“Don’t burn yourself out, Dad,” Rose, Andrew’s wife, warned her father-in-law. “You’re going to live to be a hundred.”
It was obvious that the older man was pleased by the prediction. “Well, then,” he allowed, “I’m going to wind up packing a lot of living into those twenty-seven years,” he predicted.
No one in the room doubted it. Not even those who hadn’t known the man before today. They were all in agreement that Seamus Cavanaugh was a force of nature and a dynamo, determined to reclaim his place in the world. No one doubted that he would, too.
Chapter 11
“Now that’s what I call a family,” Josh said, laughing softly to himself.
It was eleven-thirty and while the party was still going on at Andrew’s house as they had left, it had grown smaller and consequently more subdued in nature. Approximately half the people who had attended had already said their good-nights and drifted out the door, making their way toward the cars parked along the next two blocks.
Josh had made no indication that he’d wanted to leave. Instead, he left that up to Bridget, waiting for her sign that she was tired or thought that it was time to go. Initially, even though he’d sensed this afternoon that she’d been rather reluctant to come at first, as the evening had worn on, he began to get completely opposite vibrations. It was obvious that his partner was enjoying herself, enjoying watching her father get to know the man who was his father.
Eventually, though, Josh noticed her stifling yawns and then, finally, she caught his eye and nodded. Over the course of the last three years, they had developed a sort of shorthand. It was time to go home.
Tired himself, Josh lost no time in taking her at her word. Making the rounds in double time, he and Bridget said their goodbyes. He had her out and in his car in a little more than two heartbeats.
Leaning back against her seat, Bridget laughed in response to his comment now. The Cavanaughs en masse were definitely a force of nature.
“And here I thought I came from a large family.” Until this evening, when every single family member had made it a point to show up, she hadn’t realized just how huge the family actually was.
Josh slanted a look in her direction, a smile playing on his lips. “You do.”
She knew what he meant. Josh was referring to the “small town” they had just left behind them. But thinking of all of them as family would take some getting used to on her part. Yes, they were Cavanaughs and yes, apparently she was, too, but actually feeling like one of them would take adjustment.
“No, I’m talking about my core family,” she stressed. “My dad, my brothers and my sisters. There’s eight of us altogether, counting Dad, and I always thought that was a lot.”
He thought back to their entrance and how overwhelming it was to see that her family was taking up every available inch of space in the house. “Not when you compare them to the Cavanaughs.”
That was what she was trying to tell him. “My point exactly.”
“Still,” he went on, mulling the situation over in his head, “it must be nice, knowing that they’re there to support you and that they have your back so completely. Nobody will mess with you now that you’re a Cavanaugh. I hear it’s all for one and one for all with that clan.”
“I wouldn’t go that far yet,” she told him. “I mean, they barely know me.”
Josh didn’t see the problem or why she was hesitating. If it were him, if he had suddenly discovered that he was related to the Cavanaughs, he would have already declared it to the world and opted for a family portrait. Having a family, people with a vested interest in you, appealed to him immensely.
“What’s to know? You’re a Cavanaugh. That’s good enough for them,” he assured her. “I never saw a more united bunch of people. It’s as if they were all tuned in to one mind.”
A smile she couldn’t quite fathom played on her partner’s lips as he continued talking. Was it wistfulness? Envy?
“Makes me realize what I’ve missed.” Josh said the last words more to himself than to her.
If it was family he wanted, she had more than enough to spare—not to mention that there were times when she would have gladly paid someone to take her brothers off her hands. Things were much better now, but there was a time…
“I’ve got a few spare brothers I could lend you,” she offered. “All slightly used, but they still have a lot of mileage left on them. Just say the word and they’re yours.”
Turning a corner, Josh laughed and shook his head. “Not that I’m not grateful, partner, but it’s not quite the same thing.”
Her brothers could still be pretty irritating at times, especially when they thought they were right and she wasn’t.
“Trust me, Youngblood, a little while with any of them and you’ll be very happy that you’re an only child,” she promised him.
She sounded sincere, but he had only one question for her. “Would you want to be a loner if you had the chance?”
A flippant answer rose to her lips, but then Bridget saw that he was really serious. If she was going to be honest with him, there was only one answer she could give him.
“No, I wouldn’t,” she admitted. Because she had a large family, there was always someone to talk to, someone to turn to if she needed a soundboard or a shoulder to cry on. Having a family as large as hers had ultimately given her a great sense of security, a feeling of being safe no matter what.
She wouldn’t have traded her life with anyone else’s for the world.
Bridget’s prolonged silence gave him his answer. “I didn’t think so.” Her apartment complex was the next right and he took it. “Both of my parents were only children. If my dad had lived, I know they would have had more kids. My mother told me she wanted at least three.” Lost in his thoughts, he pulled up into an empty space in the guest parking area. But even as he turned off the ignition, he remained sitting in the car. “After hearing that, I always tried to be three times the son she could have asked for,” he confessed with a disparaging laugh. “And probably three times the headache.”
Getting out of the vehicle, Bridget pretended to try to envision that. “Wow, three of you would be more than anyone should be forced to put up with,” she told him with an exaggerated shiver. “How did your poor mother survive that?”
Josh automatically walked her to her door. “Very funny,” he commented.
Coming to her door, Bridget fished out her key and then turned around to face her partner. All things considered, he was a pretty good guy. They were together a minimum of eight hours a day and yet he had volunteered to accompany her to this party, sensing that she needed to have someone with her, a warm body who was on her side. She couldn’t deny that she really did appreciate his doing that for her.
“Thanks for having my back, Josh,” she said softly, as if saying the words louder would make it seem all too serious.
Her comment caught him by surprise. After a moment, Josh shrugged. “It’s not exactly as if we were pinned down at a shoot-out and you were caught in the cross fire,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I was kind of—uneasy about it.” Bridget was going to say “nervous,” but that would have been too much of an admission on her part. “I really do appreciate you coming with me.”
Josh grinned. “You mean inviting myself along.”
Bridget inclined her head and grinned back. “I was trying not to be blunt.”
In his experience, his partner had never been what someone might term a shrinking violet. “Blunt” had probably been her middle name at one time or another. “Now that’s a first.”
Here was the Josh she knew. She was more comfortable reacting to his sarcastic, flippant remarks than to his random act of kindness. The latter put her at a disadvantage.
“You know what? Never mind.” She waved her hand at him, dismissing her partner. “Subtleties are wasted on you.”
Very slowly, Josh allowed his eyes to drift up and down the length of her, taking in the way her dress sti
ll highlighted far more than it hid. Her body was tight, firm, and his knees, he noted, were beginning to feel just a wee bit weak.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he contradicted.
Bridget did her best to ignore her reaction to his languid scrutiny. “You could at least look me in the eyes when you say that.”
Josh flashed a full-on sensual grin. The expression in his eyes made her gut tighten twice over. “Not that your eyes aren’t pretty, but who knows when I’ll get a chance to see you looking like this again?”
Not in a hundred years, she silently vowed. He made her feel vulnerable and that wasn’t good. “Careful, your libido is showing.”
The grin on his lips only deepened, creating more ripples inside of her. Josh shook his head. “And I was trying so hard to hide it.”
If she didn’t know any better, she would have said that Youngblood was flirting with her. “What’s the matter, Josh, no new woman in your life?”
He watched her for a long, pregnant moment before finally saying, “Not in the usual sense, no.”
He’d moved closer, Bridget realized. Somehow, as they stood there, bantering, exchanging words, the air had grown warmer and the distance between them had grown a lot shorter.
Or at least it certainly felt that way.
Her throat went very dry. She swallowed, but it didn’t help.
“Then in what sense?” she challenged.
Only when the words were out did she realize that she’d whispered them. She really hoped that he wouldn’t notice, but she had a sinking feeling she didn’t really have a prayer.
He needed to get going, Josh told himself. To turn on his heel and leave right now before he did something stupid. Something he’d wanted to do since the moment she’d opened the door this afternoon.
It was all very simple, really. He knew how to walk. How to put one foot in front of the other and create space between himself and whatever it was that he was leaving behind.
And yet, there he was. Standing still.
Not moving.
And then he was. But he wasn’t moving in the direction he needed to go. Instead, he was moving to close the tiny bit of space that still existed between him and Bridget. Moving until that sliver of space was completely blotted out. Until there wasn’t enough space between them for the thinnest sheet of paper to fit in.
The only way she would save herself was through bravado and she knew it.
“You’re in my space, Youngblood,” Bridget informed him hoarsely, trying to sound annoyed.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, well aware that this could go either way. The way he wanted it to or the way he didn’t.
In all honesty, he half expected his feisty partner to place her hands on his chest and shove him back. Hard. The one thing he hadn’t expected—admittedly longed for, yes, but really wasn’t expecting—was to have Bridget grab hold of the sides of his jacket, raise herself up on her toes and press her mouth urgently against his.
And just before she did, he could have sworn that she’d whispered, “Damn you!”
But he wasn’t able to ask her why, because by then her mouth was on his, creating such havoc inside him that all he could think of was kissing her back with the same intensity.
He wanted to rock her foundations the way she was rocking his.
Bridget’s heart pounded wildly even as the most remote part of her brain, the part that hadn’t been fried to a crisp yet, demanded to know what the hell she was thinking, kissing him at all, let alone like it was the end of the world.
But the simple truth of it was, she wasn’t thinking. She was going with gut feelings, with demanding sensations. With a hunger that she would have sworn she wasn’t even vaguely acquainted with.
Except that now she was.
Josh had triggered something within her, feeding an untamable hunger inside.
In a velvet haze, Bridget was feeling around along the door behind her, searching for the keyhole. Finding it, she fitted her key into the lock in what could only be the most awkward angle ever assumed by a human being. But she was desperate to get inside her apartment, desperate to drag Josh in with her, and insanely determined not to lose even a moment’s contact with him.
Somehow, she managed to unlock the door and get it open.
The next second, they were stumbling inside, lips still very much sealed to one another even as articles of clothing began to fly off.
She felt constricted by what she was wearing, bound, imprisoned. She needed to shed every last stitch so that she could satisfy this overwhelming need to feel Josh against her.
Feel his hands, his torso, his desire.
So even as she shed her spectacular dress as well as its accessories, leaving articles discarded in a tangled, forgotten heap, she was yanking at his clothing as well. She was gratified as she felt him shaking free of his jacket, pulling away his shirt and then stepping out of his jeans, kicking everything aside so that the path was clear for them.
His body was hot as it pressed against hers.
As hot as his mouth, which was no longer sealed to hers but roaming along her throat, her shoulders, her neck, creating chaos and wild, thunderous desire with each pass that he made.
It was a night of revelations.
Just as she was convinced she’d reached the pinnacle of pulsating desire, he managed somehow to bring her up yet another notch.
Caught up in this tango they were dancing, a silent tango composed of throbbing rhythms she could feel within her body, Bridget suddenly stumbled, tripping backward. His arms immediately closed tightly around her, but instead of breaking her fall, Josh went down with her.
Down and twisting so that when they reached the floor a split second later, Bridget found herself on top of him.
The feel of his hardened body excited her, bringing her up to such a high plateau that she could scarcely catch her breath. And all the while, her heart pounded as his mouth continued to roam over the length of her. She could feel herself quivering against him.
Under oath Josh wouldn’t have been able to say just how this had come about or what had come over him. Yes, he’d been attracted to Bridget for a long time now and yes, he’d spent the evening keenly aware of her proximity, her scent, her very existence. But he’d always maintained control over himself, known how to keep both his temper and his desires in check under all circumstances.
So what had happened here?
How had this slip of a woman—a strong woman, granted, but still not his match in height and weight by any means—how had she managed to bring him down to his knees, destroying every last shred of his self-control while she was at it?
All Josh could think of was how much he wanted her. How much he needed her.
Desired her.
He knew deep down in his gut that if he didn’t try to fill himself with her, he would cease to exist. Cease to be.
It was an absurd thought.
And yet, somehow he knew that it was true. That if he was to continue living a moment longer on this earth, it would take having her, making love with her, to sustain him.
The fact that Bridget didn’t attempt to resist, that she not only welcomed him but had been the one to instigate this crazed, fateful dance, only managed to urge him on further and more quickly.
He’d never kissed anyone who kissed him back with such ardor, such passion before. Never wanted anyone with such intense longing. It was more than a fever of the blood, it was bordering on insanity and as much as he absolutely hated the fact that he was being held prisoner by these feelings, that he had absolutely no free will when it came to his fate, he couldn’t seem to break free.
And after a few timeless minutes had faded from existence, he didn’t want to.
Didn’t want to be free of her or of this need for her. What he wanted, more than life itself—which truthfully scared him to no end—was to have her. To take her now and make her his alone.
Now.
No matter what the cons
equences.
With one calculated movement, he had Bridget under him.
Balancing his weight on his elbows and knees, the rest of his body so close to hers that boundaries between their two bodies were difficult to define, he framed her face with his hands.
“Look at me,” he ordered hoarsely, desire constricting his very throat. When she didn’t comply at first, he repeated the instruction more firmly, waiting for her to do it.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Bridget opened her eyes and met his.
There was no anger, no defiance, not even a look of submission in her eyes. Just challenge and desire. She felt the way he did.
It was all he needed to know.
With his eyes on hers Josh drove himself into her, making her his.
Making himself hers.
And then it began, the scrambling journey to the top, to take hold of the wondrous sensation that occurred when all inhibitions disappeared and two, however briefly, became one.
His arms tightened around her and he had to hold himself in check not to cause her any undue pain as the final moment swept them both breathlessly away.
Chapter 12
For several minutes there, as they lay on the floor side by side, Bridget was fairly convinced that she would never catch her breath again, that she would never move normally. Her heart beat so hard that she felt too weak even to get up, much less to walk and talk.
What had he done to her?
What had she allowed him to do to her?
Too exhausted to move, Bridget continued to lie there, with the back of her wrist pressed against her eyes, warding off not just the light streaming into her apartment through the kitchen window, courtesy of the full moon, but hopefully the immediate world as well.
Her dazed, chaotic mind searched madly for something coherent for her to say, anything that would sound neutral and innocuous so he wouldn’t know just how very deeply he’d shaken up her world.
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