Padraig

by Mia Malone

  “Nu-huh.”

  “Felt like it.”

  “What?”

  “Paddy, I’ve lived my whole life surrounded by girls who either had done you, were going to do you or wanted to do you. I can handle a few biker-babes.”

  “Jenny, what the hell?”

  “I’m just saying,” she murmured.

  “I wasn’t that bad. Gib and the others were just the same.”

  “I know, Padraig,” she murmured.

  She sounded tired, but he was suddenly wide awake. Had it been like that for her? He tried to remember how it had been, but it was thirty years ago for Christ’s sake, hell even more than that. And he hadn’t fucked anything that moved, had he?

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t make a big deal out of this, Paddy. It isn’t to me.”

  “Jenny,” he started, swallowed and was about to apologize, when she put a hand on his cheek.

  “Paddy, I’m sorry. It was just a dumb comment, and I didn’t say it to make you feel bad. You’re gorgeous and available. Why wouldn’t you take what’s offered? Let’s just drop this? Please.”

  “Okay,” he replied immediately.

  Not because he wanted to, but her eyes were so sad suddenly. Then he realized she wasn’t only talking about thirty years ago.

  “I need to make one thing clear, though,” he added quietly. “I’m not that boy anymore. And yeah, I fucked seven days a week for a while after Marybeth moved out but that didn’t last long, and I’m not that man either anymore. I like sex, so I have it, but not like that.”

  She was silent for so long he started to worry, and then she murmured, “Seven days a week?”

  “Figure of speech, Jenny.”

  “Really?”

  It hadn’t been, not for the first few weeks, but he wasn’t going to share that.

  “Jen –”

  She surprised him by laughing, and he raised his brows.

  “You totally did, Paddy. I know when you're lying so don't even try.” Her laughter faded away, and she watched him with humor still in her eyes. “Gossip is the backbone of Wilhelmine, and I own the local diner, so I probably know about every woman you've ever done.”

  “Well, shit,” he groaned, knowing she was right.

  “Yeah,” she agreed calmly.

  There was no way to change his past, but he could show her he wasn’t some horny idiot, he decided. At least, not just a horny idiot, he amended his thoughts. He moved a little which made him groan again, although he did it laughing. What a sorry state he was in.

  “Wanna have dinner tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Can’t,” she said immediately. “Lee and I have plans.”

  He wanted to ask what they'd do, but he wasn't sure if he could or if that would be nosy.

  “What are you doing?” he heard himself asking and winced.

  His brain had no control over his cock, and apparently not over his mouth either.

  “Pampering,” she said and went on to talk about appointments at the spa up in one of the resorts.

  He dozed off somewhere in her explanation of the exfoliation treatments both women apparently had booked, and when he woke up the next day, she was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Jenny

  I was behind Paddy on his bike, and since he hadn’t removed the sissy bar he’d put on when Annie started riding with him, I held my hands on his thighs instead of wrapping my arms around his waist. I liked feeling the muscles in his legs instead of the leather jacket he was wearing.

  We were on our way to the Wolves, and I was both excited and nervous about how the weekend would go. I had expected Paddy to make a move to get me into his bed, but he hadn’t, and it made up for most of the nervous part. He’d told me stretching had helped with his aches after our run, so maybe he didn’t want to sleep with me after all? But he had to know we’d share a bed at the Wolves compound? If he'd asked Doug for separate rooms, I'd kill him. Or at least slap him a few times.

  He made a gesture with his hand and turned off to stop on an outlook, and I looked around. We only had a few more minutes to go, so there was no need to stop.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked as I took my helmet off and pulled my hands through my hair, shaking it loose.

  It still felt completely unnatural.

  When Lee and I had gone for our evening of pampering, I’d cut it off. I’d held my breath when they started because I'd been scared shitless, but I'd done it. I'd had hair half-way down my back my whole life, and I had liked it. It was nice hair. Thick, and not curly but not straight either, and a nice ash-blonde color which blended really well with the few strands of gray I had.

  And they'd cut it off just above my shoulders in what the hairdresser had called layers. The very cool and a lot younger than me female hairdresser with the unexpected name Maybelline had used a knife. And scissors. And something else which I didn't even know what it was and had felt too stupid to ask about. Then she'd sprayed it with something, gunked it up with something else and told me to open my eyes.

  Lee had hooted while I just stared.

  “You have sex-hair!” Lee squealed, and Maybelline had nodded and murmured that this had indeed been the look she'd gone for.

  Sex hair? I didn't even know what that was, but looking at myself, I could see that the tousled strands framing my face were a lot closer to that concept than my usual ponytail.

  Paddy had frozen and stared for a few seconds when I walked into Gibson’s house the next day, and when he greeted me, his voice was deeper and also a little hoarse which I assumed meant he didn’t lie when he said he liked it. I knew his modus operandi with the ladies, so I'd expected him to ask if I wanted a night-cap at his place, which he didn't. He'd touched my cheek gently outside my door and told me he'd call. He had called the next day, and we'd had dinner, and we'd gone for a walk the following day, although when he didn’t even try to feel me up, I started to worry.

  And the look on his face as he watched me fuss with my helmet-hair wasn’t reassuring either.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I –”

  I waited, but then I got fed up with waiting and took the two steps separating us, put my hand on his side and was about to ask again when he suddenly pulled me into his arms.

  “Gotta kiss you, Jen,” he murmured against my cheek.

  “What?” I wheezed out, stunned by this turn of events.

  “Part of it is the place we’re going to. Don’t want the first real kiss I give you to be in front of a group of horny men who half of them already know what it feels like.”

  What? He thought I’d slept with half of the Wolves MC?

  “Most of it is because I’m trying my hardest to act like a goddamned adult and it’s killing me.”

  “Wh –”

  Then he kissed me, and it wasn’t the soft peck he’d given me in his bed the other night. It was hard and demanding, and his tongue teased mine in a way that made my private parts quiver. When he pulled back, I blinked a few times.

  Then his words registered.

  “Three,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “I’ve slept with three men in the past five years, and yeah. All of them Wolves.”

  His face softened, and his lips twitched.

  “Baby,” he murmured, and my blood froze.

  I’d wondered when this would happen and hadn’t been sure how I’d react. I’d told myself to just go with it, but I couldn’t.

  “Don’t call me that,” I said and stepped back.

  “Jen –”

  “You can’t call me that.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He sounded calm and reasonable, but the muscle twitched on his cheek, so I knew he was angry. I did not care.

  “Don’t act stupid, Padraig. Everyone knows you call your hook-ups baby. Never by name. Always baby. And everyone knows it’s because you’re a nice guy who doesn’t want to accidentally say the wrong name when you come.”
<
br />   The muscle twitched, but I didn’t need that tell because he looked furious.

  “I’m Jenny, or I’m nothing at all to you,” I informed him.

  He spun around and stalked away a few steps.

  “Fucking small town fucking gossip,” he roared at the view.

  I took a step back and wondered if I should perhaps have kept my mouth just a little bit shut about this.

  The seconds ticked away, but neither of us spoke or moved. I wasn't sure what to do, so I did nothing, and what Paddy was thinking, I didn't know. Then he turned slowly, and I knew he'd used the time to calm down.

  “There's a shitload of things in my past that I regret, Jenny. I've made some pretty fucking spectacularly stupid decisions, and yeah. I've slept with women. A whole lot less than local gossip makes it out to be, but plenty enough. I'm not gonna apologize for it either. I never hurt anyone. Never gave any promises or made it out to be anything but what it was. I don’t regret it.”

  “I know, and it’s –”

  He raised a hand, and I stopped speaking. I hadn't said what I said to make him apologize for his past and I hadn't lied when I told him I didn't care. It was done, and now he was with me. In a strangely unclear, and possibly fake way. But with me. That was enough because it had to be enough.

  “But I regret that I never realized how it would all seem to you. Yes, I called them baby. There are reasons, something I really don’t want to stand here by the side of a damned road and talk about.”

  “Okay,” I said and added a stupid, “Sorry,” before looking away, feeling like a perfect idiot for bringing it up in the first place.

  What did I care what he called me, really?

  “Ah, Jen,” he said with a soft sigh. “Don’t look so sad. I’m the one who overreacted, and you have nothing to apologize for,” he said, and since he was suddenly in front of me, I jolted. “You felt something, and you told me. Wouldn’t have it any other way, and I’m sorry.”

  He took a small step closer, and I felt his hand on my back, pressing me to him.

  “Okay,” I murmured.

  “Okay,” he echoed and moved his hands gently over my hips. “I know who you are, but I won’t call you baby,” he murmured, and his voice had deepened into a soft rumble. It sent shivers down my spine and they settled low in my belly. “I’ll make you a deal, Jenny,” he went on, and let his mouth trail down my neck which made me tilt my head to the side to give him better access. “Never,” he went on and moved his lips up along my neck again. “Will I ever,” he rasped out, and I felt his tongue against my earlobe. “Call you that…”

  I couldn’t stop a soft sound from slipping out, and I felt him smile against me. Then he pulled back and put a hand on the side of my face, cupping my jaw and sliding his thumb over my lips.

  “If you promise to never again call me Padraig when you’re angry.”

  “What?” I breathed, a little dizzy from what he was doing and his sudden change of topic.

  “When you’re happy, you can call me Padraig,” he murmured and leaned in. “When you want my attention,” he went on and then his lips murmured against mine, “And when I’m moving inside you, Jenny, you’ll definitely call me Padraig.”

  He kissed me again, and I held on to his leather jacket, afraid I'd combust into flames, from his words and his kiss and his friggin’ words.

  The honking of several horns made me jerk back, and I saw the back of three bikes disappear down the road toward the compound.

  “Um,” I said and watched his eyes light up with humor.

  “Let’s go, we have a party to attend,” he said.

  “Am I going to sleep with you?” I asked, and meant in the same bed, as in us not having separate rooms. “In the same room, at the compound,” I felt the need to clarify.

  He started grinning and touched my cheek briefly.

  “Yeah. We’ll be in the same room,” he said, turned toward the bike, and added, “And you’ll definitely sleep with me.”

  Now, what the heck did that mean?

  ***

  Padraig

  He was still grinning when they walked into the party which was a huge change from the desire to kill everyone in his entire hometown he'd felt when he realized just how much the local gossip would work against him. Some of it was true, but some of it wasn't, and he should have known Jenny would have heard just about everything. He hoped to hell he'd managed to shift the situation into something good, and he'd have to talk to her about it to weed out the truth from what she'd heard, but not tonight. She'd looked so damned cute after their kiss, and they'd sleep in the same bed that night, so he entered the Wolf-compound with a wide grin on his face. Doug’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Jenny with her fucking fantastic hair, dress, and shoes, so the smile turned into a smirk for a split second, but mostly, he grinned because of the way she held his hand and the anticipation of what would come. Which was both of them if he had his way.

  When he scanned the room, he saw to his relief that it was an open party, which meant there were a lot of people, it would be rowdy, but people would walk off somewhere if they wanted to get laid. This was what Doug had said it would be, but one never knew with the president of the Wolves MC. He could have felt like messing with them and organized something with just his inner crowd, and those parties were a whole lot different.

  “Hey, and welcome to the Wolves,” Doug said, and they shook hands.

  “Hey, Doug,” Jenny said, and Paddy did not appreciate the way the other man stepped closer to her.

  “Babe, gorgeous as always. Love the hair,” Doug murmured.

  “Doug, good to be here, and you need to back off with the sexy-whisper or Paddy will punch you in the face,” she said with a happy laugh.

  Doug started laughing, and they hugged, but he stepped back directly afterward and grinned knowingly at Paddy.

  “Have a few things to talk to you about,” he said.

  “Tonight?” Paddy asked.

  “It can wait,” Doug agreed.

  “Don’t mind me,” Jenny cut in. “I’ll go get me a drink.”

  Then she squeezed his hand briefly and walked off. Doug was saying something, but he didn't listen and watched her walking toward a group of women he recognized as wives and long-time girlfriends to some of the men. She stopped on the way and made a small hand gesture toward a gorgeous younger girl and grinned when the girl shouted something back at her. Then she was greeted by the women, who all apparently loved her hair, and the simple, black, mid-thigh dress and high heels. Doug had been right, she looked gorgeous, and he realized he hadn't seen her in anything but jeans and sneakers in a very long time.

  “For fuck’s sake, Paddy,” Doug grunted.

  “What?”

  “Stare any harder at her, and you'll burn a hole in that dress.”

  “It's a nice dress,” Paddy retorted, but he did it grinning and focused on the other man instead.

  Doug didn’t start talking about Muerta, except for saying he had news which was bad, but not so fucking bad it couldn’t wait until the morning. Other men joined them, someone handed him a beer, and since one of the men was building a house, they were in the middle of a discussion about insulation when he saw it the first time.

  He'd kept an eye on Jenny who was moving around the room, talking and laughing, mostly with the women but she greeted several of the men happily too. A tall man suddenly walked up to her and said something which made her brows rise. She stiffened, shook her head and moved back to the group of women.

  They had moved on to talk about a hunting trip several of the men had been on when it happened again. The man walked up to Jenny, smiling in a way Paddy didn’t like. She frowned, replied in a way that seemed a little harsher than the first time and walked away. That's when Paddy knew where he'd seen the man before. He'd been in Oak a while back, had grabbed Jenny and refused to let go. And Gibson had kicked his ass.

  He mumbled a few unintelligible words to the men and left in the
middle of someone’s sentence, not caring about the rudeness because the tall man was following Jenny with long steps. Then he put an arm around her. Jenny tried to push it off, and he tightened his grip, pulling her closer to him. She said something angrily and tried to shove him away which only made the man grin.

  Paddy felt his temper explode and his few remaining steps were heavy and angry. Then he ripped the man off Jenny and punched him in the face. While the man was reeling from the unexpected blow, Paddy used a move Gibson had drilled into all of them, twisting the asshole around and hooking his arm high up on his back. Then he moved them both forward into the wall, and he heard a satisfying crack as the idiot in front of him hit it face first.

  “Do you know who I am?” he growled into the man’s ear.

  “Uh,” was the only answer he got so he pulled back a little and pushed the man into the wall again.

  “Paddy Callaghan,” the man grunted.

  “Do you know who she is?” Paddy went on but didn’t wait for an answer. “She is none of your fucking business, that’s who she is.”

  “Paddy,” Doug said calmly behind him.

  “You do not put your hands on my woman,” Paddy growled to the man, but let him go and turned toward Doug. “You need to get your crew in line,” he said calmly.

  Doug nodded once, reached out toward the man standing next to Paddy and snapped the man’s broken nose back in place.

  “It’s in line,” he said, ignoring the man’s roar of pain.

  “Keep it that way,” Paddy said, unable to stop himself even though he knew it was stepping over a line to keep pushing when Doug had already both nodded and hurt the fucker himself.

  “Padraig,” Jenny murmured, and he felt her hand in his. “Let’s go outside and cool off a little. It’s warm in here.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Doug agreed, still watching Paddy with a calm unblinking stare.

  Fuck it. Slick, suave and diplomatic Paddy Callaghan in a bar brawl at the Wolf-compound, mouthing off at their president. The others would laugh themselves silly when they heard.

  “No offense meant,” he grunted as a concession to his host.

  “None taken,” Doug said.