Tiernan A Dark Irish Mafia Romance - Jane Henry Page 0,55
shivers. “What will we do here, Tiernan?”
Besides fucking hide?
“I can think of ways to occupy you.”
She grins. “I bet you can.”
I grin back. “Not sure. Maybe Malachy will have me teach some martial arts while I’m here.” I’d like that.
“Oh, hell yes. I’d love to see that.”
“Would you?”
She nods. “Of course I would. Except you’d better clear your schedule, because you know that gets me hot as hell.”
I lift her chin. “Does it?”
She looks at me in surprise, her eyes wide while her jaw slackens.
“You didn’t know?”
I shake my head. “Well, no.”
Her brow furrows. “I thought all you men fought just to get laid.”
I laugh out loud. “Jesus, all these years I’ve been missing out…”
She rolls her eyes. “I think we can make up for that.”
I grin at her. “I bet we can.”
She frowns and looks around the small, rather spartan room. “And what will I do here?”
I think on it for a bit. “You need to hide, babe.”
She sighs. “You get to teach classes and I get to sit in a room by myself. Sounds lovely.”
I tug a lock of her hair and kiss her cheek. “You know I won’t leave you alone.”
She worries her lip, and her cheeks flush a bit. “You know, I was very good at art at one time.”
“Art? Like drawing?”
She nods. “Oh, aye. Used to be a fair hand at it, actually. But not these days. I mean, I haven’t picked up a pencil in ages.”
I need to ask her questions. “Aisling, how many years were you… working with Vivian?”
She looks pained, but to her credit, she only nods. “Aye, nothing to hide there. Not years. I was only with her a few months. I don’t know her or the other girls that well. One could say I was… freelancing before that?”
She looks away. I grasp her chin and draw her eyes back to me. “Did you know when I lived in Stone City I was a runner for rivals to the McCarthys?”
She frowns and shakes her head. “Well, no.”
Of course she doesn’t. Hardly anyone knows.
I nod. “Keenan took me in. Knew who I was and how I’d worked for his rivals, but still took me on as one of his own. And I don’t regret it, lass.”
Her brows furrow. “You don’t?”
I shake my head. “I won’t judge you for what you did. People get desperate sometimes. And I suspect that was what happened with you.”
She’s still frowning. “I don’t understand how you can be so… how you don’t judge me.”
I kiss the top of her head. She was a different woman then, slave to the drugs and using desperate means to fill her belly and pay her bills.
“I see the woman you are now,” I tell her. I don’t tell her I also see the woman she has yet to become. I’m not even sure where the sentiment came from, to be honest. How could I see the future?
“You looked lost there for a minute, Tiernan,” she says soberly. “Are you… what are you thinking?”
“Was thinking of a future with you, lass. But I don’t want to scare you.”
She laughs. “Well, now, I saw you kill a man and didn’t run. I’ve been kept as your prisoner, fucked senseless, and made to obey your highness, and still haven’t run.”
I narrow my eyes but feel my lips quirk up.
“Do you really think,” she continues, “That I’m worried about you wanting me?”
I nod.
She laughs again. “Alright then, fine, you’d be right about that as well.”
I chuckle, but she quickly sobers. “No, Tiernan. I love it. I love the way you look at me. I can’t quite wrap my brain around my place in the McCarthy clan, but honestly, the thought of not being with any of you anymore makes my heart ache.”
She closes her eyes briefly, as if to process the pain of the thought of separation.
“Good.”
She blinks. “Good?”
“Aye. This is how things go, you know, lass. At least with the Clan.”
She looks at me quizzically.
“Oh?”
“Did you talk to the girls about how some of them came to be women of the clan?”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, aye, I did.”
I entwine my fingers with hers and squeeze a little. “And?”
“And I… a part of me fears such a fierce possession,” she whispers. “I’m not a submissive woman, Tiernan.”
I chuckle. “You don’t say?”
She tucks her head back onto my chest and sighs. “I just…” her voice drops. “I don’t want to be anywhere but right here.”