“Paxon,” I whispered, bumping him with my hip.
“Right. Uh, you have fun too.”
Naughton shook his head and laughed as he walked out to the helicopter.
“I can’t even believe how beautiful—”
Before I realized what was happening, Paxon had me in his arms. “What are you doing?” I giggled. “Put me down before you hurt yourself.”
“I need to be next to you. All of me next to all of you. Think the bedroom is in this direction?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
He carried me down a hallway that turned to the right, and pushed open the first door we came to with his knee. Like in the living room, there was a wall of windows that looked out over the ocean. Paxon walked over and stood in front of them.
“You can put me down now.”
“No.”
I giggled again. “Why not?”
“I like having you in my arms.”
“I’m too heavy.”
“You’re perfect.”
46
Irish
In the same way I knew we shouldn’t make love the night before I left for China, I knew tonight we would. It just felt right. Everything felt right. I couldn’t remember any other time in my life when there wasn’t anywhere else I wanted to be, nothing else I wanted to be doing, no one else I wanted to be with.
All I needed in the world, I held in my arms. I kissed her again and again, like I planned to do all night, tomorrow, and tomorrow night. Hell, I planned to spend the rest of my life kissing Flynn. Every chance I got.
“Paxon?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“We need to talk.”
I carried her over to the bed and gently rested her body on it. I stretched out behind her and slowly lowered the zipper on the back of her dress.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Listening.” I moved her hair out of my way, leaned forward, and ran my tongue from the base of her neck down her spine until I came to the clasp on her bra. I released it and kept my trail of kisses going until I reached the small of her back. “You aren’t talking, Flynn.”
“Talk? I can’t even think with you doing that.”
“Now you know how I felt at the end of our helicopter ride. I doubt I could’ve told you my name if you’d asked.”
“Oh, God,” she groaned when I lowered her panties and kissed the dimples right above her ass.
“Do you want me to stop, Flynn?”
“If you stop, I’ll die. I just know it.”
I got on my knees and turned her over. I helped her take off her dress, remove her bra, and let my gaze linger on her panties.
As I did with her back, I trailed kisses from her lips all the way down the front of her body. When I reached the lace of her panties, I moved them aside.
“Paxon,” she groaned when I slid my fingers inside and parted her folds. I touched her clit with the tip of my tongue, and she bucked beneath me.
“What…what…are you doing?”
“Enjoying the hell out of every inch of your body.”
“But—”
“Shh, my precious Flynn. The only thing you need to do is relax and let yourself enjoy it.”
“Paxon, I never…”
She shuddered when I blew on her wetness.
“I need…”
I eased a finger inside her. “What do you need? Tell me, Flynn.”
Her head rolled from side to side. “I have no idea. Just more.”
I added a second finger, gently pumping in and out while she writhed beneath me.
“Paxon, please. I need to see you. I need to feel you.”
“You still aren’t talking.”
“This. This was it.”
“It?”
She reached down and stopped my hand’s movement. “You and me. Tonight. Now. I want to know. I need to know. I don’t care what happens tomorrow; just don’t make me wait any longer.”
As I kissed my way up her body, she squirmed when I reached her soft tummy, so I lingered there, loving on every bit of her flesh.
When I reached her lips, she parted them and I thrust my tongue in her mouth. Her hands landed on my still-clothed ass.
“You need to take off your clothes and—”
“There are a couple of things we need to talk about before that happens.”
“Okay,” she said, her eyes darting between mine.
“First, I do care what happens tomorrow and every day after that.”
“I didn’t mean—”
I put my fingertips on her lips, the same fingers that had been inside her, and she groaned.
“You and I were made for each other. I can’t say with certainty that I believed in God until I met you. Then I knew a higher power had to exist because you, my precious Flynn, are an angel. I’m never letting you go. Never. As long as there is breath left in my body, I want you next to me. This will probably sound crazy to you, but there hasn’t been a time when we’ve been together and I haven’t known that in my heart. Even from the first moment we met.”
“I felt the same.”
“I don’t know what the future will bring other than you and I will be together.”
“I want that more than anything.”
“Enough to marry me?”
“Yes.”
Her certainty, her lack of hesitation, her absolute acceptance made my heart beat faster. “I love you. You know that?”
“I do and I love you.”
“Your brothers are going to think we’re crazy. Either that or they’ll want to hurt me.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned since my dad got sick it’s that all my brothers want is for me to be happy.” She wiggled her hips. “So, what about you getting naked?”
“I’m sorry, but we have to wait, Flynn.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Until we’re married?” she gasped.
I smiled and shook my head. “Until tomorrow and I can buy condoms.”
She bit her bottom lip. “That was one of the things I wanted to tell you.”
I raised a brow.
“I brought some.”
“You did?”
She nodded.
I rolled off the bed, stood, and pulled my shirt over my head. Flynn rolled too and sat on the edge of the bed in front of me.
“Let me do it,” she said, unfastening my belt. She slowly and gently lowered the zipper, and I could feel the heat of her breath on my skin when she pushed my boxer briefs down. I fisted my hand in her hair when she leaned forward and kissed the tip of my cock.
“Where are the condoms?” I groaned when she swirled her tongue around my hardness. There would be plenty of time for us to pleasure each other’s bodies with our mouths and hands. Right now, I had to be inside of her. As much for her as for me. There would be pain, and I wanted to put that behind us and only experience the pleasure.
I pulled away, and she pouted. “But I wanted—”
“There’s something I want more. Tell me where the condoms are. I need to be inside you, Flynn. Deep inside you.”
Her eyes hooded, and she pointed to the doorway. “In the outside pocket of the blue bag.”
I grabbed a handful and tore one open as I made my way into the bedroom. I realized then that the house had no window coverings. Something I didn’t care about but wondered if Flynn would. Selfishly, I didn’t want to tell her, especially when I came back into the bedroom and found her waiting spread wide open with her hand between her legs.
I dropped the remaining condom packets on the floor, rolled one on, and knelt in front of her.
“We have no curtains to close,” I said, looking over my shoulder.
“Paxon, I wouldn’t care if we were out in the open with a hundred people watching us. If you don’t put that inside me right now, I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.”
“It looked like you already were.”
“Quit teasing me,” she half groaned, half shouted.
“We’re going to take this slow. If it hurts too much, just tell me.” I positioned myself at her entrance. My body shook with desire as I eased in. Flynn put her hands on my ass like she had earlier, except this time, I was naked. Before I realized what she had planned, she thrust onto me, holding my ass in place with all her might. “So impatient,” I said, starting to move my hips. “Did that hurt?”
“It’s a distant memory at this point. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Like that?” I asked, alternating between rotating my hips and moving in and out of her drenched heat.
Her eyes met mine, and she held her breath. “It’s happening.” I picked up my pace when she arched her neck and closed her eyes.
“Look at me. Let me see you,” I said, knowing I couldn’t hold back any longer. “I love you, Flynn.”
“I love you, Paxon.”
47
Flynn
After spending five days and nights in Sorcha and Laird’s house by the sea, I asked Paxon to contact them to make sure it was okay that we were still there.
“She wants to talk to you,” he said, handing me the phone.
“Hello?”
“You stay as long as you want, lass. I can hear in your voices how content you both are.”
“Be careful. We might want to stay forever.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all, my dear. You both deserve every happiness.”
“You are too kind, Sorcha.”
“Do you have enough food, Flynn? I could send Laird with another basket if you’d like.”
“Thank you so much, but we’re fine. We’ve even gone into town a couple of times.” Paxon’s phone beeped. “Oh, there’s another call coming in.”
“You best answer. Stay as long at the house as you’d like, and let me know if you need anything.”
I hit the button to end that call and accept the other and handed the phone to Paxon.
He looked at the screen and sat down next to me on the bed. “Hey, Doc.”
I pointed to my chest and out to the other room, but Paxon shook his head.
“I wanted to give you an update on Harris.” I was close enough that I could hear every word.
“Go ahead.”
“After talking it over with Money, we’re moving him down to Santa Barbara County, where he’ll be in a criminal psychiatric facility located not far from my house in Montecito. At this point, it’s impossible to determine whether he’s truly insane, if it’s temporary after what he experienced in the black jail, or if he’s brilliant enough to be playing us. Believing it’s one of the first two, we want to get him the help he needs. It’s self-serving, of course, but still the right thing to do.”
“What about Fisk?”
“Singing like a little canary.”
“I hope Money is getting what we need.”
“It’s over, Irish. If I didn’t believe it, I’d never say it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Don’t hope. Believe.”
With those words, Paxon’s eyes met mine.
“I gotta go, Doc. Thanks for the update.”
“Before you hang up, did you read my letter?”
“Crap. Sorry, forgot all about it.”
I could hear him laughing. “Glad to hear it. Enjoy yourself. Tell Flynn to enjoy herself too.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I said.
“Oh, you’re there. Hey, do me a favor and put in a good word for K19, would ya? We’d love to have Paxon on our team.”
“That’s up to him, but if it means we get to come back and visit this sweet little house by the sea, it might work in your favor.”
“Bye, Doc,” said Paxon, ending the call.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Free. Completely, thoroughly free.”
Paxon and I spent a month at Laird and Sorcha’s seaside cottage. We took day trips up and down the coast but ended every night in each other’s arms in the bed where we’d first made love.
“You haven’t said anything about returning to Colorado, and I haven’t wanted to ask, but do you need to?”
I shrugged. “I suppose I should, even though I wish we didn’t have to leave.”
“We don’t. Not until you say you’re ready.”
“Maybe a few more days.” While he showered, I called Cord, like I had once each week.
“We’re doing fine,” he said instead of hello, and I laughed.
“You don’t even miss me?”
“Do you miss us?”
“Not so much.”
He laughed. “You’re making up for all those years you never left. You probably accumulated six months’ vacation time, at least.”
“There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Shoot.”
“Paxon and I are getting married.”
“Well, yeehaw!” he shouted. “Flynn’s getting married,” I heard him say. In the background, I could hear my brothers hooting and hollering.
“Would you be upset if we just had a simple ceremony here?”
“I don’t know where here is, but I’ll speak on behalf of all four of us. All we care about is your happiness, Flynn.”
“That’s what I told Paxon.”
“Whenever you decide to come home, we’ll throw a big party.”
“A small party.”
“Whatever.”
“I want to ask you something else.”
“Good God, girl. Get to it.”
“We want to move into the cabin Paxon stayed in.”
“Are you sure you don’t want the main house?”
“What about you, Holt, and Porter?”
“We could move out.”
I thought it over for a minute. “The cabin is where we want to start our life together.”
“I think you already did that, but you have your pick of anywhere on the ranch, sis.” I heard my oldest brother say something in the background, but I couldn’t make it out.
“Sorry, Buck says you can’t have the old farmhouse, but everything else is fair game.”
I laughed. “You tell Buck I’m good with that.” Paxon came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. When I wiggled my eyebrows, he dropped it.
“I gotta go, but I love you all, and we’ll see you…sometime.” I ended the call and tossed the phone on the floor when the man who would soon be my husband stalked my way.
Epilogue
Irish
Two Months Later
One week after she told her brothers and I told Cope and Ali, Flynn and I were married at Butler Ranch in what we’d planned to be a small ceremony by “our” bench in the vineyards.
No one confirmed it, but I guessed it was Sorcha who had arranged for so many of our friends and family to join us, including most of the men and women who had been a part of bringing down Argead once and for all.
Buck and Stella could only stay one day because of the bizarre terms of my wife’s father’s will, but it didn’t take away our joy of having them, her other three brothers, along with Cope and Ali with us. The biggest surprise was when I saw Lynx, Emme, and Saint walk up with Money McTiernan.
Decker apologized for missing it but had a damned good reason. He and Mila’s baby boy, who they named Huck, had finally arrived. Doc joked that his absence would give him time to convince me to join K19, but Decker knew better. I’d been honest with him about not being ready to make any decisions.
We’d spent our honeymoon in the cabin where we began our life together even before we knew that’s what we were doing. I’d never been happier in my life. In fact, I hadn’t known a life like the one I was leading was even possible.
Instead of spending my days thinking about missions or agents dying or even world politics, I learned to ride a horse, mend fences, tend cattle, refurbish cabins, and be part of a family.
I ate every meal in the dining hall with my wife when she was working, at our own table for two no one else dared sit at.
&nb
sp; In a few months, we’d add a couple of high chairs when our little family grew from two to four, since Flynn was pregnant with twins.
“Are you sure about traveling to Washington?” I asked when she and I crawled into bed and she snuggled in my arms.
“If you think I’m going to stay here while my beloved husband is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, you’re crazy.”
“It isn’t that big of a deal.”
Flynn rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah? So why is it that everyone who was at our wedding, along with a few who weren’t, is flying in for it?”
“I still think Cope should be receiving it too.”
“Maybe one day he will, but tomorrow is your day. Let us all love on you, Paxon.”
Little by little, my wife taught me to accept honor, praise, and love, and I did the same for her. My chest swelled with pride as I watched her blossom into a confident, self-assured force of nature.
Whenever I thought about how we met, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the irony of it. The worst thing I’d ever gone through in my life, resulted in the best thing ever happening to me.
“Where did you go?” she asked, stroking my cheek with her finger.
“Just thinking what a lucky man I am.”
“You know what I need?”
I chuckled, already knowing what she was going to say. It had become a code for when our bodies couldn’t stand another moment not being joined together.
“Let me guess,” I teased. “You want to be Irished.”
“You got it.” Flynn smiled and slid her hand down the front of my body.
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Keep reading for a sneak peek
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Invincibles series,
Sainted
He’s a playboy M16 agent trying to change his ways.
She’s straight-shooter working for the CIA.
Irished (The Invincibles Book 7) Page 21