Tommy’s Baby

  There was nothing to do but take a quick shower and put it out of my mind. Except maybe my quick shower swung to thoughts of Tommy O’Shea, of his big, work-roughened hands all over me and my mouth on his tattoos, the scrape of his teeth on my neck and the thrust of him driving into me. It drove me wild, the way my skin heated and the heavy ache in my breast, the way my sex plumped and turned slick when he was nearby. I’d only seen him for a few minutes, but my whole body was keyed up. Like he had used his thumbs to spread me open and lick me the way he used to, like he’d worked me with his fingers until I was wet enough to take his thick eight inches all the way. I braced one hand against the shower wall, my fingers working between my legs frantically.

  I came from the memory of those sensations, trying to block out the fact I hadn’t felt that way in so long.

  Chapter 11

  Tommy

  The next day was better. I wasn’t reeling from the shock of seeing her. I’d been astounded by the flood of sadness and anger that overpowered me when I heard her voice for the first time in a decade. The feeling of despair, of being confronted with what I’d lost, what I’d let go of too easily all those years ago, was slowly splintered by a glint of something else. Of happiness. Of being glad to see her, that some part of me had been thirsty for her face, the stubborn tilt of her chin and those caramel-colored eyes. Seeing her had made something ease in my chest that had been knotted up for a long time.

  It couldn’t be a sign. It was a coincidence. That was all. There was no reason why her showing up out of the blue at the exact same time I was thinking about settling down with a woman of my own had anything to do with fate. Fate was too busy with more important things. The universe didn’t have time to screw around with me for jollies. It was just a coincidence that her name had been on my lips, her face and body in my dreams just before she turned up in the pub. It wasn’t anything like destiny that she was back in my life, right in the place where I go to work every day. Where I’d be tripping over her practically. Like everything I’d been through was rewarded with one lucky break, with Liza falling into my lap just when I’d decided I was sick of being alone.

  It was so tempting to think of it that way, like she was a luscious treat to reward me for all the pain I’d endured and the mission I’d led—and come out the only survivor—that got me a full retirement ahead of schedule. I’d landed in paradise and found my way back to some kind of normal life. And when it started to chafe, started to bore me, the only woman I ever wanted forever with showed up at my door. It was almost a love song.

  I never believed in signs before, but this was crazy. I was still keeping my distance though. She’d trashed my entire life when she broke up with me. I wasn’t signing up for a repeat of that. Whatever her business was in St. Martin, and whatever agenda she had—because this was no accident—that was none of my concern. I wasn’t her boyfriend, her lover, her keeper. I was just stuck working with her and remembering the singed feeling of her hand on my jaw when she touched me, when after all those years, her instinct was to comfort me, to reach for me when I was upset. It felt like something breaking inside me just to think about it. So, I stopped thinking about it.

  I was behind the bar when she came in for her shift. She met my eyes and gave me a tentative smile, a little bit shy. I nodded. It was all I could afford to give her. She went to the kitchen out of my sight, but, damn, the sight of her was a good one. She looked the same, but filled out more in all the right places, her curves more generous than before, without that youthful skinniness I used to tease her about. I wanted to get my hands on those lush hips, wanted to sink my teeth into her neck. I practically growled at the sensations burning through me like my blood had turned to lava. My inner werewolf, she used to say. I wanted to grab and suck and bite, wanted to have her right on the bare ground, claim her as mine. Rub my scent all over her, she would laugh at me. Then I’d grind against her until she stopped laughing and started begging. Because we’d always been like fire together.

  Liza had always been an enthusiastic lover, and I flashed for just a second on the way she’d twine our fingers together when I had her up against the wall, the way she gave as good as she got, bit her lip, groaned and wanted more. How she’d tell me exactly how good it felt. No shy moans for my girl, not when she could say how big I felt inside her, how amazing it felt to have my cock spearing her to the wall. I had loved how open she was, how she was ready to talk dirty with me and let me know exactly what she liked. She wasn’t embarrassed to tell me to slap her ass when I took her from behind, and she didn’t even blink when I told her I liked it when she pulled my hair. She just did it more often, just a tug, just at the right moment to make me spill inside her.

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t go around thinking about her like that. She was a fry cook at the pub. Nothing else to me.

  Thank God Billy came in for a beer. He was talking about his late morning hike and how the tourists were bird experts that told him stuff about the island for a change. He had laughed, but he wanted to remember everything they told him. His clients loved hearing about local wildlife and now he’d have some new material.

  “So, how’s the new girl?” he asked archly. He knew all about it.

  “Fine I guess,” I said.

  “How are you doing with her being here?”

  “Fine,” I said. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  Billy scoffed but didn’t say anything. Of all my brothers, he knew the most about my relationship with Liza, being the closest to me in age.

  Still even as I said it, it felt like a lie, or at least like only half the truth. I wasn’t sure I could do this. I wasn’t sure I could see her everyday. There was no way to stagger our shifts since I was almost always there, and the cook had to work long hours. We were bound to run into each other, and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to handle it. There was a small but significant chance I’d corner her and put my mouth on hers sometime. The only thing that seemed like it might help my constant state of edgy distraction was sliding my hands up the back of her thighs, parting her legs and burying my face between them. I groaned again. This had to stop.

  It was a long day. I kept busy, and most of the time I didn’t even see her. I knew she was there though. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was there when I could feel her like fingers on the back of my neck, making me tense, winding me up. I wanted to get her out of my system, but it didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, what I would I say? Think you have time to fuck me before the dinner rush? Because I can’t get a damn thing done until I’ve had my cock inside you again. It’s like a compass with an attitude problem ever since you walked in here.

  I stopped and took a long drink of water. This bullshit was getting me nowhere. I locked those thoughts away. Never again, not when I’m near her, not at work. Connor had told me to act like a grown-up and be a professional. Thinking with my dick was the opposite of professional. I drained the glass of water. Then I got back to work. It was a long shift and a busy one, which made it go faster. I saw her once, coming behind the bar to grab a glass. She was ten feet away from me, not brushing up against me, but the hairs on my arms raised in response to her nearness. I turned my back to her. She said, “Hi, Tommy,” very quietly. I acted like I hadn’t heard. I couldn’t afford to hear that longing in her voice, couldn’t let myself believe in it. Not after how far I’d come. It would be like climbing out of a volcanic crater, burned and bleeding, getting up over the lip, lying on the warm rock to catch my breath, then struggling to my feet and diving back in headfirst.

  She left when the rest of the kitchen staff did, and I fought the urge to ask if she needed a ride or if she was walking on her own at night. That she could wait around for me to close up and I’d take her. She wasn’t mine to protect, to keep safe. She was a grown woman, and she could handle herself. I knew any one of my sisters-in-law would have laughed at me if I suggested they shouldn’t go somewhere on their own at night. So I went back to closing up. I made my
way back to my cabin, bone-tired, sweaty from work and the humid night. I switched on my window air conditioner and took a quick shower.

  Then I stretched out on top of my sheets and let the cold air wash over me as it billowed across the room. I tried to let it cool me off. It didn’t work. I was restless, feeling haunted, like the sight of Liza had electrified my entire body. I wouldn’t have any peace until I’d had her again. I knew it was wrong. That it wouldn’t lead to anything but more misery and heartbreak and confusion. So I wouldn’t act on the ferocious impulse to have her. But I could think about it, let the fantasy unspool in my brain one time. Alone in my cabin, the memory of her was no threat to anyone but myself.

  I imagined what might have happened yesterday when I saw her and stormed out. When she’d followed me. I took myself in hand, already insanely hard, and stroked firmly.

  Liza touches my face. I jerk away by instinct, but then I let impulse take over. I step closer. I crowd her back against the door. I back her into it and dip my head. I catch her bottom lip between my teeth and nip her. I feel her shudder, her hips canting toward me. We’re not making decisions anymore. Our bodies are. They want to mate. The drive to join with her is too strong. I couldn’t resist if I wanted to. Want isn’t even a question. Need drives me, spurs me on. She’s melting into me, her hand clutching the front of my shirt the way she used to do when she couldn’t decide if she wanted me naked or wanted the shirt to hold on to.

  I growl deep in my chest and part her lips, plunging my tongue into her mouth, taking what’s mine. I plunder her, taste her secrets, eat at her lips, my fingers hard as they dig into her full hips and press her fully against me so she can feel the iron-hard length that’s waiting for her. She shivers, intimidated by my size, by how much we want each other, by how long it’s been and how it feels like it was yesterday but also like it was another lifetime ago.

  I think of the other men she’s been with. I know there have been other men by now. I want to burn them off of her skin, fuck her until she only remembers me and how right we feels. Even though I want her enough to take her out there in back of the pub against a door, I know it’s too public. I don’t want anyone watching, seeing her, seeing us. This is private. For me alone. So I grab her wrists and start to back up, tugging her along with me. She whimpers and tries to keep kissing me, but I’m so much taller she can’t reach unless I bend down. And I’m not bending over toward her anymore. So she follows where I lead. I take her around into the storage room. I punch in the key code and pull her inside and shut the door. I flip on the light, a strip of flickering fluorescents high above us that cast an eerie greenish light across our skin.

  She makes a noise almost like a grunt and grabs me, kisses my neck, bites at it.

  “It’s been so goddamn long, Tommy. I need it. I need you. Please,” she says. I push up her shirt and get a handful of her breast, kneading it, pinching the nipple and making her grind into my hand.

  “Yes,” I said, eyes glazed with lust, “I feel how much you want me. And you know how bad I want you.

  I lead her over to the couch that we moved out of Connor’s office a few months ago. I sit down and wait to see what she’s going to do. I know what I want, but I think maybe she needs a second to catch up.

  I’m wrong, because she’s instantly on her knees, working at my zipper. I clear my throat to cover the noise I make when I see what she’s doing, when I feel her hand brush over my length even through my jeans. She gets the zipper down and my erection stands out proud, jutting hard and high into her hand. She licks her lips and I damn near come just seeing Liza holding my cock in her hand and wanting to suck it after all this time. Like I’ve died and gone to heaven—only a really filthy version of heaven I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist.

  Her pretty mouth closes over the head of my cock and I make an unholy sound. She sucks and strokes me, and I’m saying, ‘fuck, fuck, baby you gotta stop, Liza—fuck!’ while she works me over with her mouth and hands and looks up and grins at me from time to time until I’m bucking, fucking her mouth, unable to stop myself. Then I’m begging, “Please, baby, let me come inside you.”

  She has mercy on me. She takes her hot, sweet mouth away, making me almost double over in regret in that instant. Then she unbuttons her tight shorts and wiggles out of them. I pull her to me by the hips, my thumbs hooking into the sides of her panties and tugging her until she straddles me, kneels over my lap. I bend her back over my arm and taste her, the salty gush of her desire just as tart and perfect as I remember. Her sensitive clit begging me to suck it, making more wetness weep from her lips and over my hand as I suck and lick and stroke her with my fingers.

  Her wetness coats my fingers as I slide them inside her, stretching her, feeling how tight she is. I can imagine her clamping down on me tight with those inner muscles, and it makes me grit my teeth to keep from coming at the thought of it. It’s going to feel so good, so right. I want to make it last, want to savor every second. I lay her out on the couch, my face between her legs, and I eat her out, making her come again and again until her legs shake, and her fingers claw at my hair and she begs me to stop, and then begs me never to stop and I wring more pleasure from her. I have her soaking wet, open, ready for me. She’s trembling, telling me she can’t, it’s too soon, she’s too sensitive. She wants me to wait, or so she says.

  I know what she wants. I’ve been inside her too many times to miss the signs. The sweet musky scent of her arousal and the fire in her honey eyes and the way her fingers dig into my shoulder and urge me on. The way her hips are bucking, as if she could get the friction and fullness she needs from the air between us. I want to laugh, but it’s agony. I’ve wanted this so long, so deeply, that it scares me that I finally get to have her. I stop for a second and I kiss her lips. Soft and slow, parting them, slipping my tongue between her lips in the most romantic, slow, sweet, sexy kiss. It makes her whimper a little and her arms wrap around my neck. I feel her thighs open for me, and I put the head of my rigid cock right there at her soft, wet opening. I push in, feel her lips part around me, all wet heat and slickness and sinking into a fiery paradise. I start thrusting. I can’t go slowly and savor every inch. Because I have to be in her, have to rut in her and remind her she’s always been mine. I have to feel her—God yes! —rock against me and meet my thrusts with her own. Until we’re moving together in our tight, furious rhythm, fucking like we were never apart for a second.

  I hit that place inside her that makes her eyes roll back, her chin tip up. I suck her neck and bite softly as she comes. I pump into her harder, relishing the tight contractions of her body gripping mine so hard it’s almost painful. I pound her then and let her milk it out of me, my hot cum gushing into her in long spurts, her moaning with every gush like she can feel each and every drop. I reach between us, my fingers brushing her clit and make her shatter again. Shaking, we come together. I collapse on top of her, our arms around each other, panting and breathless.

  Even as I came in my own hand, my eyes shut tight, I felt like Liza was wrapped around me tight and sweet. The pleasure was blinding but left me with a roaring need for her just the same.

  Chapter 12

  Liza

  The first week was nerve-wracking for me. Not because of the job itself—it was easy and everybody on the kitchen crew was nice to me. It was the proximity to my first love that was frying my nerves. He mostly avoided me. I was in the kitchen filling orders and trying to keep myself from reorganizing the stations and doing inventory on the spices to see what I’d add if it were my kitchen. I battled my instinct to take charge. I had run my own restaurant and been head chef as well. I’d gotten by on four hours of sleep and managed everything myself. So working for a paycheck and following directions should have been relaxing for me, but it chafed against my natural leadership skills. I had the knowledge base and experience to revolutionize the culinary offerings of this pub from pedestrian, greasy fare to something extraordinary. But that’s not what they hired me to d
o. So, I focused a lot of my industrious, extra energy on struggling to keep my mouth shut.

  The rest of my abundant energy and focus dwelled on not stalking Tommy, not staring at him or finding excuses to talk to him. I was not a teenager with a crush, even if I felt like one. I kept my head down and reminded myself to be practical, earn my wages and go home. I was here to hide out and support myself while I figured out a plan for survival. I was not here to take over a restaurant and seduce the bartender. Despite the fact that it sounded like a hell of a lot of fun.

  Once when I was sprinkling seasoned salt on a basket of fries, I saw Tommy leaning against the kitchen doorway watching me. He didn’t try to look away or act like he hadn’t noticed me. He wasn’t the kind of man who lacked confidence. He made damn sure I knew he was looking right at me. No shrug, no self-conscious drop of his eyes. A short nod, barely a dip of his chin, and he shoved off the door frame and picked up an order to take to the bar. Sometimes he did that when servers were busy, helped out during a rush. Another thing I liked about him. He owned half this place, but he’d pitch in and work like everybody on the payroll. And he’d been watching me. Heat had flooded my skin, almost like his gaze had been as sharp and heady as the touch of his hands, like he had been all over me and I was squirming with delight and embarrassment at once. I felt sweat slide down my side from my underarms, felt dampness start between my legs in response to just him looking at me. My whole body was aroused. He didn’t even have to lift a finger to get me going.