by Sienna Blake
Jace and I make popcorn. We lie on the large eight-person couch and line Pretty Woman up on the TV. I sit next to him on the other end of the couch. He shoots me a look.
“What?”
“I don’t bite, dollface.” He pats his thigh. “Put your head here. I’ve been told I’m an excellent pillow.”
Tentatively, I lie across the couch and place my head on his lap. I flinch when his hand touches my head.
“Relax,” he says. He brushes my hair with his palm, stroking me gently like you would a cat.
Damn. That feels so damn good.
I’m barely watching the film. I barely move. I’m afraid he’ll stop if I do.
I’ve not been touched like this since I was really young. Not since my mother sent me away.
Suddenly, the movie is over and my lungs deflate with disappointment.
“Want to watch another?” he asks.
We stay like that all day. Order pizza in for dinner and chat. He tells me about growing up alongside Magnar, then eventually X after Magnar’s father took him in, the scraps they’d get in, the pranks they’d play on each other, the wild nights out they had as they got older.
He doesn’t ask any probing questions. He just lets me reveal pieces of my childhood. What it was like to grow up in a convent, the other orphans there who mostly left me alone, the nuns that I liked and ones I didn’t, the books I read under my covers at night with a small torch that my uncle Renny gave me one year. I feel like we’re old friends, like we’ve known each other for years.
Sometimes he strokes my hair. Other times, he just pulls me into his lap for a cuddle. Eventually, we end up watching The Dark Knight and he pulls me to lie across him, my head on his broad chest.
He’s like the world’s largest teddy bear. He is thick steel wrapped in velvet. His body is like a furnace and I can’t help but curl my legs around him as I lie over him. His arms tucking around me to form a protective shield.
I could stay like this forever.
It gets late. My lids droop closed as the credits roll. I feel Jace shifting and I go to move my heavy limbs off him.
“No, don’t move,” he whispers, “I’ll carry you into bed.”
I curl my arms around his neck as he carries me through the dim apartment against his chest. I don’t want to let go. “Jace?”
“Yeah, doll?”
“Will you sleep with me tonight?” My eyes snap open when I realise how that sounds. “Next to me, I mean. Just sleep.”
The smile he gives me warms my heart, his dimple showing in his left cheek. “Anything for you.”
Jace
Waylyn is like a living, breathing doll. So tiny and soft in my arms.
I don’t take her to the master bedroom, Magnar’s room. For some reason it doesn’t feel right.
I slide her onto the mattress in the guest bedroom where I was going to crash tonight. I pull the covers up to her chin and step back, the moonlight giving me just a glimpse of her delicate features.
She looks like a fucking angel. Innocent and peaceful. How Keegan could ever force himself on her…?
My knuckles crack and I realise my hands have tightened into fists. I have to force myself to release them and relax before I get anywhere near her again.
As soon as I slide in next to her, she turns towards me like a flower to her sun and curls into a ball at my chest. I wrap my arms around her and pull her in closer, my insides warming at her contented sigh.
I’ve never been as intimidating as X or as huge as Magnar, but right now I feel like a giant. I could take on the world for her. Protect her from anything.
Waylyn
The next day, Jace takes me to the Kings’ headquarters on the back of his bike. He places his helmet on my head, gently tucking my hair out of my face before clipping the strap on under my chin.
I grab onto him tightly as we rev through the narrow streets of Dublin’s inner city.
The headquarters looks like any other office building, five stories high and covered in glass—bulletproof, the lot of it, Jace tells me.
I stay close to him as he walks into the lobby. It seems the entire building stills, curious eyes lingering on me as several men I don’t know stop their conversation.
I grab Jace’s arm for support and feel comforted at his nearness.
I relax even further when Magnar and X step out of an elevator and walk our way. They’re with another man, one I don’t know.
“Got her here safe and sound,” Jace says to them as they stand in a semi-circle around me.
All their eyes are on me. The only one who is avoiding my eye contact is Magnar.
This stings.
The new man is making no qualms about studying me. Lean with reddish-brown hair that curls over his ears, strong jaw and grey eyes, he seems vaguely familiar. But I’m sure I’ve never seen him before.
“Liam,” he says, holding out his hand to me.
I take it, wanting to recoil the instant my hand touches his clammy palm.
X is blatantly staring at me.
I shoot him a small smile to let him know that we’re cool.
He blinks at me and tilts his head slightly in acknowledgment. “Are you feeling…better?” he asks.
Only then does Magnar’s gaze snap to mine. “Was she feeling unwell?” he asks.
She. Like I’m a child. Like I’m not even here.
“No, just a…misunderstanding,” X says.
Magnar nods, then directs his next statement at Jace. “Show her round. We’ve got shit to do.”
No word to me. No greeting. Nothing.
Fuck him, then.
Jace walks me through the building. It is basically like a self-contained community: small rooms, larger apartments, a kitchen and living space on each level with one massive space on the top floor kitted out with pool tables, dartboards, bean bags, and a bar.
It’s mostly men. The only women I see are hanging off someone’s arm or pressed up against a wall being kissed and groped. I can’t help but stare as I pass these blatant public acts, a dampness appearing in my panties.
On one floor, I spot a woman being kissed by one man while being touched by another from behind, his hand blatantly up her skirt. Heat sears through me at the sight of the pleasure on her face.
I must have gasped because Jace turns to look at me. “You okay, doll?”
“What are they…?” I trail off, my mind going haywire. I imagine Magnar and Jace doing that to me. Or Jace and X. Or… “How are they both…? Aren’t they…jealous?”
Jace chuckles. “No, doll, she’s their girlfriend.”
My eyes widen. “Both of them?”
Jace nods.
“They…share her?”
Jace bops my nose with his finger. “Don’t look so shocked. What people do is their business. If they both like her and she likes them both and they all agree, why not?”
Why not?
Jace throws an arm around my shoulder and places a kiss on the top of my head. “Let’s give them some privacy, shall we?”
I want to stay and watch, the curiosity lodging in my lower belly like sharp, hot claws.
Keegan wouldn’t let anyone else touch me. He didn’t even like anyone looking at me, which is why he basically kept me locked up in his mansion.
The idea of being shared, of having more than one boyfriend, feels defiant. Rebellious. Something that Waylyn would never do. Correction…something the old Waylyn would never do.
The desire coils around me like smoke, soaking into my soul.
Waylyn
“When you strike, you want to smack him straight in his balls.” Charli points at the piece of paper with two hairy balls drawn on in thick blue pen stuck on a boxing bag.
I scrunch up my nose as I hold up my fists in front of my face the way she taught me.
Charli came to headquarters earlier and “rescued me”—her words, not mine—from an overload of testosterone. She took me to train at Gallagher’s Gym up the road rather
than using the HQ gym. She said she’d never get any training done if she went to the HQ gym—too many people wanting to have the chats.
“No wonder you’re single, Charli,” a male voice says.
Charli turns to face the newcomer.
I turn too. My jaw almost dislocates off its hinge when I see just who it is.
Danny O’Donaghue.
Lead singer of The Untouchables.
Indie rock God.
Midnight hair, the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen rimmed with thick black lashes. Only voted Rolling Stone magazine’s hottest singer of the year. And sexy as sin in his damp sleeveless shirt clinging to his wide pecs. Oh, to be a droplet of sweat on his upper lip.
Holy shit. What is he doing at Gallagher’s Gym?
“Danny, Danny, Danny,” Charli says, placing her hand on her jutted-out hip with an attitude that can’t be bought. “Is Declan still letting you hang around like a bad smell?”
Danny snorts. “Please, I class up the joint.”
“It’s a wonder you can still fit your ego in through the door of this place.”
“My ego is fine. It’s the size of my talent that’s getting hard to carry around.”
Charli laughs, rolling her eyes.
Danny turns to me. “Don’t listen to this one. She’ll get you into more trouble than she’s worth.”
“Bite your tongue, Danny,” Charli says flipping her hair over her shoulder.
“Do it for me.”
“In your fucking dreams.”
He grins at her.
She smirks back.
From their easy banter, they obviously know each other well.
“Where’s this new album we’re all waiting for with bated breath?” she asks.
A glimpse of a scowl flashes across his face, quickly covered up by a sexy smile. “It’s coming. You can’t force genius.”
“That’s not genius, that’s gas.”
Danny playfully punches at Charli’s shoulder.
She ducks aside with a spin.
Damn, she’s fast.
My awe for her grows.
Danny waves to someone over the other side of the gym before turning back to Charli. “Say hi to your da for me, yeah?”
“Will do.”
Then Danny O’Donaghue shoots me a wink—a wink!—before striding off.
I watch him walk off with a sigh.
Charli chuckles. “Don’t let my da see you ogling Danny like that. Or Jace. Or…X.” She shoots me a wink.
My cheeks heat. “W-what? I don’t—”
“Don’t play sweet and innocent. I saw the way those three were eyeing you up like a Christmas feast earlier. And the way you were looking at each of them when you didn’t think anyone was looking.”
“I-I…” I splutter.
“Relax. I’m not going judge you.” She flips her hair again.
Wow, I need to figure out how to do that. It looks so casually sexy.
“I understand, sometimes one isn’t enough,” she quips.
One isn’t enough???
“You…you have experience with…” I trail off at the smug grin on Charli’s face. Of course she does. She’s a fiery, sexy redhead who kicks ass.
When I grow up, I want to be like Charli King.
Charli laughs at the shocked expression on my face and hooks an arm through my elbow. “Come on. Let’s get you back to your harem.”
We haven’t made it two steps into the gym car park when Charli stiffens at my side.
“What’s wro—”
A set of arms grabs me from behind, turning my words into a gasp. A second set grabs Charli. I didn’t even hear the footsteps, but that’s likely why Charli stiffened. She heard them.
I open my mouth to scream when a gloved hand clamps down over it.
“Don’t fight back and this’ll go a whole lot smoother for everyone,” a gravelly, oily voice hisses in my ear.
I glance aside to Charli, panic making my breaths come in and out of my nose in short, irregular bursts. But she doesn’t look panicked at all. Her gaze slides to mine.
“Ready?” she mouths at me.
What? Ready for what?
I realise the split second she glances to something behind her. Not her butt, but her attacker’s crotch. The training she just taught me comes flooding back.
“If you’re ever grabbed from behind, you want to stomp on their instep, then elbow back as low and as hard as you can…”
“Then?”
“Knee them in the balls.”
“Does everything end up with being hit in the balls with you?”
“Not everything. If I like him, those balls might end up in my mouth.”
I prep myself. Running through the movements in my head, my nerves pulling tight.
At that moment, a van screeches to a halt in front of us and the doors open like a gaping black mouth ready to swallow us whole.
Oh, fuck.
Now or never.
“Now!” Charli yells.
Several things happen at once.
Charli stomps on her attacker’s foot and elbows him back hard, sending him tumbling to the ground, hunching over his stomach.
I attempt to stomp on my attacker’s foot, but I can’t get leverage. I blame it on my attacker being much taller than me, and the way he’s holding me means that I’m halfway off the ground. My attempt to elbow him merely clips his ribs.
“Fucking bitch,” he says. I don’t know whether he’s directing that at me or Charli.
“Get your hands off her!” Charli yells, leaping for my attacker. She’s intercepted by a third man, who jumps out of the van. Charli doesn’t skip a beat. They start trading punches.
I get shoved forward, tumbling into the dark maw of the kidnap vehicle. Panic claws at the inside of me and I scramble to get loose of the man who is trying to stuff me all the way in so he can close the door.
I scream and kick at him out of instinct.
He grunts and swats at me as if I’m merely a fly. He’s too strong. It’s hopeless. I am powerless.
A fast-moving body slams him out of my vision.
I scramble to the van’s exit, sucking in breath as if I’ve had the air cut off from me.
“Waylyn,” a familiar male voice calls. Rough hands grab me around the waist, but this time I welcome them. I sink into X’s arms, reveling in his pine and mint smell. He lifts me out of the van and into the fresh air.
The first and second attackers have run off. The third is lying still on the ground. The driver of the van guns the engine as it skids out of the parking area and into traffic.
X’s hands are almost tender as he brushes my hair, his arms strong and firm as he crushes me to his chest. “I got ye,” X says. “Yer all right.”
I can’t help but sob, but this time X doesn’t let go of me.
Magnar
“I want to know how the fuck this happened!” My voice echoes through the basement of HQ.
I am shaking. Practically vibrating with fury. A hot, boiling rage turning my blood to lava.
Waylyn is safely in one of the beds upstairs, Jace watching over her. I’m here with X, Liam and Charli getting a rundown of what the fuck just went down.
Thank God I sent X to discreetly keep an eye on them.
“Who were they?” I glare between Liam and X.
Liam shakes his head. “I sent out feelers but it could be hours until I hear back.”
“Sorry.” X lowers his chin.
His expression is still cold, but I know him well enough to realise he’s feeling regret. He wouldn’t have said sorry otherwise. He’s not sorry for not knowing. He’s sorry for breaking the neck of the asshole who had his hands on Waylyn so that we couldn’t get any information out of him.
The body is already being turned into fertilizer by our efficient cleanup crew.
I can’t be angry at him, though. I place a hand on X’s shoulder. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I would have done the same thing.”
> X lifts his eyes and nods.
“The thing that makes the most sense is that it’s Keegan trying to take Waylyn back,” Liam says.
“We can’t assume that, though. It could just be an attack by another gang having seen a window of opportunity.”
“Unless the attack wasn’t on Waylyn but…” All eyes turn to Charli.
“Me?” she exclaims. “Why the hell would they want to hurt lil ol’ me?”
“I don’t know, Charli,” X says with a smirk. “Did you rip the balls off someone you shouldn’t have?”
Charli sends him a scowl.
“Broken their hearts, more likely,” Liam says.
This earns him a poked-out tongue.
I let out a growl and all joking stops. The mood darkens again. I know why the boys joke so much in situations like this. Helps to distract. Usually, I let them, but not this time. This time is way too fucking personal.
I turn to Liam. “Put the pressure on your contacts. I want to know everything. Who, why, how the fuck they found out Waylyn is with us and that Charli and she would be at the gym. And I want to know fucking now. Go!”
Liam nods and makes his exit.
It’s just me, X and Charli.
I eye Charli over yet again. I’ve already had one of our men—a qualified doctor—look over the two girls. Other than a few bruises on Waylyn, they’re both fine.
I almost lost her.
I almost lost my daughter. My heart twists.
I almost lost Waylyn.
“You,” I say to Charli, “are going to your apartment, X is coming with you. Pack a bag, a big one. You’re grounded to HQ until further notice.”
For once in her fucking life, I hope Charli will just do as I say.
No chance.
She jams her arms across her chest. “You can’t ground me.”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’m over eighteen. I don’t even live with—”
“You are still my fucking daughter!” I yell as I grab her and pull her against me in a fierce hug.
Charli doesn’t fight me.
I rarely hug. My relationship with my daughter is more like a friendship, if I were truly honest. She’s been self-sufficient and independent since she was old enough to sass back. Even more so since her mother died.