by Henry, Jane
Could Cormac?
I shove the questions out of my mind.
Within an hour, I’ve got a bag with new shoes in one hand and a scone in the other hand.
“You’ll be needing some maternity clothes next, Aileen,” Maeve says.
“True,” Caitlin says. “They’ll be more comfortable soon.”
Cormac’s shoulders slump, and he stifles a yawn, but the man soldiers on.
“Having fun, are you?”
“Time of my life,” he mutters. I can’t help but giggle when his eyes go wide at the maternity racks.
“Really?” he asks, holding out a pair of trousers with an enormous stretchy cotton pocket where the belly goes. “Do they really need them that big? Is it for twins, then?”
“Darling, not everyone is as tiny and pixie-like as your wife,” Maeve whispers in his ear.
I snort. “Hardly. I must’ve packed on twenty pounds already, and heavens, I think it went straight to my arse.”
Cormac’s mouth comes to my ear. “Don’t you dare make a comment like that again, lass. You’re utter fucking perfection.”
His comment makes me flush, so I step away from him toward the fitting room. “Be right back,” I murmur.
“Where are you going?”
“Right there,” I tell him, waving in the general direction of the room. “I need to try these on.” I need to take some pictures and send them to Megan, too.
I’m not paying attention to where he’s going, so when I turn and find him nose to nose with me in the tiny room, I stifle a scream.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Helping you try clothes on.”
“In here? There’s hardly room for one, let alone two.”
“I’m not letting you do any of this alone.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re smothering?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a smart mouth?”
I growl. He growls louder.
I glare.
He stays.
With a sigh, I pick up the first top and I look at the price tag. I wince. Lord, I’ve never spent this much money on clothes. “Oh, ouch. I can’t believe they gouge pregnant mums like that. It’s too much.”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t care about the price tag, sweetheart. I care about getting you home. Do you understand me?”
“I … suppose so. So it isn’t too much?”
“Course not. Buy whatever you want.”
“Seriously?”
He reaches for the top, tears the price tag off, and throws it to the floor. “Seriously.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “Haven’t even bought it yet.”
“I can already tell I love it. Buy it.”
“Did anyone ever tell you patience isn’t one of your virtues, sir?”
“You just did. And call me sir again, I’ll let you buy the shoes, too.”
I smile to myself. Goddamn it, if he keeps going on like that, the man’ll win my damn heart despite my misgivings.
I stare at the top. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I can buy whatever I want.
“Are you going to try it on, or do you want to continue to chat in this room that’s too small for me to even scratch my arse?”
I give him a look that doesn’t even ruffle his feathers. “Would be more room in here if you weren’t here, you know.” I bend over to kick my shoes into the corner when he playfully smacks me across the arse.
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself. Get changed before I strip your clothes off myself.”
“Always trying to get me outta my knickers,” I mutter to myself, but I strip and try on the clothes. The top is perfect. It instantly accentuates my curves, hides the lumpy bits, and the soft ivory fabric’s as soft as butter.
“Love it,” he mutters, tossing it in the pile. “Go on, now.”
As I keep trying things on, I’ve got an odd feeling, even with him with me. It takes me a moment to realize it’s the familiar feeling that someone’s watching me.
I shake my head and turn back to changing, slipping into a pair of jeans and a red top.
Was that my imagination? Cormac’s phone rings and he scowls at it.
“Goddamn it,” he says. “I have to take this.” He gestures for Maeve or Caitlin, but they’re too far away. The baby’s crying and they’re trying to soothe him.
“Take your call,” I say. “I’m fine. For goodness sakes, there isn’t a soul in here.” The only other person in this section of the store is a clerk in the back, rustling about unpacking boxes.
“Fine,” he says, scowling at the changing room as if he expects someone to materialize out of the mirror or something. So damn overprotective. I roll my eyes when he finally leaves and takes the call.
I glance at myself in the mirror, at my slightly rounded belly and fuller breasts. How much will my body change? It seems like some sort of foretelling of things to come. The recent days I’ve spent wondering who I am, begging the question… where do I belong here? Who am I now?
I grab the hem of my shirt to take it off. This one will come home with me, thanks to Cormac’s generous plastic. Maybe I’ll get two.
I get dressed in the clothes I came in and look around for my bag. Where the hell is it? I open the door to the changing room and look around. Cormac’s by the door near Maeve and Caitlin, speaking angrily into his phone with it tucked up against his ear.
He looks my way and I give him a quick wave. I’m fine. We’re fine.
He points outside, and I nod, waving my hand for him to go. The door to the shop shuts, I turn back to the changing room and go to gather my belongings when I feel someone tug my arm.
Before I can open my mouth to scream, I’m tugged back into the changing room by a woman with flaming red hair.
She slams the door to the room and puts her hand to my mouth. I try to shove her off. What the hell is she playing at?
“Hush. It’s about your sister!”
I blink. “Let go of me.” I yank my arm away from her. “Who are you?”
“Get Cormac to take you to the club,” she hisses. “I’ve got vital information to relay to you but we aren’t safe here.”
“Which club?” I ask her. “What are you talking about?”
“He’ll know,” she says, looking over my shoulder, but the door’s shut fast. “He’ll know exactly what I mean. Ask him to take you to the club, tonight. I’ll meet you there, and tell you what I need to. It’s about your mother. She needs your help. It’s about your future.”
She puts her hand on the door and turns it. “Now go, go out and pretend like nothing ever happened, and meet me at the club tonight.”
“Aileen?”
Her eyes widen at Cormac’s voice right outside the door. “Go,” she mouths.
I open the door and stumble out. He’s standing by the entrance, shaking his head, distracted. “Y’alright?” he asks. I walk out of the changing room toward him, blindly handing him the items I want to buy.
For one moment, I consider opening the door and telling him what she did, but he’ll cause a scene in here. And what if my sister sent her? I’m disoriented and confused, and need to think about what she just told me.
Was she following me? She knows who I am, clearly. Who is she? And what does she have to tell me?
“Aileen,” Cormac repeats. “Are you ok?”
“Fine,” I lie. I was just accosted by a woman who told me to get to the club tonight. If I tell him, he’ll find her, and then what? I won’t know what she’s talking about, what she means, unless I go.
And what is this club, anyway?
I have too many questions to ignore what she’s said. Still, I feel a bit nauseous and unsettled about all of this. I shake my head and walk with him.
“Was everything okay?” I ask, speaking quickly, so he doesn’t suspect anything. “You took that phone call and left so quickly.”
“Fine,” he says. “But I’ll have to get back home soon.”
> Maeve comes up to me and admires the little dress and tops I picked out. I ask Caitlin if I can hold the baby, and she gives me a smile as she hands me the little one. He’s wrapped in a baby blue blanket and has finally fallen asleep. I hold him to me, to soothe my pounding heart and my fraught nerves, and my mind teems with questions, with no rhyme or reason.
Will I be a good mum?
Who was that woman, and what does she know?
What is this club?
But the one that plagues me above all else… do I care if my sister needs me?
I’m distracted with the rest of the day’s festivities. We eat baked goods from Miss Isobel, and eat lunch at D’Agostino’s. I eat my ravioli and dip my bread in oil. It’s delicious and makes my belly feel good, but I don’t really listen to what they’re saying, my mind occupied with what I have to do.
Someone was responsible for the attack that caused the three of us to be hurt. Someone was here, spying on us, and caused Cormac to leave in the middle of the night to do whatever it is the men of the Clan do. Someone knows more about me than I do myself, as evidenced by the article I saw this morning. And someone wants to talk to me. Alone.
“Aileen.” Cormac calls my name from across the table. I look up at him quickly to find his eyes on me narrowed and sharp.
“What?”
“You’re a million miles away, lass,” he says, his words gentle but his tone hard. “You’re still thinking of that article you read, aren’t you?”
I shake my head.
“What article?” Maeve asks.
He explains, and she rolls her eyes heavenward.
“I hope it’s not that that’s got you troubled,” she says. “It’s a form of induction, as it were. None of us are true members of the Clan until the media’s dragged us up.”
“Aye,” Caitlin says, patting the baby’s back over her shoulder. “Happened to me as well.”
“I don’t like it,” I protest, pushing my plate away. “Don’t we get any privacy?”
“Aye,” Cormac growls. “I’ll see to it you do.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, son,” Maeve warns. “She’ll learn to let it slide off her is all.”
“Is that what you were on the phone about?” I ask him.
He grunts in reply. “Aye.”
He would lose his mind if he knew I was approached in the fitting room.
We get our check and walk back to the house. Maeve and Caitlin walk ahead of us, Maeve pushing the pram, making plans for the baby’s baptism, and Cormac and I linger behind.
A part of me wants to tell him, what I was told, and what she asked me to do. But I know if I do, I’ll never find out what she needs to tell me. He’ll go all over-protective and brooding, probably call his whole force out, and hunt down the woman who came for me.
No. I want to find out.
“Cormac,” I say, trying to frame my conversation just right.
“Mmm?”
“Will you take me to the club?”
He stops short. “What club?”
I have to play this just right. “You know what club.”
“No.” His body’s taut, his voice rigid. “I’m not taking you to that club.”
All pretense aside, I’m a little angry he’s taking this stance. How is this okay? “You frequent a club without me, and you think it okay not to take me?”
He holds my hand to prevent me from walking, so there’s more distance between us and the others. “Aye,” he says. “But correction, lass. I used to frequent a club I’ll no longer go to. I’m a married man now, and I have no business in a sex club.”
My heart twists, and for one moment, the feelings that blossomed for him, that I’ve buried in my weeks of misery and confusion, surface again. He’s dedicated to me and to me alone. The men of my father’s clan have no such compunctions, taking mistresses and girlfriends and cheating on their wives. But not this man. Not Cormac. He won’t even share a pint with his brothers at a club where he could be tempted toward infidelity. And God, but I love that. How could I not?
And then my mind catches up to what else he just said.
A sex club? Oh. My heart races a little faster. I swallow hard. “What does one do at a sex club?”
He snorts, his voice lowers, and he rolls his eyes. “Exactly what you’d think, lass.”
“Oh. Oh, my.”
Okay, so now I really want to go.
“Cormac, you know what they say about pregnant women,” I begin.
“I don’t,” he says, and his lips twitch. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Supposedly after the nausea and such die down, they need loads and loads of sex.”
He raises his eyebrows, reaches for my hand, and gives me a little squeeze.
“Is that what they say?”
“Aye.”
“I take it then your nausea’s better, hmm?”
“Oh, much.” And I’m not playing at this. Just the strong, warm, masculine feel of his hand in mind is doing strange things to my body. I once confessed a fascination with sex of a kinky nature to him. What would it really be like if this man unleashed his full potential? My heart flutters in my chest.
“You’ve been too easy on me, Mr. McCarthy,” I say coyly. And I’m not just play acting. The mention of a sex club, and the thought of my sexy, devoted husband doing wicked, wonderful things to me, has me all kinds of aroused.
“Have I?” he asks in a low rumble I feel straight between my legs.
I swallow hard. “You have. Now what’s the harm in taking me there if you’re with me? I’m assuming the other men of the clan go as well?”
“Aye. Some.”
If he finds out I’m manipulating him into going, I might regret goading him into not being so easy on me. I haven’t forgotten the way we met.
“Who?”
Now I’m back to digging for information. “Nolan. Boner. Carson sometimes, and Lachlan. Most of them.”
“Will they be there tonight?”
“If I ask them? Aye. But there’s something you need to know, lass.”
“What’s that?”
“Your brother frequents the club as well.”
It’s as if he poured ice water straight over my head.
“Fucking Blaine.” I hate him. The thought of being anywhere near him again makes my skin crawl.
“But,” Cormac says with a grim smile. “Your brother damn near shite his trousers last time he saw me, and I s’pose he’ll keep well enough away.”
I love you, I think.
The words bubble to my lips like sea foam, and just as quickly, pull back with the tide. I don’t speak them. But I’m not immune to the pull of seduction over the simplest of things. And knowing he’s punished my tormentor and won’t let the man ever touch me again does all sorts of irrevocable things to my heart.
“Christ, woman,” Cormac mutters, tugging me a little closer. Once more it’s not lost on me that I’m on the inside of the street, and he stands between me and any threat on instinct.
“What?” I ask, unsure of why he’s suddenly gotten strange on me.
“You’ve been apart from me, Aileen.” He stands still, and pulls me closer to him, pinching my chin between his thumb and forefinger to prevent me from looking away. My heart beats faster.
“Oh?” I swallow hard.
“You have,” he whispers. Stars twinkle above us, embedded in the sky like crystal-studded velvet. A cricket chirrups nearby, and in the distance, the sound of waves lapping on the shore brings a strange sort of comfort. And for the first time since he made me his bride, a deep, abiding sense of belonging pervades me.
“You’ve been up here,” he says, releasing my chin long enough to gently tap his index finger to my temple. “With your worries and fears and your anger. And I wondered how I could get you back.”
Tears prick my eyes. “For a big bear of a man, you’re surprisingly perceptive,” I whisper.
He grins at me, and his eyes crinkle around t
he edges. How have I never noticed that before? My heart does a somersault.
“Careful, Mr. McCarthy,” I whisper.
“Why?” he whispers back.
“Because a girl could lose her knickers over a grin like that.”
He snorts. Damn, he’s cute. “Doesn’t matter,” he replies. “Already knocked you up.”
I close my eyes the second before his lips meet mine. I want to remember this. I want to feel this again, to lose myself in his touch, his scent, his taste. He slides one hand to my lower back and draws me near, so the heat of his body suffuses me. Deepening the kiss, he swallows my moan and slides his tongue into mine. Plundering. Owning.
My heart races, my pulse accelerating. When he pulls back, his forehead meets mine. Maeve and Caitlin are long gone, and the two of us are alone.
“Tonight,” he says. “I’ll take you to the club. But you have to do exactly as I say. Understand?” The commanding tone of his voice excites me. I swallow hard.
I almost forgot about the damn club there for a minute.
I nod.
“You’re mine, and as such, you’ll not go near another man.”
“Of course not.”
He snorts mirthlessly. “You say that, but you don’t know how these clubs operate.”
“I’ll wear a burka if it pleases you.”
“You’ll wear no knickers and a dress of my choosing,” he says. “That pleases me.”
Oh my.
I give him my most fetching grin, caught up in the moment of scoring what I want and sincere eagerness for what we’ll do tonight.
Chapter 19
Cormac
I’d do anything to see that beautiful smile of hers. It seems she’s been mired in misery for days on end, but something’s shaken her out of it. I wish I knew what, so that I could keep her here.
How did she hear of the club?
A part of me hates the idea of bringing her to that place, but I have to admit, I’m not totally opposed to the idea. She’s confessed fantasies of being dominated before. What else lingers in that mind of hers?
I tell Nolan I want to take Aileen to the Craic. He’s eager to go, and we quickly round up a crew to meet us there.
“What do I wear?” Aileen says, standing barefoot in front of her closet. She stares into the depths and twists a strand of her hair around her finger. “What do people wear to sex clubs?”