by Sienna Blake
At first, I’m too shocked to do anything. The sight of long brown hair spread across my pillow slams about a thousand different memories into me.
Caitlin.
Caitie.
In my bed. Risen from the grave.
Perhaps I’m passed out in a drunken stupor and this is a dream.
Before I can call her name, she sits up, turning her face towards me.
It’s not Caitlin.
You couldn’t even mistake them. Now that I look closer, her hair is darker than Caitlin’s, a roasted chestnut-shell colour to Caitlin’s wheat-and-rye locks. While Caitlin’s eyes were deep-set and grey as the overcast sky, this stranger has round doe eyes in a dark chocolate colour. Caitlin’s mouth was naturally red and wide, offsetting a strong jaw. Hers are soft pink and remind me of tea roses set in a sweetheart face.
Whoever she is…she is stunning.
Stunning?
I haven’t thought that about another woman since—
I recover myself enough to snatch the weapon from my waistband and point it at her. “Who are you and what the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?”
Her gaze locks onto the barrel of my gun. She raises her hands. But she doesn’t look scared. “I’m Waylyn. I…I need your help.”
“You think breaking into my apartment and helping yourself to my bed will convince me to do that?”
“I’m sorry. I was just so tired.”
I eye the covers. She could be hiding a weapon in there. “Stand up.” I nudge the gun at her. “Slowly,” I command when her hand moves too fast to grab at the covers.
She pushes back the covers and climbs out of bed, standing with her hands still in surrender position, elbows bent at her sides.
I stare at her, my mouth going dry. She is wearing one of my grey Gallagher’s Gym t-shirts with no pants on underneath, her creamy white legs on display. No weapon. Unless you count those nipples, which I can make the outline of, hard as fucking diamonds on the swells of her breasts.
An image of those legs wrapped around my waist and my teeth around those nipples slams through me, almost knocking me off balance.
What the fuck?
I shake myself. Get a hold of yourself, King.
“How did you get in?” I demand.
This penthouse is supposed to be alarmed to the teeth. Twenty-four-hour security patrol. Bulletproof glass surrounding the entire floor, letting in light and the stars.
“I disarmed it.”
“You…”
What the feck?
This willowy creature? Disarming my alarm system? Feck off.
“How?” I demand.
“I figured out your code.”
“How?” I ask again, letting a growl slip out between my teeth.
Her eyes widen almost imperceptibly, the only sign that she is at all affected by me. “Most people are predictable,” she says. “They use numbers easy to remember. Important dates, anniversaries, birthdays…of the people they love. Narcissists use their own. You’re not a narcissist.”
I snort. “And you know so much about me.”
“At first, I tried Caitlin’s birthday,” she says.
The blood drains from my limbs, leaving a numbing sensation behind like I’ve held on to ice for too long.
She knows about my wife.
Oblivious to my distress, she keeps going. “Then I realised what date would be more important to you than anything…”
She lifts her chin and I am pierced with her dark eyes. It feels like a shot of whiskey burning in my chest.
“The day Caitlin died. 0-9-0-9. Tomorrow.”
I lunge at her, reacting out of instinct rather than rational thought. I knock her off her feet and onto the bed, my weight pinning her body down. I can feel the curves of her under me, the way I sink into her flesh, against her breasts, those fucking diamond-tipped nipples I want to bite poking me in the chest.
For a moment, I forget that she is the enemy. I am just a man lying on a woman. My gaze drops to her rosy lips. And the urge to close the distance flares in me.
“Magnar,” she whispers…in an unfamiliar voice.
I don’t know her. “Who are you?” I press the gun barrel into her slender neck, her tender pulse beating against the end. “How the fuck do you know so much about me?”
She sucks in a breath. “There’s a lot written about you, you know? Online. It’s not hard to find.”
There’s what now?
No fear shows in her eyes.
This rattles me.
Everyone is afraid of me.
Even Jace.
Sometimes even X. And the darkness is afraid of X.
Waylyn
Magnar King.
He looks just the same as he did when I first saw him five years ago. He was brutally beautiful then, even more so now.
Longish brown hair hanging loose around his jawline, thick beard outlining his strong jaw, deep-set eyes flaring with intensity, eyes you’d only realise were actually a mossy-green colour if you were close up to him. And I certainly was close enough to him.
His body, currently pinning me to the bed, is thick and broad, with a chest so wide I’m not sure I could reach around him with both arms if I tried. Although I wanted to. I wanted to do all sorts of things. Things I never thought I’d want after what Keegan put me through.
“Who are you?” he asks again, the aggression ebbing in his voice.
Even though he has a gun pointed to my neck, I’m not scared. Magnar won’t hurt me. “Waylyn Grace.”
Magnar stares at my face intensely.
I will him to remember.
A flash of recognition crosses his face and my hope soars. “You’re Keegan O’Connor’s girl.”
Hope crashes. He doesn’t remember me, he just recognises my name.
“I’m not Keegan’s anything,” I spit out, my voice resonating with venom.
To my surprise, Magnar looks amused. “I see. And why are you in my bedroom, in another man’s bed, on the eve of your wedding?”
“I escaped.”
“You…escaped?”
“Yes. And I’d do it again. I won’t marry him. You can’t send me back.” My throat starts to constrict. Oh God, please don’t send me back.
He studies me further. “If Keegan’s lost something of his, I won’t be the first to return it.”
“I’m not his.”
“Why did you agree to marry him?”
“I didn’t.”
“Keegan’s forcing you? Why? Apart from…the obvious.” His eyes roaming down between us, to where my breasts are pressed up against his firm chest.
My cheeks heat. “For the last five years he’s kept me like a pet. Like a slave. I won’t go back. I can’t—” My voice breaks and I tear my gaze away.
“This is some kind of trap,” he states.
I shake my head. “No trap. I need you,” I say, forcing myself to meet his eyes, my voice raw.
His eyes flare and his gaze drops to my mouth.
For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me. I hold my breath. And pray. And hope.
Yes, please, kiss me.
He looks up again and pins me with a suspicious stare.
“Don’t turn me away, Magnar, please?” I try again. “You’re my only hope.”
“Let’s say I believe you,” he says each word slowly. “Let’s say I believe your little story about being kept prisoner by Keegan and forced to marry him. Why you? What does he get out of it?”
I shake my head. That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for almost five years. “I don’t know.”
Magnar
My head spins with all this information.
Keegan O’Connor’s fiancé has come to me for help.
Keegan O’Connor’s fiancé is lying underneath me in my bed, days before his wedding.
Shite. I’m probably crushing the poor girl. I push myself up off Waylyn and stand, slipping the gun back into my waistband. She clearly doesn’t have a weapon on
her and despite myself, I believe her. She is too innocent and her story too insane to be an outright lie.
I stare down at her. She is still lying there looking up at me, looking so damn inviting I almost crawl back over her.
I glance aside to the bedside clock. Past midnight already. I almost forgot. I’m supposed to be alone.
Strangely, I don’t feel like being alone anymore. “Are you tired?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
I nudge my chin in a come on gesture and stride out the bedroom, not checking if she’s following. I don’t have to. I know she is. I can barely hear the soft patter of her feet on my plush carpet. But I can feel her behind me. Can feel her eyes on me, the sensation is like a prickle between my shoulder blades.
I lead her out onto the rooftop garden, stopping in the kitchen to grab two short glasses and a bottle of Jameson whiskey. I place these items on the low glass table. She takes one end of the couch in the outdoor seating area, and I notice with a touch of disappointment that she’s tugged on jeans. She’s still braless though, her breasts and nipples outlined in my t-shirt.
She shivers and folds her arms over her chest. September nights in Ireland often have a nip in the air.
I shrug off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders.
She looks up at me in surprise.
“You looked cold,” I explain. Duh, King.
She rewards me with a brilliant smile, one that transforms her face from beautiful to stunning. “Thank you.”
I nod and take the farthest seat from her. Being too close to her does something to me. Something I’m not sure I like.
I look up in time to see her lower her nose to the collar as she pulls my jacket, swimming on her frame, even tighter around her. Did she just smell my jacket?
She catches me watching her.
I might be mistaken but her cheeks colour.
I unscrew the Jameson and pour us two glasses of whiskey, three fingers in each. “You happy with neat or you want something with it?” I ask. “I might have ginger ale in the fridge.”
“I’m grand with this.”
I hand a glass to her and settle back in my chair, tipping the amber liquid back down my throat and relishing in the burn that spreads through my body.
She lifts the glass to her face and sniffs before scrunching up her nose and lowering the glass to clasp it in her lap.
Is she going to smell everything? I have so many fucking questions. I ask the most burning one, “Of all the places in Ireland you could have gone, why did you come to me?”
“Because I knew Keegan would never come looking for me here.” She lifts her eyes to pierce me with her gaze. “You’re the only thing he’s afraid of.”
Mine to protect.
My chest feels swollen with a new purpose. Keegan is my enemy. She’s my responsibility. If Keegan wants her, there has to be a reason, a reason I can exploit. Nothing would make me happier than to keep Keegan from getting what he wants.
“So…what now?” she asks.
“Now, we drink.” I pour a second glass and raise it in a toast. “Sláinte.”
“No, I mean, what are you going to do with me?”
Isn’t that a loaded question if I ever feckin’ heard one.
Take you back to my bed, strip you, assault those fuckin’ nipples that have been taunting me with my tongue and teeth.
“Haven’t thought that far,” I lie. I throw back the second glass and smack my lips, feeling the whiskey burning through me and all my sins.
I can feel her eyes on me. She still hasn’t touched her whiskey.
“You don’t like whiskey?”
“I don’t really drink.”
Her answer stops me in my tracks. “Why not?”
“I…” A flash of pain goes across her face, and she tears her eyes away from mine. “I don’t like the smell.”
I find myself gripping the armrest. Keegan has a reputation for liking the drink. I bet you he’s not a very nice when he gets on the drink.
I pour myself a third glass, because if I don’t calm the fuck down right now, I just might go over there and bring a one-man war to Keegan’s house.
Waylyn
I can feel Magnar’s eyes on me. They feel like they’re peeling away all my layers, exposing me.
“How about you start at the beginning,” Magnar says. “How did you come to be in Keegan’s…company?”
Memories flash through my head like fractured shards of a broken picture. “I grew up in a convent just outside of Limerick. Never knew my folks. Just an uncle Renny who came to visit every once in a while. Then, my uncle stopped coming.”
Dead more than likely.
“One day Keegan came to get me. I’ve been living at his house ever since.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five years ago. I was thirteen.”
He looks surprised. “You’re only eighteen?”
“Yeah.” I only just turned eighteen a day ago. But he didn’t need to know that. “So?”
“Fuck me. I thought you were older.”
What does it matter how old I am?
“Feckin’ hell. You’re practically jailbait,” he mutters.
I play with the glass in my lap, watching the amber liquid swirl around.
He pours himself another drink. And another.
I can see the sadness tugging at the corners of his mouth, the distant glaze in his eyes. I know he’s thinking of her. Caitlin. “Tell me about her,” I ask. Part of me is curious, the other part of me is…jealous. Jealous of a woman who he still obviously mourns.
“Who?” he says, his voice starting to slur.
I’m not surprised. Is that his sixth or seventh glass of whiskey that he’s pouring? You know who. “Caitlin, your wife.”
He lets out a long sigh. “She was hot-tempered, stubborn as hell. Heart of gold.”
“How did you two meet?”
“She was the sister of one of my, er…colleagues.”
“Liam,” I say.
He nods. “She came out drinking with us one night. Drank us all under the fecking table. I asked her to marry me that night. She laughed in my face. Eventually, she said yes for real.”
I can see the love he felt for her now shining in his eyes. I can almost hear the clink of glasses, hear Caitlin’s laughter. I feel the heaviness of grief, of a love cut too short. “How did she…pass on?”
“Isn’t that something Keegan taught you in one of your bedtime stories?” he asks, his voice slurring with bitterness.
“No,” I lie. I want to hear it from his mouth.
Magnar lets out a sigh. “I rose to the top of this organisation. I made the Irish Kings what they are today. I was the most powerful man in Ireland’s underbelly. Still am. No one could touch me. But they could touch her. She was my weak spot. My soft underbelly. My Achilles. I was supposed to protect her. I thought I could protect her, but I couldn’t. Not my strength or my money or my power could protect her.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Sorrys are worthless,” he says, but there’s no malice to his voice. Just a fact.
We sit in silence, two achingly lonely people, and listen to each other breathing.
I feel a little less alone.
“We should go to bed,” he says, standing up.
“Bed?” I yelp. I leap to my feet and stare at his swaying figure.
Oh, God. Yes. No. Fuck yes.
His eyes widen the second he realises how I’ve taken what he said. “I mean sleep. As in, we should go to sleep, not we as in you and me. Not together in the same bed. But in separate beds. Ah, fuck.”
“I get it, Magnar,” I say, trying to push down this rising rejection.
“Right. Yes. Good.”
We both walk back inside. He stumbles into me, almost knocking me over with his giant frame. I have to wrap an arm around his waist, Jesus, I barely get around his large back and fight to keep us moving in a straight line.
He sme
lls so damn good with his teakwood and spice aftershave and leather. I can’t help but lean in closer.
“…Spare bedroom,” he mutters, his arm waving down the corridor.
“Okay, Magnar, I’ll take the spare bedroom. But let’s get you into bed first.” I manage to direct him to his room where he collapses face-first onto the mattress, almost pulling me down with him. “I’ll get you water, okay?”
Magnar mumbles at me.
I take that as a yes.
On my way to the kitchen, I hear the voice message click on his phone. I know I shouldn’t be listening, but I can’t help it.
“Hey, it’s Charli. Just checking in on you. It’s past midnight. Ninth of September. I know… I know today is going to be hard for you. I’m worried. I haven’t seen you in days.”
Charli.
Who is Charli?
She sounds young. With the clear confidence of someone who is beautiful and popular and loved.
“I miss you. Don’t snort, I know you miss me, too, you big lug.”
I wish someone would miss me.
But no one has, not for five years. Not even Magnar, who I’ve crushed on for years. He doesn’t even remember me.
“Anyway…call me when you get this. I’ve left a message on your mobile phone as well but I know how bad you are with that thing.”
My heart pricks.
She has his cell phone number. I imagine Magnar isn’t the kind of man to give out his phone number to just anyone, so if she has it…she must mean something to him.
Stupid me. Of course, Magnar has a new woman looking out for him. His wife has been dead for years. He might still mourn her, but he’s a man. He must have…urges. Needs.
Charli is a woman he is seeing, obviously. The affection in her tone is clear.
“I love you.” The machine clicks, signaling the end of the message.
How easily those three words roll off her tongue.
Spoken so confidently, so clearly, as easy as breathing to her. Jealousy pools in my heart. I wish I could tell Magnar I loved him. I wish I could dare to say those words out loud at all.
I return to Magnar’s bedroom with the water and set it on the bedside table. I stand there staring at him. He looks to be sleeping already, fully clothed. I can’t just leave him like this.