are being ramped up with each passing second.
It’s funny how, even though I can get away with lusting after him when we’re at the B&B, I prefer to do it in private. Because in private, it’s real. Otherwise it feels like it’s just for show, even if it isn’t.
Either way, I don’t feel anyone in this dark pub needs a show, so I ogle him as he tells his friend about how we met, combining both the real and the fake.
He looks even sexier and somehow more enigmatic now than he did when I first laid eyes on him. His black hair is a bit spiky at the top, and I think he must have run some styling paste through it before we left. His beard is very neatly trimmed, and he’s wearing one of his many Henleys, this one a moss green that seems to bring out lighter dimensions in his dark brown eyes and fits him like an absolute glove, showing off his boulders for shoulders and his thick, commanding forearms.
I admire those forearms the way I admired his hands, knowing the skill they have and what they can do. Not just to my body, but out there on the rugby pitch. Fuck, I would love nothing more than to see him in action.
Then he’s got charcoal jeans that make his round, muscular ass look amazing, his boots, his black wool peacoat crammed under the stool in a pile. I have no doubt that the coat is some kind of designer and it boggles my mind to have that much money to do that with your clothes and not care.
Or maybe it’s just that he’s a guy. Aside from his place, which, though small, must have cost a ton, his car, and his clothes, Padraig doesn’t at all give off any sense that he’s aware of his money. He’s not showy with it, though I’m sure he could have a lavish lifestyle if he wanted to. I have a feeling that might be an Irish thing, to stay humble and keep your wealth hidden. Or perhaps it’s his upbringing.
I think back to what we talked about earlier at the mews. How hard it must have been for him. His mother gone. A baby sister who only got to see the world for five days. So much loss, and so fast and so soon. I was lucky that my accident happened when I was so young, since I was able to adapt and live the rest of my life with this new reality.
But to lose so much at sixteen, I don’t know how he’s done it. Then to lose the relationship with his father … I can see why all of this matters so much to Padraig, even if he’s shouldering so much of it deep inside.
I want to help him carry that load. Maybe that’s inappropriate of me, but it’s the truth. I want his trust and I want in, into all his darkness that he hides from the world.
“And so what do you do, Valerie?”
I blink and look up from my beer to see Alistair staring at me expectantly.
“What do I do?”
“For work and such. Though perhaps you’re a kept woman. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d do the same if I had the luck to be with Padraig. He’s so dreamy, ain’t he?” He reaches across and pinches Padraig’s cheek.
“Oh, sod off,” Padraig says grumpily, batting his hand away.
“Ah, well, I’m a writer,” I tell him.
“Oy, a writer? My god, no wonder you found Padraig. There isn’t any money in writing,” he says.
I hate to well actually him but… “Well, actually, until recently I was a full-time writer for an online newspaper.”
“Online? And they paid ye?”
“Very well,” I lie. So it wasn’t great pay but there were benefits, and that was good enough.
“And then what happened?”
I was hoping he wouldn’t ask. “Uh, I’m just writing freelance now.”
He winces. “Oof, that’s got to be hard.”
“Well, actually,” Padraig says, and I can’t help but smile at that. “Valerie is extremely talented, so it comes easy to her. Right now, she’s writing an article about falconry.”
“You McCarthys and yer crazy birds,” Alistair says with a shake of his head as he pours himself and Padraig another pint. “You should write about rugby. You’ll get way more hits. Hey, or ye can make a sex tape. Those always go over well when there’s a rugby player involved. Sell that and bingo.”
“Speaking of money,” Padraig says, changing the subject since I’m already