Nolan: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Dangerous Doms)

by Jane Henry

  Nolan’s jaw firms. “And why’s that?”

  “Because we don’t belong here,” I tell him. “You know it, Nolan. You have a family. There’s no room for us here. I have to do my job then get out of your hair. And that means taking them with me.”

  I watch as his jaw grows rigid. I know that look. “And that’s your decision, then, is it?”

  I shake my head. I’m not sure what to say, how to argue my point. “I didn’t say it was, Nolan. But we’ve brought trouble here. Between my mother and my brother and me. And… the sooner we get out of your hair, the better.”

  We’re back at the house. Lachlan and Carson go their way, and Maeve is waiting for us in the entryway. I wonder if she waited for us. If she did, that’s admittedly sort of cute. I wish I hadn’t let myself grow to hate her, when it seems she’s done nothing wrong at all.

  If Nolan loves her… can I?

  “Dinner’s ready,” she says. “Will you be joining us, then?”

  A newly awake Sam reaches his arms for her, and she smiles, bends, and lifts him up.

  “No,” Nolan says. “Not tonight. Have them fed and see what they need,” he says. “Tiernan, you’ll go with me to St. Albert’s at the weekend. Aye?”

  Tiernan’s eyes brighten and he grins, actually grins at Nolan. My heart… God, my heart. I’m so used to steeling myself against this type of thing, of not letting myself become vulnerable, but Nolan does every single thing to rip down every damn barricade I’ve put up.

  “Sheena and I need some time alone, to talk of a few things,” he says. He draws himself up to his full height, and I swear it seems he fills the whole damn room. His eyes cut to mine, sharp and stern, and his jaw firms. “Don’t we, lass?”

  Do we?

  When he looks at me like that, his voice hard, the power he holds emanating from his very pores, I’m done for.

  I’m not Sheena Hurston the investigative reporter, or the girl who fought her way out of misery and made a life for herself.

  I’m a melty, boneless, puddle of goo.

  “Aye,” I say, my voice husky, betraying the excitement and nerves that pulse through my body.

  “Right, then,” Maeve says. “Off we go.”

  Heated voices rise in the direction of the dining room. Nolan looks that way, then shakes his head and looks back to me.

  “Something you need to tend to?”

  “Oh, there’s something I need to tend to,” he says with meaning. He tugs me by the hand to the stairs.

  “I mean in the other room. Is everything okay?”

  He snorts. “Course it is. Haven’t you been around these men of The Clan long enough to know? We’re brothers. Hardly a few days go by without one or two of them having a tussle. Just the way it goes.”

  But he’s lying. He does want to find out what’s going on.

  “Still, I can tell you want to investigate.”

  “Aye,” he says, when we reach the landing. “I do, and I will, but by the time I’ve got you sorted, they likely will have sorted themselves out anyway.”

  “I’m not so sure I need sorting out,” I begin to protest. With a shake of his head, he gives me a tug so I’m in front of him, then slams his palm against my backside, a firm but teasing smack I feel straight to my sex.

  “Oh, but you do.”

  “Not sure what I’ve done,” I say. “And what do you mean by—”

  He’s pinned me up against the wall before I can finish my sentence, the hard length of his cock rigid against my belly. I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, my heart taps a crazy beat in my chest. His large, rough hand cups my jaw, and he holds my eyes with his.

  “Quiet, lass,” he says. “I’ve given you freedom. I’ve let you do what you need to. But you’ll be wise to remember that here, you belong to me.”

  I swallow and take a deep breath in, then nod. “Aye, sir.”

  He lowers his hand from my jaw to my neck. His rough, callused palm makes me shiver when he grips my neck and tightens his hold. “Good answer,” he breathes in my ear. “No more questions, Sheena. We’ll have dinner in my room tonight. You won’t leave my room without permission. In fact, you’ll do nothing else this evening without my permission.”

  “Yes, sir,” I repeat, a little dizzy and lightheaded.

  He’s either impatient, or feels like he needs to prove his point, for he bends and lifts me straight up into his arms.

  “My shoe!” I protest, reaching fruitlessly for the little flat that fell straight off my foot.

  “Leave it,” he says. “We’ll get it later.”

  My arms encircle his neck as he marches with purposeful strides.

  “You should drag a club,” I mutter, and the next thing I know I’m over his shoulder, kicking my legs and scrambling for purchase. He slams his palm on my backside again.

  “Should drag you,” he says. “By the goddamn hair.”

  “And pound your chest and call me woman? Mono-syllabic grunts might make communication easier to—ow!”

  Another hard and punishing smack. I squirm, and I also shut up.

  I’m not exactly sure what’s in his mind, or what he’s planning, but I think I’m about to be punished, and I’m not exactly broken up about that.

  He opens the door to his room, slams it behind him, and still, I’m over his shoulder. When we reach the bedroom, he slides me down his body and plants me on the floor in front of him, while he drags a chair over and sits heavily on it.

  I know what he’s doing a split second before I land belly-down over his knee.

  “Now, wait a minute,” I protest.

  “Quiet.”

  He’s no longer teasing, all traces of humor gone.

  I’m quiet. I’m turned on. I’m curious and also a little… humbled.

  I’ve never been with a man who handles me like he does, with uncompromising sternness. But it isn’t just his unapologetic dominant ways that undo me. There’s so much more.

  He drags down the top of my leggings, grabs the elastic of my knickers, then peels them down my legs until he gets to my feet. My sex pulses, my body heating at his touch, at the anticipation of the loss of control and measured pain. One shoe remains, and that’s easily dealt with. He bends, removes first one foot from my leggings, then the other, until I’m stripped from the waist down and dangling over his lap.

  He pats my arse, then grips one cheek in his massive hand and gives it a hard squeeze.

  “Ohh, ouch!” I protest. That only spurs him on to grab the second cheek and give that a good squeeze as well.

  “Now,” he says. “We talk.”

  My sex throbs with need, but even as my body responds to his mastery over me, crazy emotions rise to the surface.

  “Okay, then,” I say, trying to hold onto a shred of dignity. Spoiler alert? It doesn’t work. I’m half naked, dangling over his knee, clearly about to get my arse spanked.

  “So let me get this clear,” he says. You came here because you thought us responsible for your father’s death.”

  Well, that ones’s easy. “Yes.”

  He pats my arse. “Good. And let’s get this clear. You have it in your head that you’re a nuisance to us, that you’re in our hair, and you have to pack up and go.”

  “Also, yes.”

  “And that, lass, is where you’re wrong.”

  I squeal when his large palm crashes against my upturned backside. “Ow!”

  “Furthermore,” he continues. “You think I’ve taken you from the club, brought you here to interrogate and question, and that you’ll just waltz your way right back out of my life, do you?”

  There’s no right answer to this question, and I’m determined to tell the truth, so with my eyes squeezed tight, I nod. “Aye.”

  He gives me three more uncompromising spanks before he speaks again.

  “Can’t you see what’s happening? What’s happened?” he asks.

  I answer honestly. “No.”

  He spanks me again.

  “H
ey! I told you the truth.”

  “I spanked you for not seeing it.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  I scissor my legs when he gives me another three hard, searing spanks. “Clearly, lass, I can.”

  He rests his palm on my flaming hot arse. “Now, Sheena, I do believe I’ve got your attention. Don’t I?”

  I squirm but nod my head. “Aye, clearly.” My entire body’s at full attention.

  “Good. Now listen to me,” he says. “You’ve brought your brothers and sister to my home. We brought them here for protection. There were misunderstandings, and we’ve much to sort out. But they like it here, and we like having them here. And if you think I’ll let you waltz into my life, then take those children and yourself and waltz right back out again? Then you deserve this.”

  That’s when the spanking he gives me begins in earnest. I can’t breathe or speak, as his hand falls. He slows down, adjusts me, and lets me have it.

  It hurts, but nothing worse than I’ve had before. There’s more to it than that, though. I thought he broke down my walls before, but this… this is something else altogether.

  He cares about me. He cares about us. Against all odds, he’s forgiven my transgressions against his family, and won’t let me run.

  I’ve run all my life. It’s what I do. I run from anything that hurts, and letting someone care about me… goddamn it, letting someone love me… it could bring the very worst pain of all.

  I’m sniffing and resigned, draped over his knee, when he finally stops and lifts me to his lap. My spanked bottom burns against the rough fabric of his trousers as he holds me, drags me to his chest, and kisses me so fiercely I can’t breathe. The salty taste of my tears invades the kiss, as he holds the back of my head. Then we’re up and I’m in his arms, and we’re heading to the bed.

  He lays me down on my back, and watches my eyes.

  “Will you run, Sheena?”

  I shake my head from side to side. “No, sir. No, I won’t.”

  “Good lass,” he says with approval, his words like salve to my wounded soul.

  He’s taking off his clothes, but his eyes don’t leave mine.

  “Will you hold yourself back from me?”

  A part of me wants to run and hide, to bury the parts of me I show no one. But I can be brave. I can.

  I shake my head. “No, sir. I won’t, I promise, even if it kills me.”

  He bends and tangles his fingers through my hair. “Lass, I won’t ever lie to you. You’re a hard woman to love, Sheena Hurston. You need someone willing to break down the fortress you keep yourself in. This is no rescue, doll.” He strips while he talks, and I watch him grip my hips as he lines his thick, swollen cock at my entrance. “This is plundering. Ravaging. Taking home the spoils of war.”

  It’s a battle of hearts in which there are two victors.

  Without preamble, he thrusts into me. I moan. I love that he knows I need him right now, to fill me, to take me, to unite us together. He builds a rhythm that sends spasms of pleasure rippling through me, my heart pounding harder with every perfect, powerful thrust.

  “And you, Sheena, are worth it.” He thrusts again, as he claims me, takes me. “I’ll fight for you. I’ll take you on. I’ll make you mine.”

  That does it, goddamn it. I’m no more able to stop my heart from joining his than I am to stop the tide. I’m swept under, swallowed by waves of longing.

  “I love you,” he says with a grin, like he needs to say this as badly as I need to hear it. “You’re impossible and headstrong and you’ve got a smart mouth to boot.”

  I do, I don’t deny any of it.

  “Is that right?” I ask on a moan. “And you, sir, are bossy as fuck and sexy as hell.”

  He thrusts so hard I might split in two. “And that’s exactly what you need,” he counters.

  “Aye,” I say, my voice cracking from the need that suffuses me as my heart threatens to burst. “’Tis. I’ll give my everything to you, Nolan McCarthy. There’s no other man in the world who knows me like you do.” He bends and his forehead meets mine. My voice wavers but I don’t stop. Now that I’ve started, I can’t. “There’s no other man who’s seen the ugliest side of me and still… and still…” I can’t finish. I close my eyes and moan, as he comes inside me, and I explode with pleasure. I’m at his mercy as spasms of ecstasy wash over me.

  We join our release as one. I entwine my arms around him as our movements slow.

  “Finish the sentence, Sheena,” he pants. “And still…”

  I close my eyes because it’s too much. I can’t hold him and surrender to him, and look him in the eyes all at once.

  At least I don’t think I can, not at first.

  But I’m tired of hiding behind my anger and vengeance. With effort, I open my eyes and look at him. “And still loves me,” I finish.

  He grins, that heart-stopping, panty-soaking grin that melts me, every time. “Aye, doll,” he says. “And still loves you.”

  Chapter 15

  Nolan

  I’ve never been the brother that follows the rules like everyone else. I’ve never been the one who does what’s expected, what’s tradition.

  Keenan brought home a woman, a captive, as it were, but he was heir to the throne and needed a wife.

  Cormac bowed to the will of The Clan, the expectations and code we adhere to. As such, he agreed to an arranged marriage.

  They did things the way they were expected to.

  Figures, then, that I’d fall in love with our enemy. The men of The Clan don’t do this, not even close. Anyone who threatens the livelihood of The Clan faces certain and severe punishment. I’ve known this since I was little, still clinging to my mother’s skirts. Though she sheltered me from some, I knew even then that we’ve laws we abide by.

  But I can’t help but love Sheena. Hell, I think I’ve been attracted to her since the first time I met her, years ago at The Craic. I can still remember how she looked, her gorgeous hair all twisted in some sort of up-do, dangling silver earrings hanging at her ears, dressed in a shiny black dress that could’ve been painted on her.

  It seems so long ago.

  I watched her from a distance at the club, unable to take my eyes off her. A man came up to her, said something in her ear, and she turned her back to him. He reached for her shoulder and yanked her over to him. I was on my feet, ready to break his neck, before any of the security officers even knew what was happening.

  She shoved him off, and I could see it happening before it did. Pricks like him get angrier when women get aggressive. He came at her again. Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d decked him so hard he flew backward onto the bar, glasses crashing to the floor.

  “Come at me, motherfucker,” I told him, taking the stance I was taught, prepared for the attack. He did. We fucking brawled, but my brothers were there, bore witness. He was hauled away, and Sheena bought me a drink.

  We made small talk, and I liked her at once. Witty and intelligent, beautiful and intriguing. Then she saw my ink, something hidden under my shirt sleeve until I reached for the bar tab.

  “I know who you are,” she said, and everything changed.

  And so it began, years of her pursuing us and my keeping her at bay. Years of her angering me so much it felt like an answer to my prayers when I finally got my hands on her. Years of sexual tension that throbbed between us like the beating of a heart.

  But I knew… somehow, I knew that if I got behind that tough exterior of hers, I’d strike gold. And I have. Christ, but I have.

  The days pass quicker than I expect. I watch her with Tiernan, giving him the guidance he needs and the space to be himself. She was angry with him for his involvement with the O’Gregors, but also realized that he only did what she did herself—compromised her values to protect her family.

  I watch her with Fiona and Sam, the doting sister who loves them so much she’d give all of herself to them if she could. And she tries. I pull her back some, under th
e guise of her being my prisoner. We both know it’s only an excuse.

  I call her to me because I like when she submits, not because I expect it. I keep her by my side not only to protect her, but because it’s where she belongs. It feels right. And any man who’s won a woman over knows that when a brilliant, feisty, headstrong woman relinquishes any part of herself to you, you’ve earned it. The gift of submission from a woman like Sheena is the crowning fucking victory.

  We’ve been watching for news of the O’Gregors uprising, and until recently, we’ve heard nothing. It’s not a good silence, though, and it doesn’t put us at ease. We’re all skilled enough to know that it’s only the calm before the storm.

  We keep as close an eye on the most vulnerable among us as we can. The women and the little ones are kept under constant guard. No one goes to the shops or beyond the cliffs that overlook the sea right outside our windows. A solid week’s gone by without a word from the O’Gregors when Keenan calls a meeting.

  I leave Sheena with Fiona and mam in the garden. Sheena’s taking a call from her employer. She’s eager to get back to work, and has been doing her research just like she promised us, but she’s extended her leave for a bit while she prepares.

  The inner circle assembles inside the meeting room. Boner meets me at the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet with pent-up energy. He grins when he sees me.

  “Haven’t seen you at The Craic, lately, brother.” he says, while the others enter.

  Tully lumbers in behind him, so much larger than Boner he dwarfs him. He pounds him on the back with a grin and Boner nearly topples over. “You got eyes in your head, lad? Why would he go to the club when he’s got sweet pussy tied to his bed of an evening?”

  My hands clench into fists, and I don’t realize I’m stepping toward Tully until Lachlan grabs me from behind and holds me to his chest to keep me from killing Tully.

  “Easy, brother,” Lachlan says in my ear. “Keenan’s coming in. He’ll kick both yer arses if you fight before a meeting like this.”

  Tully’s eyes widen in surprise. “Jesus, Nolan, didn’t mean to piss you off like that. I’m sorry. Just giving you crap.”