I winced. “Not mean, just . . . you know, don’t freak her out?” I was well aware I was pleading with him, and knew that could go either one of two ways.
It would stir his amusement or prick his temper.
“Like me to pretend to be a plumber or an electrician, would you?” he asked, and I was relieved to see the twinkle in his eye.
“Not exactly,” I muttered. “Just don’t mention the time you black-balled Jimmy the Fish, or the time you managed to knee cap two men who were tied together with one bullet.”
He snickered. “Gotcha. I’ll be on my best behavior. Go on with you. Get your lass and bring her to meet the family.”
God, help me.
Or I really meant, God help Aoife.
***
Aoife
I was so sore.
Seriously, my aches had aches and yet, I’d never had a bigger smile on my face. My body felt well used and loved.
Finn was. . . .
God, he was so rough with me. So dirty and hard, but then he could be so tender.
The dichotomy was enough to make me squirm as I stared up at the ceiling in my small two-bedroom apartment deep in the heart of the neighborhood I’d lived in since I was ten. When ‘Dad’ had died, and Fiona had decided to move in with us, we’d gone from the old building two streets away to this one.
It wasn’t much better, but there’d been no black mold in the kitchen in winter, and there had beensomeroom to swing a cat.
When Fiona had died, I’d moved into her room after years of sharing the other bedroom with Mom. Finally having privacy hadn’t been worth Fiona’s loss, though.
It was hard to reconcile the Fiona I knew with the Fiona that Finn had.
Why had he left her?
Why had he never come back to visit with her?
I knew she’d cried every day over him, over his loss—I’d heard her. Every morning after she prayed to St. Anthony—the saint of lost objects—trying to get him to find her son for her, I’d heard her weep.
Yet, Finn had evaded her for all those years. He hadn’t even attended her funeral, and he had to have known. Right?
My thoughts troubled me, and though it was dumb, I shoved them aside. I hadn’t meant to think on things that couldn’t be changed, but I wondered so much about the boy who’d left this neighborhood all those years ago and who had been forged into the man who fucked me senseless at night.
Just thinking of what he did to me was enough to make me rock my hips.
I was alone, of course.
Finn never took me here. He collected me in his car—either with him, or just Samuel behind the wheel—and we went to his place.
I wasn’t about to argue over spending time there. It was a delight. Comfortable and homey, even if I had seen a man tied and bound there as though it was as regular a sight as a vase in the corner or a dining nook.
Not eventhatthought was enough to ease the ache inside me.
I was naked under the sheets. After a lifetime of sleeping in PJs, I no longer liked the feel of them against my skin. On the nights when I wasn’t with Finn—only three of the past twenty days—I’d taken to stripping before bed.
It felt deliciously naughty and with my breath hiccoughing from my mouth, I slid my hand between my legs to touch my clit. The soreness was still there. Finn fucked me hard, and he fucked me soft, but when he was done with me, I was like a limp rag. I loved it, but when would I build up some stamina?
Before I could grumble, I gently rubbed my clit. I never rubbed it like Finn did. Could never seem to get the same friction, but I tried.