by M. O’Keefe
“Ronan.” Her voice had protest inside of it.
“Until I say enough.”
She shook her head and I slipped my finger between her legs, pressing my fingers against her clit the way she liked. Soft and then harder. And then harder still. She bucked against me. I fucked her through three orgasms, the third I had my thumb in her asshole and she was begging me to stop and to keep going at the same time.
“Ronan,” she sobbed. The muscles of her back were twitching under her skin as I ran my hands down her spine. “Please. Please come.”
This surrender was so delicious, more so because it was the only surrender I would get from her. And…perhaps the only surrender I actually wanted. “I love the way you beg me to come inside of you,” I told her.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Fill me up.”
I was already stroking myself through the slippery mess we’d made between her legs. Hard thrusts that shoved her body against the bed. I liked that too. She’d been used and satisfied. She was mine to use and satisfy.
Surrender and trust.
The orgasm I’d been fighting off was undeniable now and whatever I wanted…whatever the animal in me craved, my years of restraint were too ingrained. I couldn’t make the mistake of what happened on the plane again. Surrender and trust were not mine for the giving. I pulled out of her body, stroking myself until I came in creamy white jets all over that bow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ronan
My apartment, like most of the old buildings in Brooklyn, had roof access. When I was young, fresh from Northern Ireland and missing what was familiar, I used to come up here to smoke and look at the stars.
Only there weren’t stars in New York City. Too many lights, too much smog. So all I had was smoking.
I miss smoking.
I needed something to do with my hands that wasn’t touching Poppy. Perhaps now was a good time to teach Raj a lesson about taking Poppy places she had no business going. But, my heart wasn’t in it. I knew how persuasive Poppy could be, the way she blinked those big eyes and stuck out her chin and made stone-cold killers into lap dogs.
Fuck. I couldn’t say no to her, how could I expect Raj to?
Niamh tried to make this roof something grand. There were chairs and a table. Plants. A lot of fucking plants. She said, every once in a while, after a little too much whiskey that she missed the green of home. That no park no matter how big in the middle of a city could replace the verdant lushness of Ireland.
It was rich coming from her, who’d preached about the dangers of missing anything. Of nostalgia and attachment.
But I’d taken those words on my tongue like communion. And I’d done it, hadn’t I? For years. I didn’t miss Ireland. I didn’t miss my conscience. My soul. I didn’t miss kindness. Or decency.
But now, ten minutes after touching her, I missed Poppy.
Missed her.
I missed the give of her flesh under my body. The softness of her skin. I missed her voice.
She was a flight of stairs beneath me, naked in a bed I’d left her in and I missed her like she was miles away. Missed her like I hadn’t seen her in years.
I braced my hands against the waist-high wall between me and a four-hundred-foot drop to the ground.
“Fuck!” I said and then I shouted it.
Clearly, fucking her had been a mistake. And I could pat myself on the back all I liked because I managed not to come inside of her like some randy git, but fucking Poppy would always be a mistake. But right now, night settling over the city, I didn’t know if I could stop.
There was the clank of the door opening and I pulled myself together. There was so much to do, so much to untangle to get Poppy out of this web. Work would straighten me out, like.
It always did.
“Raj,” I said. “We need—”
I turned to find Poppy coming out the door onto the roof. At the look on my face she paused for a second in the doorway. Uncertain. I’d spanked her, fucked her until she wept, and now she was unsure.
“Raj told me where you were.”
The moon was out behind her. Brilliant and yellow from the smog of the city. Suddenly and without warning I ached to have her anywhere but here. This dirty violent city that didn’t care for how soft she was.
How sweet.
“Do you want me to leave?”
No. God no. Please don’t leave.
“Do what you like.”
She stepped onto the roof, the door clanged shut behind her.
“It’s nice up here,” she said. “Did you do this?”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Who did?”
“Niamh.”
She was wearing a pair of jeans and a purple shirt. She looked lovely. Young and innocent and lovely. I turned away, my hands in fists, trying to get a grip on all things I’d let go of since meeting her.
“I didn’t think she was the gardening type,” she said.
“Niamh is full of surprises,” I said. The city was buzzing beneath us. A thousand lives going on as they should. The mundane and the ordinary.
“So are you,” she said quietly, coming to stand next to me. I shifted away. Childish but I was clinging to control. I’d been missing her and here she was, darling and fucking stubborn.
“Caroline told me you killed the senator.”
Fuck. This reckoning. I knew what she would do, how she’d turn me killing a man who hurt her into a love song.
“So?”
“It wasn’t her order. You did it on your own.”
I’d known this was coming, from the second I’d told the lie, I’d known she’d find out somehow. And I’d written a script in my head.
“Why did you do it?”
A dog barked. A car door slammed. I thought of the first man I’d killed, the taste of good whiskey over bad vomit. All the ugly shit I’d done.
“Ronan?”
The script was simple. Deny it. If she pressed, lie and tell her I didn’t give a shit about what the senator did to her. Hurt her until she backed away. It wasn’t a sophisticated script but it was all I fucking had.
Her hand touched mine, small and cold and I couldn’t hold on to the ugly shit or the script I’d written. She brushed it all aside with those chilly fingers. And I’d be damned for this in ways I couldn’t even see yet, but I couldn’t lie to her. Not to brave Poppy.
“Because he hurt you. Because he would keep hurting you. Because you deserved better.”
If she would have smiled, I could have walked away. If she’d looked at me like a girl with foolish love in her eyes, I could have found it in me to snarl and destroy her.
But she looked at me with calm and steady eyes. Eyes that had seen some ugly shit. And wasn’t scared of it. Didn’t judge it.
“She also said she didn’t order you to seduce me. You did that on your own, too.”
“Aye.” I didn’t know where all this truth was coming from. It would only cause problems.
“Why?”
“Because you so clearly needed to be seduced.”
“Why did you lie about it?”
“So you wouldn’t go reading into it, lass. Like you’re doing. I’m a killer and the senator was a man who needed killing. That’s all.”
Now, she smiled at me. “And you touched me, because I needed it. You broke all your rules just because I needed to learn how to be fucked. How to come. How to suck cock and—”
I grabbed her by the shoulders because it wasn’t like that. “I touched you because I couldn’t help myself.”
She nodded, the smile gone. “I feel the same way, Ronan.”
“It doesn’t change anything. I can’t be what you want.”
“I don’t know, you did all right a little bit ago.”
Now it was me smiling, like some lovesick fool. She sighed, like she was just so happy to see me smiling and I wiped the expression from my face. I stepped back. And then again.
“Come on, lass,” I said, walking fo
r the door. “We have some work to do.”
* * *
Poppy
The boy from the college library, the one I’d fooled around with but never went all the way with, knew all these German words. His grandfather had been German or something. Anyway, the Germans have the perfect word for so many complicated, mixed emotions. Like weltschmerz—which means the pain we feel when the world doesn’t live up to our expectations.
I understood that particular feeling down to my bones years and years before I was introduced to the word. I thought, maybe, Ronan just didn’t know the word for what he was feeling. And I wasn’t saying it was love, what he was feeling. No. But it was something. And maybe if he just knew the word, it wouldn’t be so terrifying. Affection. Care. Lust. All those words I would take. I would take and water and grow and have faith that at some point they’d be love. How could they not? He killed the senator for me.
I followed him down from that surprising rooftop garden, back to our apartment.
It was midnight or after and the first thing Ronan did was make coffee.
“You should get some sleep,” he said. “You must be tired.”
“No,” I lied. “You’re right, we have work to do. What happened with Bryant Morelli?” “Who told you I went to the Morellis?”
“Niamh.”
“That’s why you went to Caroline?”
“Divide and conquer.”
“You’re not to do that again, Poppy.”
My ass was still sore and probably would be for days. “Lesson learned, Ronan. So? What happened?”
He rubbed his hand over his face and I knew, looking at him, what some of the conversation must have been.
You’re not like him, I wanted to tell him.
Just because you have the same last name doesn’t make you one of them.
“What did he say about your mother?”
“She was an artist.”
“Really?”
“And her father beat her. She fell in love with some kid her father didn’t approve of and he had the kid killed.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?” he said, pushing away my sympathy.
“Because it’s hard to hear that your mother was hurt. Even if you didn’t know her.”
He set a cup of coffee in front of me and I grabbed his hand. I could feel the tension in his arm, the will to pull away, but he stood there. Letting me hold him in this way.
“He said she was born with a conscience. That she didn’t like being a Morelli.” He licked his lips and in the hush of the apartment I was sure I could hear his heartbeat. “When I was young and the gangs where I lived were taking notice of me because I was quick and strong and I was trying to resist them, I thought…it was stupid, but I thought, if my ma was watching, I’d make her proud. Keep my nose clean. Stay out of trouble, like.”
“Ronan,” I whispered, knowing where he was going. “You were a kid. All alone.”
“And I’m a man now, aren’t I? And my ma if she’s looking down, she’s far from proud, Poppy. She’d be ashamed of me, because I’m just like them.”
“You’re nothing like them.”
He gave me a pitying look and pulled his hand away.
“What happened with Caroline?” he asked. Back to business. “Tell me everything she said.”
“She doesn’t know what he was doing for the Morellis.”
“Bryant said he was doing sensitive work. Expensive.”
“What does that mean?”
“Blackmail? Money laundering? Bribing other politicians. Could be anything.”
“Okay…so, what do we do?”
He looked at me a long time. Too long.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Why are you lying?” He stepped away and I stood up, following. “Ronan, you’re scaring me. And I’m so tired of being scared.”
“Bryant said he’d forget the money the Senator owed him, and he’d forget not getting whatever it was his money paid for—”
“If?”
“If I worked for him.”
Oh my god, Caroline was right. I gripped his hand like I could keep him through my meager strength.
“How much money?”
“Billions.”
I sat back down, reeling. With everything the senator left me, even if I sold all the houses, I couldn’t pay that back.
“You can’t work for them, Ronan.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
I took a deep breath and turned to look at that stupid bankers box on the table. There had to be something in that box. Proof? Evidence?
Behind me, I heard the front door open and Ronan was standing there shrugging into a jacket. “What are you doing?” I cried.
“I have to go out.”
“Ronan—”
“Trust me, Poppy.”
I did not want to. I wanted to scream at him to tell me what he was doing, but I knew that would get me absolutely nowhere.
“Okay,” I said.
“I’ll be back within the hour.”
“Ronan?” He popped his head out from behind the door. “Caroline also said she put the bounty on you to remind you who you belong to.”
“Sounds like her.”
“I said you belong to me.”
* * *
After Ronan left I sat down on the couch and took the lid off the box and almost immediately fell asleep. Between jet lag, the orgasms, and the emotional overload of the past day, I was useless.
I woke up when there was a noise at the front door.
For a moment I was disoriented. The apartment was dark. Quiet.
Then the noise again.
There were twenty armed guards between me and any Morelli who might want to get in that door—but my heart still skipped a beat. The reality of my life right now was that there might be bad guys on the other side of that door. Or if not on the other side of that door, waiting for me when I walked out of the building. When I went to visit my sister. When I went to buy tampons at the drugstore, coffee on the corner. And I might not ever feel completely safe again.
I hadn’t thought of it, having lived my life with fear for a long time. But the fear the senator gave me was different. It was small and hidden. Something I could cover up with smiles and foundation galas. How would I get used to this new fear?
Ronan will show me, I thought, trying to be comforted by the thought. The lock flipped. Another one.
It had to be Ronan. I knew that in my brain, but it was still such a relief when the door opened and he was revealed in dark dress pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His eyes were dark and he looked impossibly tired.
“You all right?” he asked me.
“Fine. You just—”
“Let me in, you fucking asshole.” There was a familiar voice behind Ronan and my heart leaped into my throat. I was running towards the door before I was even conscious of it. Zilla shoved past him and we collided into each other’s arms.
“Hey,” she whispered into my ear and I realized that I was crying. “Hey, oh, Poppy. It’s all right. It’s okay. Give us some privacy, would you?” Zilla snapped, and because I didn’t want to show my fear to Ronan, I didn’t lift my head. I only heard him lock the door and walk away into the kitchen. I wiped my eyes, putting on the bravest face I had, but Zilla, as usual, saw right through it.
“Stop,” she whispered, sitting me down on the couch. “Don’t pretend. You’ve pretended you’re okay enough for two lifetimes. Tell me what’s wrong.”
And suddenly, it was all pouring out of me. The girl in the shop. Men being killed around me. Being on the run. Being married. So much had happened and I hadn’t processed even a second of it. Until now.
Until the comforting familiarity of my sister’s arms.
“Is he hurting you?” Zilla asked.
“No. God. No. He’s not,” I said. I took a deep breath, getting myself under contr
ol. “That was just…it’s been a fucking week, Zilla. How did you get here?”
“We got back from London like three hours ago and that asshole came knocking on my door.” She jerked her thumb back towards the kitchen where Ronan lingered near the doorway, not even pretending he wasn’t listening to us.
Ronan went and got her, because he knew I’d be worried. Because he knew I needed her. Something sweet pierced my grief and I took a deep breath.
“Now. Come on. Tell me why you had to get married,” Zilla said.
I sensed Ronan and glanced over at the kitchen where he stood in the doorway. Very carefully and very clearly, he shook his head no. Don’t tell her everything.
I felt another sob rise up in my throat. After getting married, I’d kept part of my life to myself. The worst of what the senator did to me, in fear of Zilla and her vigilante justice and perhaps because I was not brave enough to say out loud the things that happened to me in the dark rooms of my house.
And I appreciated that I needed to keep some of what was happening a secret from Zilla, in an effort to keep her safe. But she was my sister and I was really alone. I told her what I could. Aware every minute of Ronan watching us. Me.
“I never liked Caroline,” Zilla said.
“I know. And you were right to not trust her. I’m sorry,” I said. “So much pain could have been avoided if I had trusted you and not her.”
She pulled me back into her arms. “It’s all right,” she whispered into my hair.
“I don’t know if I would be so forgiving if the roles were reversed.”
“You’ve forgiven me plenty, Pops. We’re family. That’s what we do.”
It felt for a moment, on that couch in Ronan’s apartment, like we were young and safe beneath the branches of that willow tree. Safe for the time being. Safe because we were together. But it was as much an illusion now as it had been then. Maybe more.
Zilla wore a dark skirt that swished around her knees and a pair of black Doc Martins. She didn’t have any makeup on and I couldn’t help but think she looked so young.
“Hey,” she said. “I have something for you. I went by your house before your guard dog over there made me go to England.” She cast a narrow-eyed look at Ronan. “I grabbed these.” She had a giant purse with her and she pulled out a stack of frames. All my old photos of us as kids that I had on my dressing table. There was one picture of the two of us and Mom, looking glamorous at some Constantine Christmas party.