Untamed

by M. O’Keefe

  Poppy sat on the couch next to the box and radiated hope in my direction. She thought this sad bankers box was going to have some kind of secret in it.

  “You already went through it?” she asked, looking at the stacks I’d made last night.

  “Hardly.”

  I had strong suspicions that everything in this box was going to be bullshit. But we had to start somewhere.

  She settled down on the couch, a thin wisp of a girl against a dawning day. It occurred to me she hadn’t eaten in days. Our clocks were upside down from the travel and she looked like a strong wind could blow her over.

  So, I went back into the kitchen and made thick turkey sandwiches with big slices of tomatoes from Niamh’s rooftop garden, on good brown bread and brought them in to her. There were more stacks around the box and there was a smear of soot on her chin and across her bright green shirt.

  “Find anything?” I asked.

  “I glanced through it that night,” she said. “When Theo—”

  “I remember the night,” I said, cold even when I wasn’t trying to be.

  “I didn’t see anything.” She grabbed her sandwich with one hand and took a big bite, holding her hand over her mouth as she chewed. She was fucking adorable.

  “But I didn’t know what I was looking for. I still don’t. Bank accounts marked ‘dirty laundry’? Maps with a big X on them?” she said, making a joke that I didn’t laugh at.

  When I sat down on the couch next to her, she shifted so far away there was no way we would even accidentally touch. We were still doing an awkward dance.

  I opened one of the dozens of files and found the nonprofit paperwork for the senator’s original foundation. And then deeds for homes. Contracts for landscaping companies.

  She glanced up. “Thank you for the food—”

  “It’s just a sandwich, Poppy.” Diminishing it despite the fact that seeing her taking such big lusty bites, having her fed by something I made, taking care of her in this small way…felt good. The same way it had felt good in the cottage. The same way it felt good last night, holding her fast against nightmares.

  I grabbed another file, but it was just more paperwork for the senator’s foundation.

  “What happens if we don’t find anything?” she asked.

  “We go looking for Bennington.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Missing isn’t dead.”

  “Caroline said she didn’t know anything about what happened to Bennington,” Poppy said.

  “Bryant said the same.”

  “One of them is lying?” She looked at me, her mind turning behind her bright eyes.

  “Why would Bryant Morelli lie about the lawyer?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure he would. Caroline would lie, though, if she had something to do with his death.”

  “She’d lie,” I agreed. “To save face.”

  “But what if that’s a dead end?”

  “Poppy–” I reached for her to try and calm her, but she smacked my hands away.

  “No. What happens?” she cried. “What happens if we can’t get Bryant what he wants.”

  Bryant only wanted me, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I didn’t know how to tell her that.

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “By working for Bryant? You’d do that?”

  “I don’t see a lot of difference between Caroline and Bryant, Poppy,” I said. Though that wasn’t the truth. But she didn’t need to hear any of that. What she needed to hear was that she was safe and that this wasn’t her fault.

  “There’s nothing here, Ronan” Poppy said.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Because you say so?”

  “Because I’ll make it so.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Poppy

  I was shaking. A fine tremble that changed the air in the apartment. Ronan was watching me like I was a hand grenade with the pin pulled. Which was only right. It was how I felt.

  It was anger in my throat, making me sick to my stomach. But it was something else too. Something I’d never felt before. A need to do something.

  To hurt something.

  I wanted to crush something. I wanted the power to make it all safe for Ronan. The way he would do it for me.

  “Poppy,” Ronan said, grabbing my wrist. I wanted to snarl and bite him. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to take off his clothes and fuck him until he begged me to stop.

  I was rage and violence and…it was scary.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” I said and pulled my hand free. I practically ran to the bathroom, turning on the shower and grabbing a towel thinking I might scream into it. I wanted…

  Ronan was suddenly there. Slamming the door shut behind him. He shoved me against the vanity, his body crowded mine.

  Yes, my body screamed. This. Him. Now.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded with far more anger than he deserved. But I was full of it and he was here.

  “Giving you what you need?”

  “What do you think I need?” I scoffed.

  “A place to put your rage. Someone to hit. A body to fuck.”

  I pushed him but he didn’t move. Resolute. Rock solid. I shoved him. Nothing. He was strong and big and against my belly he was hard as a fucking rock.

  “Do what you like, lass.”

  I smacked him. Hard as I could across the face. So hard my hand hurt.

  His eyes flared, his tongue came out to lick his lips and I was suddenly desperate for his cock. To be filled. Fucked.

  I grabbed at his belt, opening it, pulling open his pants. He didn’t help, he just widened his stance.

  I got my hands around the thick length of him and we both moaned.

  “I won’t let the Morellis have you,” I said. My fingernails scraped the tender skin of his scrotum and he barely made a face. I could feel the blood pounding in his cock. I could feel how much he liked this.

  How much he wanted me.

  “You’re mine.”

  He spun me against the vanity, so we were both facing the mirror. God, we were so beautiful. My hair was wild, his eyes burning. I’d never in my life felt so alive. I arched my ass against him and he started to lift the skirt of my dress. Yes. Now. Like this. Fuck me like this.

  “Brace yourself, lass,” he said, his voice a rough growl. His hands over mine on the vanity. And then he was inside me and it was so good. The most right feeling I’d ever had. I screamed with the pleasure of it. With the sweet sting of pain.

  His hand came around my throat, lifting my head so I met his eyes again in the mirror. Our bodies shook with each thrust, our hair falling in our faces. I barely recognized myself like this ravaged and ravishing.

  “You’re a queen, a chuisle. A fucking queen.”

  “Ronan,” I gasped, my body alight. And I had never felt so connected to a person. It wasn’t just the sex, it was everything we survived. It was how we were standing here despite the forces that would tear us apart.

  Forces that would kill us.

  We were alive because of each other and I believed he felt that. Knew it in the marrow of his bones where I knew it.

  This is love, I wanted to say. But he was fucking me so hard and so good there was only a high keening sound coming out of my throat. My body shaking, every muscle trembling. I reached under my skirt, my hand brushing the hard length of him as he slid in and out of my body. He hissed and I did it again. I pushed the flat of my hand against him, my heel against my clit and I was lifted up onto my toes.

  My orgasm turned the world to glitter, my bones to liquid. My heart more his every time it beat.

  “Ronan,” I breathed, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Please,” I whispered. I was blissed out and ruined.

  I’d removed every barrier I had against him. Every defense. I loved him and he knew it. We were as close as I could imagine two people ever being.

  He pulled out of my body, stroking his cock until he came into a towel. His
chest heaving.

  And I wondered how I could keep him if I never really had him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Poppy

  Ronan made some calls looking for Bennington and I went upstairs for some fresh air on the roof garden. Only to find Niamh in a lawn chair, her face tilted to the sun, wearing a floppy sun hat. At the sound of the roof door opening she looked over with a smile, but frowned when she saw it was me.

  Any other day that might make me turn around and leave, embarrassed by her not liking me.

  But I had bigger problems and I was climbing the walls in that apartment.

  “Expecting someone else?” I asked and let the door slam shut behind me. Something in my tone made her smile.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But you’ll do.”

  I laughed at the faint praise.

  “Where’s Ronan?” she asked.

  I explained about Bennington and then because she was here and I had no one else to confide in, I told her about the box.

  “Nothing?” Niamh said. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “I guess I’m not either. But I was… well, I was hoping.”

  “Yeah, it’s the hope that’ll break your heart.” She sighed and tilted her face back in the sun.

  “Ronan says he’ll go work with Bryant Morelli.”

  Niamh made a sound like “what are you going to do?”

  “He says working for Bryant isn’t any different than working for Caroline.”

  “I imagine it might be better. Family, like?”

  “Better?”

  “What do you want me to tell you, lass? Rich powerful people are the same everywhere.” She turned her head to look at me out of one eye squinted against the sun. “What you want is for me to tell you that he’s different. That Ronan’s different.”

  Yes. My heart leaped in my throat. Tell me that. Give me that, at least. If he won’t love me. Tell me my love has changed him.

  But Niamh was not in the business of comforting me. Breeze ruffled the plants of Niamh’s garden. They needed an umbrella up here. One of those tarps that could shield the sun. Give a girl something to hide behind.

  “I was a lot like you when I was young,” Niamh said and I actually laughed. “No, it’s true. I came from a good family. I had a good childhood. My da was involved in the troubles but he kept it quiet. I didn’t even know until I was in university. My ma called in the middle of the night, told me that he’d been taken. We didn’t hear from him again.”

  “Niamh, I’m so sorry—”

  She held up her hand, not interested in my sympathy. “That’s when I started getting involved. Looking for answers. Looking for trouble. Revenge. The whole time I was doing what girls like me are supposed to do. I got married and started a life. I even…” A bird flew overhead and she tracked it with her eyes. “I had a baby.”

  Knots were forming in my stomach and I wanted to tell her to stop. We were full up with unhappy endings and I was trying to find a happy one.

  “But I was slowly turning into a weapon,” she said. “A weapon to use against the English. I wasn’t born a weapon, I turned into one. I don’t need sympathy, Poppy. I made my choices and I live with my regrets.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because Ronan was told he was a weapon, from the moment he could be turned into one. He was told his only value was bloodshed. His only worth was mayhem. He didn’t make the choice, the choice was made for him when he was too young to have a say.”

  “And you think if he had a choice, he wouldn’t make the same one.”

  “I’ve seen the way he talks about you, how he looks at you. He married you for God’s sake and he wouldn’t take that lightly. I think that boy would kill himself to keep you safe. But it would be nice if people stopped asking him to do that.”

  * * *

  Ronan

  None of my contacts, legal and otherwise knew anything about Bennington. And I hung up counting it as another dead end. I glanced at my watch and winced. Poppy went up to the roof garden, but this was when Niamh was usually up there. I opened the door to the apartment, to go up and make sure Niamh hadn’t made a meal out of Poppy—though, the way that girl was finding her fight, I’d imagine she’d give Niamh a run for her money.

  Poppy was coming down the hallway, backlit by sunshine wearing a yellow sundress with ties at the shoulders. Her hair was in clips away from her face. I liked these new clothes of hers. Her new look.

  “Any luck?” she asked. I stepped back into my apartment and she came in behind me. She smelled like sunshine and New York and expensive shampoo. Poppy.

  “I am waiting for a few people to get back to me,” I said.

  “So we wait?” I was not comfortable with waiting. Action felt better.

  “You want to play cards?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “A game? Charades?”

  “The fuck are you talking about, Poppy.”

  She smiled at me, a creature of light and dark. Constantly surprising. “Trying to give you some options for killing time while we wait.”

  “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Clearly, I’m not very good at it. We could go get lunch?”

  “It’s too dangerous,” I told her.

  “Then whatever will we do?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at me.

  “I’ll show you,” I said and threw her and her pretty yellow sundress over my shoulder.

  In the bedroom I kissed her sweetly. Tenderly.

  A new kind of kiss. A different taste.

  An antidote to the last time. To the violence and the rage.

  Our clothes fell off and we collapsed back onto the bed.

  “Like this,” she whispered, and rolled on top of me. I put my hands on her hips as she fucked me. But it was obvious she hadn’t done this before. I imagined the senator hadn’t given her any power in the bedroom and at the thought wanted to kill him all over again.

  She got the rhythm all wrong and I slipped out and she winced, coming down on me strange.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, embarrassed. She shifted her weight to roll off of me, but I held her hips. Held her there.

  “It’s all right, Poppy,” I said. “Give yourself a second.”

  “I don’t…I haven’t done this.”

  I knew. And I loved it. Her innocence, no matter how fumbling, was delicious to me. As delicious as when she smacked me in the bathroom.

  I knew she was not made for war. That what she’d thought yesterday would fade and she’d remember how she didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Her heart would return to softness and she’d let go of her dreams of revenge.

  I was made for war. Sweet Poppy was not.

  I showed her the rhythm she would like, gently. Quietly. It was slow at first, finding the friction and the angle. Shallow and short, not fucking me so much as grinding on me.

  I wasn’t going to come this way. But she was. And never in my life had that been enough for me.

  But Poppy’s pleasure was mine for as long as she would share it with me. And it was more than enough.

  * * *

  We lay in the dark afterward, exhausted but wired. Every time I fucked her, I felt like I was getting away with something.

  She rolled onto her side, our skin sticking together and then pulling apart.

  “Watch it, lass,” I hissed.

  “What did you want to be when you were young?” she asked.

  I laughed. “Alive.”

  “Come on, before St. Brigid’s when you were a boy. When you were young enough to have that kind of daydream. What did you want to be?”

  “Poppy—”

  “It’s just a question.” She smiled at me. I scowled at her.

  “Professional footballer.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you any good?”

  “No. Total shite.”

  “Are you joking? I can never tell when you’re joking.”

>   “A kid I went to school with, his da worked on a ferry between Belfast and Liverpool. I thought… I liked the idea of working on a ferry. Being outside. Coming and going all the time. Being on the water. The birds and shit.”

  “The birds and shit?”

  “You asked, what are you getting cheeky for?”

  “I wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “I used to line up all my stuffed animals and pretend I was teaching them to read. The penguin was dyslexic. He needed extra help.”

  Oh my god, she was going to kill me with her sweetness.

  “What would you do if you weren’t doing…” she struggled with the words.

  “Killing people?” I asked her.

  “That’s what Bryant will want you to do, isn’t it? If you work for him.”

  I pushed the hair off her face, traced the edge of her ear with my finger. She was so soft. Seriously, the softest thing I’d touched.

  “You could do anything,” she whispered. “Be anything.”

  I thought of Jacob in my hallway, saying he didn’t want to kill anyone anymore and how, at the moment, I’d thought he was a fool. Believing he could be something else. But I realized now he didn’t believe. He was wishing. He was wishing he could be different. And with Eden gone, he saw a way to make the wish real.

  I wasn’t so lucky.

  “I’m a soldier, lass. A killer. War is what I know.”

  “But it could be different,” she whispered and rolled over my body. She was wet and warm between her legs and the weight of her, the thought of her made me hard.

  She kissed me, sliding down my body to take my cock in her mouth and I tangled my hands in her hair and I let myself wish.

  * * *

  Poppy

  “We can only have sex so many times,” I said.

  “That’s not true,” Ronan said. He was feeding me again. Pasta with basil and tomatoes and spicy little peppers. A ton of cheese. It was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten.

  “Ronan,” I sighed. “Even you need a break.”

  “Do I though?” He grinned at me. “If it’s you crying uncle, lass…”

  “I am a little sore,” I admitted.

  The laughter fell from his face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”