Mafia King (Young Irish Rebels #2) - Vi Carter Page 0,68

likings, but coming from Shay, his words deflate me. Shay struggles with taking off his shirt, and I don’t help him. Instead, I allow myself to take in how perfect his body is. His eyes are closed so I can look all I want.

“My head is aching, so a tin whistle would really drive it mad.” He explains, and I feel petty that I was allowing him to struggle because I felt offended.

“Let me help.” I tug on the sleeve and get his arm out of the shirt. Once it’s off, he lies back down on his side. Blood has dried past his shoulder. He lost a lot of blood. I return to cleaning it while humming a Christy Moore song that makes my gut tighten and my heart ache with the pain in the words. I don’t know why I picked this song, maybe it’s everything that has happened, and a part of me wants to share that pain with Shay without me using words.

I only stop humming until long after the blood is cleaned away. I lie down beside Shay and let my fingers flitter across his back. At my first touch, his muscles bunch together, and the movements fascinate me enough that I keep going. I keep going until he finally relaxes under my touch, until I can sense the rhythm that he falls into as he sleeps.

I don’t sleep. I don’t leave him. I find a sort of peace in lying beside a sleeping giant. His skin is so warm as I trail my fingers across it. The right thing to do would be to pull the blankets up over him and let him sleep undisturbed, but I don’t want to stop touching him.

He came for me.

He saved me. What would have happened if he hadn’t found me? They would have killed me or put me to work. That thought was more terrifying than death itself.

“What happened at the brothel?”

I swallow a scream. “I thought you were asleep.” I cover my heart with my hand and roll onto my back to try to calm it.

“I was, but I can’t rest.” Shay turns and groans.

“Don’t lie on that side.” I sit up, getting ready to move to the opposite side of him so he doesn’t lie on his wound, but he grips my wrist softly.

“I need to know, Emma.”

My heart bounces around in my chest. “Lucian told the men to take me there. So they did. Once I arrived, I thought I would be raped.”

Shay doesn’t blink; his hand doesn’t leave my wrist either.

“But they put me in that room, and I stayed in there until you came.”

He blinks, his fingers release my wrists.

“But while I was in there, I kept waiting for the moment that the door would open, and they would drag me out into another room. I couldn’t stop picturing a man raping me.” I blink as the tear rolls down my face. I know it didn’t happen, but the anticipation was worse.

“I wouldn’t have gotten away.” My lip trembles. Shay sits up. His hand tightening on my arm, his grip pulls me closer to him. “You would have.”

I shake my head. “I might act like I’m tough, Shay, but that? That would …” destroy me, break me. Both.

Shay drags me closer and plants a kiss on my forehead before releasing me and getting up. I’m watching him as he opens the bedside table and takes out a black gun. It looks larger than a gun should look.

Shay climbs back onto the bed and holds out the gun. I don’t take it. “What are you doing?”

“Have you ever fired a gun?”

I shake my head.

Shay takes my hands and wraps them around the cold metal. “Feel the weight, Emma.” He releases it, and my hands drop slightly before I adjust them to the weight of the gun.

“Don’t pull the trigger.” Shay grins as he speaks.

“It’s loaded?”

“There’s another gun in the wardrobe, another in the bathroom under the floorboard in the cupboard, and two in the kitchen. Every gun is loaded.”

Shay leans over and flicks a small lever near the top. “That’s the safety off.”

“Put it back on.” I’m ready to hand him the gun back.

He does as I say. “The safety is on them all. But just knock it off.” He moves behind me and covers my hands with his. The warmth of his chest penetrates my clothes and flesh.

“Aim.” He brings my hands up to the level of a man. His mouth moves closer