Hard Irish

by Jennifer Saints

  “Not yet. Jesse is working on being able to see the bank’s feed.”

  Rocky rubbed her temple as her headache worsened. “As far as I know Uncle Pat wasn’t involved with anyone. The way the woman is dressed makes me think she’s really young or—”

  “Deliberately concealing her identity which casts more doubt on his death being a suicide.”

  “Collin might know her if we could find him to ask him.” Her ex disappeared after trashing her office. “I’ve prayed over and over that the investigation would prove Uncle Pat didn’t commit suicide, but having the alternative be he was murdered chills me to the bone.” She shivered and Jared wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close to his heat.

  “Murder scares the hell out of me, too. One of the papers Ringo left is the list of victims and crimes written about in Unforgivable and the authors. We should go over them to see if anything strikes a chord with you.”

  “Okay.” She rubbed her temple again. Her head was pounding harder. Ringo had said that Unforgivable, having been published fifteen years ago in England, was out of print now and had yet to become an e-book. The team working on her case wasn’t having much luck scouring the used book markets.

  “Tell me if any of these crimes jar your memory.” He read through the list, giving her dates of the crimes and places, all of which occurred over seas in the UK.

  Murders...bombings...kidnappings... and her mother was a part of this? She pressed her palms to her head, feeling as it would explode. She was exhausted. Pat’s death, her mother’s secrets, the fire. Her mind was racing with so fast that she couldn’t think. Some warrior princess. “No, nothing rings a bell. But I don’t even know my own name right now. I just want it all to go away. How awful is that?”

  Jared set aside the list and the computer. “Come here.” She leaned into him and he eased his fingers along her neck to massage the knots.

  “Not awful at all and I think it is exactly what the doctor ordered. Come on,” he said after a few minutes and urged her up, steering her to the stairs.

  “So you’re a doctor now?” She sighed. “Where are you prescribing me to go?”

  “Your bedroom. I’m going to give you a massage and you’re going to sleep for about thirty minutes, then we’ll tackle anything that needs to be done together. You’re not alone.”

  “Sounds like a fantasy I should refuse, but can’t at the moment.” Just even the few strokes Jared had given her neck had eased some of the pressure in her head. “What if I’m too much of a prickly pear to massage?”

  He laughed. “Still prickling over our conversation this morning? How about I amend that assessment? You’re a biscuit, kind of crusty on the outside but all soft on the inside.”

  Rocky thought about it, and decided the description fit. “Biscuit is much better than a corn cob or prickly pear. It works.”

  “Careful.” He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I might pour honey all over you and eat you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rocky shivered. “I’m a biscuit. Definitely a biscuit.”

  Jared stopped in his tracks at the top of the stairs, looking sucker punched. “Hell. Do you have any honey?”

  Heat flushed through her benumbed state and she decided she’d buy a case of honey ASAP. It amazed her how things between them could get explosive in seconds. But as interesting as biscuit eating sounded, she was desperate for more of that massage he’d promised. “No. And unless I get that massage you prescribed, I’m going to become a prickly pear.”

  “Damn, you have a way of making me forget everything.” They entered her bedroom. He was the first guy to cross the threshold into her private domain since her marriage ended and it felt as natural as breathing. “Direct me to the lotion while you strip. If you can swim naked you can massage naked, too.”

  “Bathroom. Under the sink.” He disappeared and she shed her clothes, smiling. He did have a point. Still, as she pulled back her comforter and slid between the sheets onto her stomach, she felt a little bit risqué. Their relationship was new and waiting naked for a man wasn’t part of her usual routine. After a minute though, her eyelids grew heavy. The emotional roller coaster she was on had exhausted her.

  She felt the bed shift and opened her eyes. He was wearing only a towel and the bandage on his left leg, no clothes and no boot. His chest and abs were a sight for hungry eyes. She arched her brow. “This doesn’t look like a massage-then-sleep proposition.”

  He grinned, sensual mischief dancing in his bedroom blues. “It is. I just decided to be prepared for anything should you not be sleepy when I am done. Either way, I will make the world and your headache go away. That you can count on.” He held up her lotion. “Blame the towel on this citrus and coconut scent. From my very first whiff, you won’t believe the things it had me imagine doing to you.” He squeezed lotion into his hand and inhaled as heaven opened its gates. His salvation rested on that breath.

  He smoothed the lotion across her upper back, edging the sheet down as he massaged. He was intoxicating and she couldn’t resist drinking more. “So what sort of things did you imagine?”

  “First of all, you are naked.” He ran his hands across her shoulders and along her neck, easing the knots of tension that had been there for months, if not longer.

  “Good,” she whispered.

  “I am naked, too,” he said as he slid his palms down her back, kneading the muscles gently on both sides of her spine. Reaching the curve of her bottom, he swept lower, leaving her bottom tingling as he moved back higher, gliding his fingers along her sides and across the edges of her breasts. The tingling became a burning pleasure.

  “You naked is even better,” she said.

  He repeated his motions over and over in long, slow strokes—down her back, across her bottom, and up her sides. She wanted to squirm but didn’t. Just the very act of not doing what her body wanted to do in response to his touch, sent her pulse racing.

  She was no longer sleepy, but she wasn’t going to let him know that. Not yet. She kept her eyes shut.

  He swept the covers completely away and went to work on her legs, turning her every muscle to mush. She moaned when he got to her feet. The man knew what he was doing and he did it extremely well.

  “Turn over, Roc, and I’ll tell you more about what I want to do to you. What I want you to do to me.”

  “Hmm,” she said, pretending sleepiness.

  He ran a finger from the arch of her foot up to the back of her knee, caressed there softly then moved along the inside of her thigh. She couldn’t help herself. She shifted, just a tad, letting her legs fall open just a bit, exposing herself more.

  She heard him inhale. “You need help turning over?” he asked softly.

  “Maybe,” she said, her stomach clenching, wondering what he would do.

  “Spread your legs.”

  She opened them a little more.

  “Like this,” he said, grasping her knees and spreading her wide. He shifted and moved from her side to between her legs.

  Her pulse kicked up several notches.

  “Still can’t see enough. Raise your sweet ass a little.”

  “Like this,” she whispered. She arched her back and cocked her bottom up.

  “Hmm. Not good enough.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her up and back, so she was now on her knees, her breasts and face pressed into the mattress. His hot hand cupped her sex, rubbing her softness. “Will it take a little of this for you to turn over?” His finger found her clit and flicked back and forth.

  She moaned. “Maybe. Might need more, though. Might need for you to tell me more about what you want to do to me.”

  He removed his hand and she wanted to protest until he slid his fingers into her vagina and found her clit again. “I want to slide my dick into your sweetness a hundred different ways and make you come. I want you like this with your sweet ass hard against me, but later, when you’ve had plenty of rest, because you won’t be resting against the mattress when
I do.”

  “I won’t.”

  “No. You’ll be holding onto that headboard or a counter top, or a wall, slamming back against me with as much need as I’ll be plunging into you with.

  She moaned at the image, almost coming at the thought. And this man had a hundred different ways in mind? Were they all possible? That pocket guide had opened her eyes to a few possibilities but he’s the one who made them unbelievably exciting. Sharing with him made it real.

  “You ready yet?” He pressed against her bottom, his erection hard. He still wore the towel and she couldn’t feel the pulsing heat of his arousal. She wanted to feel it. She wanted to taste him. Two could play this wild game.

  “I’m ready now.” She thrust back against him, driving his fingers deeper, and had to bite her lip to keep from coming. “But you have to promise me something first.”

  “What?”

  “You have to stay exactly where you are until I say you can move.” She shifted forward, making his hand slide from inside of her. Then, she turned over and looked up at him. He was flushed and breathing heavy, so excited from touching her, massaging her, and making love to her in his mind that he looked to be straining against his last tether. She hoped to send him over the edge. “Deal?”

  “Deal,” he rasped.

  She smiled, loosening his towel. It was about time this scorching need between them singed his senses raw, too. His erection sprang free, jutting up from a bed of curly black hair. She clasped his penis in her hands, wrapping them both around his thick, pulsing shaft.

  Angling him, she sucked his engorged head into her mouth. He was hot, silky smooth, and tasted salty and musky, almost sweet. She swirled her tongue around his head and then flicked the sensitive cleft. His hips jerked and he exhaled, harshly. His hands settled in her hair, brushing the waves back from her face. She looked up at him. He was watching her and she sucked him deeper, then released to flicker his tip with her tongue again and again.

  His body strained.

  “Hell, Rocky. Can I move yet?”

  She drew back and shook her head. This time as she went down on him, she cupped his testicles, stroking him gently as she swirled her tongue over his pulsing head. His body shuddered as he strained so hard that he had to release her and brace himself with his hands on the bed behind him. She wanted him to lose it even more. She—”

  “Rocky, please. Having you suck me, watching you make me come, watching your lips and tongue drive me crazy, having you take control, is a fantasy come true. But after a day like today, I want to be inside you when I come. I want to hold you in my arms and get as deep as I can get. I want to look into your eyes when we come together. I need you with me, babe.”

  Her heart squeezed hard at the raw need in his eyes. He meant what he said. She kissed the tip of his penis and held her arms up for him as she lay back upon the bed. She needed him too. His hands shook as he opened the condom he had on the bed. She reached up and helped him slide it on.

  Taking her knees, he pushed her legs up and out, opening her completely as he eased himself into her. She shifted her legs around his hips and locked her ankles, drawing him deeper inside. He clasped her hands in his and threaded his fingers through hers as he brought them to the bed on each side of her head. Leaning down, he suckled each nipple to a hard point. Then he kissed her long and searching.

  When she was squirming for more, he began to slowly thrust and rock in such a way that he slid against her clitoris with each stroke, slow and deep. She clenched in response, tightening the walls of her vagina around him and edging her pleasure higher. With each thrust, he pressed her legs up and out, exposing her more, going deeper than ever before.

  The pace and depth of his kisses matched his thrusts. Slow and easy, he drove her higher and higher. He watched her, gaze intent, his body in tune with hers as he drove them relentlessly toward a new pinnacle.

  Coming hard and fast was great, but this slow burn was more intense. She shook, aching with a sweet, edgy pleasure that was a whole new experience for her. She arched to him, demanding more. He thrust harder, making her entire body shake, but didn’t change his slow, steady pace.

  Crazy with desire, she squirmed, rubbing her clitoris harder against him. Wanting. Needing. Her breath caught and perspiration dampened her everywhere. She couldn’t open her legs wide enough. She couldn’t get enough of him going deep.

  Rolls of pleasure rippled through her. Her nipples hardened even more, becoming points of intense pleasure. She was on the verge of—everything.

  Her body tightened like bow. She was going to explode. “Take me,” she whispered. “Hard. Give me everything.”

  “Hell,” he cried out. His control snapped. The bed shook with his frenzied thrusts, banging the headboard against the wall. She arched and rocked, slamming herself against him. “Come,” he demanded. “Come with me.”

  She clenched hard, squeezing his penis with the muscles of her sex and screamed as a mind-stealing orgasm captured her body and her soul. Her vision dimmed, her heart thundered, and her body shook. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed over her, leaving her quivering, replete.

  He released her hands and she wrapped her arms around him. She pulled him tight against her heart. She closed her eyes, safe and secure with him in every way, and fell asleep. The world had disappeared and she had the only thing she needed right there with her. Jared.

  Jared woke. He had not survived the day whole. Bits and pieces of him lay scattered all over the place. He could see how hurt Rocky was from her parents’ deception and realized he would shortly add to it, didn’t help matters either.

  Now he knew how she’d won the bid for the Drake Hotel. All of it had cut him off at the knees. No cut corners, no illegal workers, just hardworking nose-to-the-grindstone drive and a little out of the box thinking. He’d regularly bid on jobs and had never once thought to deliver a product in a shorter time than requested by the customer. He’d finished jobs before the deadlines, but that hadn’t been by design. It made sense, though. The sooner the job was done then the sooner the customer could be making money, especially on a job like the Drake Hotel.

  Rocky had claimed his mind the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  His body had been next. His sexual drive was completely slave to his desire and his need for her. It unsettled him, left him floundering.

  But much deeper and more disturbing than anything else were the pieces of his heart and soul that Rocky had stolen. His heart was all tangled into a knot and she was at the core.

  He’d never felt this powerless in his life. Powerless to stop his fall into her and powerless to stop whoever the fuck was threatening her. He didn’t believe in coincidences and he didn’t think that the events at the job site were separate from the mystery of her mother and that of Pat’s death. Whether it was her ex, or some other shark lurking beneath the cloudy surface, everything had to be tied together.

  Rising, he took care not to wake her as he dressed in the bathroom and headed down the stairs, waiting until he reached the bottom before strapping on the boot. Personally he felt better without the restrictive plastic, but was willing to follow Jackson’s advice for at least a day or two more.

  Patrick Brady’s death and everything else that happened had delayed the deadbolt exchange and the alarm set up, which meant he’d needed to be extra vigilant tonight. He did a quick scan of the house’s perimeter then settled on the couch downstairs with paper, pen, and computer to examine in detail her life and anyone in her inner circle.

  He made a page for each significant person in her life and wrote any pertinent facts, including the “after death” messages. Then he wrote a page for each place within Rocky’s world, both close—her office, Patrick Brady’s house, the Drake Hotel. For each place he listed related incidents and the people involved. The break in at the office, Collin’s meltdown in the Rainbow Room, Patrick’s possible murder and the stranger woman, the planter incident and the people he remembered being on the jobsite that mor
ning, then and the fire and the attack on Riley. It irked him, but he included the ghost stories about the hotel. Then he wrote Ireland at the top of a page with Patrick Brady’s name, her father’s, and mother’s below and a big question mark. Even on paper Collin’s name popped up in association with a number of people and situations. Was he the tying thread to it all? The man looked guilty as hell. Jared had to draw a deep breath and reexamine the facts, because he realized his anger had him focusing on her ex more so than anyone else.

  “I thought we were supposed to tackle this beast together?” Rocky, wearing tank top and shorts joined him on the couch.

  He drew her closer and showed her the lists. “We are. I was just laying some groundwork. Look at these and add anything you can think of to them. Maybe by putting everything we know about each person and each place will help us see any correlations and possibly slide pieces of the puzzle into place. Start with your mother, your father, and Patrick Brady. They could be the core of what is happening.”

  Rocky worked on the lists. Jared read as she wrote and asked questions.

  “Let’s put all of this on a timeline, too,” Rocky said. When she finished, she spread the papers on the ottoman, putting the timeline in the center, people at the top, and places at the bottom.

  Jared’s cell phone rang. It was Jesse. “We finally found Rory McKenna’s attorney, Steve Vance.”

  Jared put on the speaker-phone. “Vance is back in town?”

  “Never left. He’s been in the hospital. He walked in on his office being burglarized.”

  “Dear God.” Rocky moaned. “This nightmare doesn’t end. How is he?”

  “Intensive care, but will recover,” Jesse said. “He can’t ID the burglars.”

  “Let me guess,” Jared interjected. “McKenna’s stuff is gone.”

  “Won’t know until Vance can check it out.”

  Jared looked at the time line. “So Sunday afternoon Rocky learns that two people have things for her to be given to her after her father’s death. And within twenty-four hours they are both shot. One during a burglary, the other from an apparent suicide. So who found out about the future “after-death” deliveries?”