The way she looked at him … almost with adoration stars dancing in her green eyes caused molten lava to travel through his intestines. Danny swallowed and managed to keep both hands on the contented bundle drinking her milk.
She hadn’t been shy in telling him she wanted him … them back.
He had no idea how it would affect his position in the church if he allowed himself to fall, because he had more than his own selfish needs to consider. He was a big part of the community, and though he was settled in Armado Springs, his job with the church meant he could be moved without much notice—not only to a new church, but a new country if the need arose for it. And on accepting this position he’d made it clear if they needed him somewhere else he’d be happy to go.
Having a woman with a baby in that equation would have to be considered in his every decision.
It was no secret that Misha had wound him around her tiny finger. It was also true that she loved giving him her gummy smiles more than anyone else.
Aoife was a package deal now, and he didn’t even know if he was father material.
He liked kids well enough, but when he’d accepted God into his life and reaffirmed his faith, he’d dropped the idea of ever being a father, and he’d been fine about it.
A man with his addictive predilections meant he would always teeter towards self-destruction if not kept in check, he wouldn’t wish that on a wife or his children.
Now, his ginger haired girl, with her varying freckles and seductive eyes had him thinking all kinds of crazy thoughts.
“Someone is thinking hard,” she said, walking her fingers along his shoulder, she ruffled his hair. “Penny for them?”
“How did you meet Misha’s father?”
Aoife visibly bristled and stepped back from him. Danny stopped her by grabbing her wrist. It was her turn to gasp and her cheeks to heat. Call him a rogue, because he used her reaction to him against her by running his thumb against her pulse. “I still haven’t told you everything, Danny.”
He snorted. “Color me shocked. That much I guessed. You don’t owe me anything, but I’m always here to listen. I just wanted to know if you were in love with her father.”
“Gracious, no. I’ve loved only one boy me whole life and he’s being difficult at the moment, talking about dating other women and making me steaming mad, so he is.”
Fire and devastating need which wouldn’t stop its clanging inside his head, burned through him and he had to drop her hand, or he might have put the baby down and thrown her mammy on the table and fucked them both back to a decade ago, when life was simpler.
“You always were a brat,” he said with a fond smile as she sidled up to him and slung an arm around his shoulders.
Affection and friendship came easy for her.
She doled it out like water and for a long time he’d drowned in her.
“Your brat, if you’ll have me.”
Oh, yes. His instant reply, stuck in his throat.
Every word she spoke was a silken promise of things he shouldn’t hunger for.
Perhaps the big guy stepped in and helped a starving guy out, because there was an almighty loud knock on the door and Aoife jumped about a foot away and looked toward the back door and then at him with frightened eyes.
Danny moved into action immediately by placing the baby in the chair on top of the table and he cupped Aoife’s head briefly. “Relax,” he trusted the Renegade Souls word that no one unwanted would approach his door without alerting him first. He’d been in touch with Lawless several times over the last few days and he’d been told Grigori and the rest of his Russian crew hadn’t made any unfamiliar moves that would suggest they were looking for Aoife.
Danny questioned why, especially since Misha was his daughter.
Had it been Danny’s child, he would rip the world apart until he found them.
“What if it’s them?” She whispered, pushing her whole body into his side, she trembled viciously. Like he was stepping back into familiar skin, the protector in him pulled her in tightly to his ribs, his head bent lower. “It’s not them. You’re safe here, Aoife.”
“You swear?”
“I do. If you feel better you can go hide upstairs with Misha.”
As he’d known she’d do by suggesting she cower away from anything, her little pointed chin went up in the air and he watched bravado fill her little by little until a tiny titan was stood beside him. He grinned and tapped a kiss on her nose.
“Answer the door, Pastor Danny.”
He groaned from low in the back of his throat and paused in his step toward the door.
He was a sick, sick man to enjoy her using his title.
Though he assumed trouble wasn’t on the other side of the door, he was all too prepared to fight to protect her. The lick of the fight coaxed through his veins, willing to do whatever was needed in order that Aoife was taken care of.
So when he pulled it open he probably looked more menacing than intended.
His scowl fell seeing it was one of the Renegade Souls boys looming tall in the doorway.
“Man, if looks could kill I’d be one dead motherfucker come bearing gifts.” Laughed the man he knew called Preacher. He didn’t attend church, but he often collected his wife and sons from Sunday worship, and they’d shared conversation a time or two.
Danny relaxed his stance and offered a hand to shake. He invited the other guy inside, but he refused. “I can’t stay, just dropping these off.” He thrust a bag forward. “We managed to get some documentation. Birth certificate, passport, shit like that. There was a wallet, and a few pieces of jewelry, a cell phone. Our light fingered boy didn’t bother with clothes, he just got in and out.”
He felt her presence at his back and rather than move out of the way, he turned to the side and took his hand to her spine, letting her cozy up to him. Rightness.
Danny caught Preacher bouncing his eyes between them nosily as if the big man understood the situation, even if Danny couldn’t yet.
“Oh, my things,” she exclaimed in a pixie-esque squeal taking the bag and then she turned a thousand-watt smile on the biker.
And though he knew the other man was happily married, if the displays of over-affection on his church doorstep every week were anything to gauge by, Danny still felt the roar of possession being 9/10th of the law, by sliding that same hand onto her hip, squeezing tightly.
To which Aoife took delight in, by nudging herself closer.
A perfect fit and it had his heart racing.
“Thank you so much, I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” she told Preacher who only flashed a grin. “No problem. Well, I gotta fly.”
“You were so jealous, Pastor grabby hands.” Her beaming smile was like the sun when he closed and locked the door, burning him to ash from the inside and all he wanted to do was gather her in and see how the sun tasted.
He needed some control where she was concerned or God above, he’d be enslaved in seconds and wouldn’t the ginger haired brat just love that.
“I was not jealous. I was protecting you.”
“From what? That tall drink of bearded water? Mmm. He was easy on the eyes, Danny-boy.” She whispered, a dare in her voice. Batting her lashes. Taunting him.
“Aoife,” he growled before he could tell his throat not to make a sound.
He stalked off and didn’t get far when he felt her skinny arms come around him from behind.
Everything in Danny ceased to function.
He could only feel the soft heat of a woman he desired.
This surely was madness.
Maybe he was. Mad, that was.
Maybe the drugs had caught up with him finally and he’d lapsed
into an insanity of his own making. It would make more sense than him considering picking up a life he’d left behind for good reason.
His addiction whispered seductively.
Only this time it had nothing to do with narcotics, and all to do with her.
It wasn’t a bad feeling.
Not a consuming one he couldn’t escape.
More like a welcoming back home.
There’s nothing scarier than love.
And nothing so lonely than letting a chance drift by without doing something about it.
This was his chance. He felt it deep in his soul.
Turning, he took the bag from her and tossed it on the counter before he hooked Aoife under the armpits and hoisted her tiny weight into the air.
She hung suspended, looking like he was giving her the world. Stars practically shooting out of her beautiful eyes.
She was impossible and it only made her more perfect.
He’d always thought she was the most beautiful creature on earth. Even before he knew what it felt like to understand desire and lust and naked want.
He’d been a little boy in love with a little girl who meant everything to him.
Lost to her, he’d been crazy to think he could help her out and not get entangled in her web once more.
“Danny,” she sighed wistfully, wrapping her legs around him.
Fireworks exploded in the recesses of his skull and he faltered only for a second before he palmed her behind and squeezed tightly. “Are we to fool around finally?” She asked boldly.
He’d known, hadn’t he? That come to this moment, she would ruin him all over again, deeper this time, without roads to fix himself.
Her tongue would be his undoing.
“Take the little one upstairs. You can put her in the spare room and then I expect you to be in my room waiting for me. I need to go and lock the church up for the night.” He rasped hoarsely, dropping her to her feet before she could do any more damage to his psyche by grinding her private heat to his stomach.
He had just enough decency to control himself and not fuck her right there on the tiled floor.
Though it cost him.
He was breathing heavily, while his body went through a series of quakes as she froze there, gazing at him, her breasts lifting up and down with her solid breaths.
“Now, Aoife.”
“God. Yes. Okay.” She panted and rose on her tiptoes, giving him her scent that stroked him as evocatively, as if it were her fingers. “Would you be willing to kiss me first?”
His growl was her only warning, and she scurried out of the room, carrying the baby carrier with her.
She’d triggered the part of him long since dormant and she would only have herself to blame if he took her the way he was screaming to do.
Fast and hard. Daunting and continuously frantic until he was spent.
As he felt now, he figured it would take a good decade to get in that state.
Pacing, he allowed two minutes to talk himself out of what he was about to do.
He went through all the rights and wrongs.
She was vulnerable.
She was a mess of trouble with God knows who chasing after her. Her life for the last seven years were a mystery to him and Danny didn’t know if he was ready to open all those boxes and accept she’d had a life… multiple lives without him.
On the same hand he was no longer the same person.
Maybe she wouldn’t like him as much as she had, once she knew this new version of himself.
Danny wasn’t that same irresponsible boy who took risks to make his girl smile.
He worked for God and he loved his job.
It was peace and reward and he couldn’t … wouldn’t give that up.
On the basic level of human chemistry they clicked perfectly, it was scary how well.
It had been that way forever and it was that connection which drove him on and carried his feet across to the church with his body humming on a frequency not even the angels would hear.
Some fates were sealed long ago, he accepted.
It wasn’t only sex.
Not for him. Not for her.
Sex was what sealed the deal. Two bodies aligning back onto the same plane again.
It might sound philosophical, but that’s how his brain functioned.
He had to believe, with all the consequent dominos that needed to have fallen, at the precise time to bring Aoife back into his life again, were meant to have happened.
Otherwise he was fucking up his own existence for the best fuck of his life.
Faith did not exist unless it was tested.
But this wasn’t faith in his religion.
This was all about love.
He’d tell his parishioners who went through an emotional crisis, that things happened because of God’s will. He never gives anything that they can’t handle.
He believed and lived by this law.
He had a feeling his Aoife lived outside of this law.
In fact, the ginger brat worked on her own frequency.
And all Danny could do was answer to that frequency.
He was attuned to Aoife Flanagan.
He wanted her.
Had ached for days, minutes and months and damn near a decade.
Time to stop the pain.
ELEVEN
“God, if you want me to put my pants back on, you need to speak up now.” – Danny
He had a ready cock and a rosary in his hand.
His heavenly boss disappeared from the room and left him with the only woman to have ever owned his whole heart and soul. He unwound the rosary an old friend gave to him …. Just a religious symbol he’d kept for years … from his fist and tucked it into his pocket. The last of the blood in his brain evacuated.
He’d somehow known she’d follow him over once she had Misha settled.
His intent was to lock up and get back to her, but something dark slithered through his belly and he’d busied himself with a little work in the back office just to test her patience.
Aoife of old had none.
Aoife today was the same and he’d grinned to himself as lust tackled him when she appeared in the doorway.
“You were taking too long,” was her reasoning and he didn’t mind a bit. “I missed you.”
She was blowing his mind just by seeing her in his church.
It was as if both sides to him, old and new, were colliding and he didn’t know how to handle it.
But he didn’t have an ounce of doubt this was what he wanted.
Needed was more to the point.
Danny was one of those men who believed in love.
Believed in soulmates.
He believed people crossed his path at certain points in his life for a purpose.
He believed it more now, ever since he opened his heart to his faith again.
Miracles materialized daily, if you looked for them.
It didn’t always have to be walking on water.
It was the little things too.
Danny was a fan of random acts of kindness and though he wasn’t perfect—far from it—he tried to commit to doing that on the regular. So what if it didn’t translate to others to then pass it on, he felt good doing something positive.
As his old mentor told him, you don’t give to receive, because you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed.
Now taking all that into consideration and the man he was trying to be these days, it all fell by the wayside when his hungry … possessive … all selfish side raised its head and snarled hungrily seeing her walking towards him.
His fingers itched to grab her up and never let her go but he allowed her to approach at her own pace as she chewed on her lower lip.
she hadn’t changed clothes, but she’d taken off the sweater and now only wore a thin-cotton tank top. No bra.
His brains exploded, and his cock jerked behind the tight confines of his pants.
Dear God, let me last more than a seco
nd.
This wasn’t fair. She was so beautiful. His very own Eve.
It wasn’t right. And yet … no force on earth or heaven itself could stop him now, because as he’d always known, this here with Aoife was his place.
His own personal heaven.
The place he felt at home and hell all at once.
She delivered him into evil and left him alone.
For that he could hate her and never would.
God, how could her statement sound like she was in the last strains of an orgasm.
Don’t answer that, big guy.
And then for good measure, because Danny truly believed, he added. I hope you’ve gone to run errands and not watching me right now. This is her, God. My one.
He’d understand the very ungodly things Danny wanted to do. At least he hoped so.
His cock wasn’t getting to grips with the situation switch very well. His balls hung heavy with the need to empty all his pleasure and there was only one place he’d ever wanted to do that. And his hand was not an option.
On top of his aroused state, he took a fortifying breath.
“Are you sure? Really sure? I get you back now there’s no letting go, Aoife.”
He pulled her in, felt her sweet breath against his neck clear down to his toes. No force in the universe could make Danny drop his arms from around her.
“We belonged to each other before we were even created.” She breathed against his lips. “I want to be taken by the man who owns me.”
She felt too good.
She felt right.
Finally.
His last tether broke right down the middle of him.
She compounded her statement by adding. “It’s me who’s been trying to seduce you for days, Danny-boy. I would be a right cloth-head if I walked away now. Kiss me, please?”
“Fuck, Aoife…”
She giggled and pushed both hands up the back of his T-shirt. Ripples of instant pleasure followed her skinny fingers prodding along his rib cage.
“Is a pastor allowed to say fuck?”
“I don’t know, but I’m about to fuck you, so block your ears if the word offends you.”
“Oh, please, pastor Danny. I’ve waited ever such a long time, so I have.”