The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2) (28 page)

She tensed. “I don’t know.” He waited while she took a nervous sip of her drink, and waited some more while she looked everywhere but at him. Carrigan was a direct sort and, sure enough, it didn’t take her long to gather up her courage and meet his gaze. “You’re on.”

“Perfect.” He drained half his whiskey and set the glass down, doing his damnedest to ignore the shaking in his hands. “You know my father is a monster. All of Boston does. He’s got a reputation for being an artist when it comes to torture.”

“I’ve heard the rumors.” She nodded, a small line appearing between her brows. “And I looked into it more after what happened over the summer. People don’t like talking about it, but I still managed to learn more than I wanted to know.”

Of course she’d looked into it. It was completely natural for her to want to know what would have been in store for her if she and Callista hadn’t escaped that night. It made him sick to think about. He pushed to his feet, filled with too much agitation to just sit here and calmly talk about her being tortured and murdered. She might have made her peace with it. He hadn’t.

He stalked to the window and twitched back the curtain to stare into the night. “My old man wasn’t a good person when my mother was alive. He still did the same unforgivable shit that he’s been doing the last fifteen years. He was still at least half as crazy as he is now. But when she was alive, he never touched us. It was like this one last bastion of goodness that he had going for him. He might be a monster and a shitty father, but he wasn’t
that
much of a monster. I heard her say that one night while she was praying for his immortal soul.” He felt his lips quirk into a smile, but there was no joy behind it. “And then she died and everything changed.”

He paused, trying to get control of his breathing. If he dwelled on it too long, he could feel the whip against his back, the tip tearing through flesh. It had been a long time ago, but there weren’t enough years to completely banish the memories. His skin tightened, his whole body tense in fear of another blow.
He’s gone. It’s not happening anymore
.
It won’t happen again
. Cold comfort. “It was like the last glimmer of light in his soul died with her. He took it into his head that we’d been coddled and were pussies, and to my old man, there was only one way to fix it.”

She didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her and see pity on her face. He’d survived. He hadn’t been broken, not completely. James took a deep breath. “So one day he drags us down to the basement where he interrogates Halloran enemies, and he tells us…” He could still see the mad gleam in Victor’s eyes, hear the rasp of his voice. James’s skin broke out in goose bumps. “He tells us that any sons of his have to prove that they won’t break. And then he took us, one by one, and told us to pick—the whip or the canes. Brendan chose the canes, and he had to be carried out of the room afterward. So I chose the whip.”

Her soft gasp reached him, but he still didn’t turn around. “It wasn’t the last time it happened, but it was the worst. After that, we knew if we stepped out of line, that was the fate that waited for us.”

Her tentative touch made him face her. He braced himself for the pity, but that wasn’t what he saw when he finally turned. No, there was pure and unadulterated rage. Her green eyes practically glowed with it. She took his hands. “Say the fucking word and I’ll see it taken care of.”

Shock left his mouth hanging open. “What?”

“Some things aren’t done, James. Some lines aren’t crossed. Family might be the weight that pulls you under, but they protect their own. These…” She ran a finger over his shirt, directly across one of the deepest scars. “He tortured his own flesh and blood, his
children
. You protect your children at all costs. To hurt them on purpose?” She shook her head, the fire in her eyes only growing. “The punishment is death.”

“You’d kill my father for me.” He was still trying to catch up with the unexpected reaction. She was so fierce, so furious, so ready to do violence on his behalf. And she wasn’t backing down.
She’d do it. She’d find a way to get to my old man in prison and see justice done, and she wouldn’t blink or feel bad while she was doing it
. He framed her face with his hands, his entire body shuddering with the strength of his realization. “I love you, Carrigan O’Malley.”

He kissed her before she could say anything else. He wouldn’t let her kill Victor. She carried enough. He wouldn’t be the reason she added to that burden. But that she’d offered and meant every word…it was a priceless gift that he could never repay. No one had ever gone to bat for him. Brendan might have stepped up more often than not to direct their old man’s rage away from his younger brothers, but this was different. Carrigan wasn’t family. She didn’t have a damn thing to gain by this. The only reason she’d be driven to demand Victor’s blood was because she felt just as deeply for him as he did for her. It didn’t matter if she said the actual words aloud. Her actions made that shit more than clear.

Her arms snaked around her neck, and she drew back enough to say, “This conversation isn’t over.”

“I know.” He kissed her again, delving into her mouth and showing her all the things he’d never have the words to say. How much he appreciated her, that he loved how fierce she was, how much he never wanted to let her go.

He didn’t know what the fuck they were going to do about their current situation, but he was determined to find a way around it. He couldn’t do anything less for the woman in his arms.

*  *  *

Carrigan’s fury didn’t abate as she kissed James. If anything, his words only drove it higher.
He loves me
. She’d known there was a feeling growing inside her, getting stronger every time she saw him, but she’d refused to put a title on it. Love. It was love. And she was putting him in danger right now for even being here with him.

One night. I’ll figure everything out tomorrow.

Things would fall into place where they would. Right now there was just her and James and several hours of freedom. She tugged on his shirt, pulling it up and over his head, needing to be skin to skin. Apparently he had the same idea because he had her dress off seconds later. He lifted her, and she quickly wrapped her legs around his waist while he carried her through the house to the same bedroom they’d been in the other night. “I’m never going to get enough of you, lovely.
Never
.”

That’s what she was afraid of. Because she felt the same way—that this was the end all, be all, and everything after this would be like living in a shadow. She kissed him harder.
There is no tomorrow. There is just right now, in this moment, with this man
. The feeling of a clock counting down in the back of her head intensified. This might be her last chance to have him, to feel his hands on her body, to have him whispering filthy things in her ear.

To tell him how she felt.

She opened her mouth to do just that, but some instinct held her back. If he knew she loved him, too, he’d never let her go. He’d fight to his dying breath for her. Which was the damn problem—his
dying
breath.
I can’t let him die for me
.

So she kept silent as he laid her on the bed and kissed her as if he never needed to breathe. His clever fingers did away with her bra and he sat back, pulling her panties with him. He stopped with them around her ankles, her feet pressed against his chest. “What do you need from me tonight?”

She pressed her lips together to keep from confessing everything—her fear and her shitty future and all the worries crowding to the forefront of her brain now that they weren’t losing themselves in each other. She focused on his blue eyes. How had she ever thought they were cold? They weren’t. They were the hottest flame. Really, there was only one answer. “Everything.”

He nodded like she’d confessed to more than a single word. Maybe she had. “Everything and more, lovely.” He tossed her panties to the side.

She didn’t give him a chance to retreat, though. Carrigan unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down just enough to free his cock. His whole body went tense, and she looked up the long line of his chest, meeting his gaze and waiting to see if he’d stop her. He didn’t.

So she took him into her mouth, sucking him down until his curse rang to the ceiling. He fisted his hands in her hair. “I’ve been thinking about that hot, wet mouth around my cock, lovely. I’ve come more times than I can count to that fantasy.”

She hummed her approval, taking him deeper, never taking her eyes off his face. He watched her, his jaw tight and his eyes hooded. “The fantasy doesn’t even come close. Slip that hand between your legs. Does sucking me off get you wet?”

Yes
. She ran her tongue along the underside of his cock as she obeyed him. Though a part of her wanted to finish him like this, to see him lose control completely, she needed to lose herself in him more. “James, I need you.”

“And if I tell you to finish me this way?”

His control was better than hers. It had been since they started this dance around each other all those months ago. But she had an ace up her sleeve, and she didn’t hesitate to use it now. “Please, James. I want to come around your cock.
Please
.”

He cursed long and low. “I couldn’t deny you even if I wanted to.” He grabbed a condom from the nightstand, put it on, and crawled onto the bed, settling between her legs. He shoved against her, the angle wrong to push inside her, his cock sliding over her clit. “This is what you need, lovely.” He hitched her leg up, opening her further.

“Yes!” She grabbed his shoulders, arching up to meet his thrusts, trying to move to eliminate that last tiny distance between them.

But he was having none of it. He nipped her neck. “Not yet.”

“Damn it, stop teasing me.”

“Never.” He slid over her again, the sensation not enough to push her into oblivion. “I love the way you writhe for me, how your body goes soft and tight at the same time, like you’ll never get enough.” He kept his free hand on her hip, pinning her in place and preventing her from changing the angle. “I love how you’ll do damn near anything to get me inside you.”

She would, too. She grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking it a little harder than she would have normally. “And you’re a goddamn tease.”

“You love it.” Another stroke.

“Maybe.”

He shifted, his cock notching in her entrance, and pushed just the tip into her. She hissed out a breath, needing so much more, but he seemed content to hold that position.
“James!”

He sank another inch into her. “This is what you need. What you can’t go another second without.”

“Yes. Oh my God, yes.”

Another inch. And another. Slowly and surely, until he had sunk into her to the hilt. And then he kissed her, his tongue working hers, taking what he already knew was his. She moved against him, only able to shift the slightest bit because of his weight pinning her to the mattress. That barest amount created a delicious friction, though, so she kept doing it. Pleasure built with each breath, low and deep and more profound than anything she’d ever felt before. She clutched his shoulders, her legs sliding over his, sweat slicking her skin. “James, I—”

“I know, lovely.” He thrust a little, spiraling her pleasure higher. “I feel it, too.”

She was so damn close, but she never wanted it to end. She ran her hands down his back, lightly raking her nails over his skin, to dig into his ass. “Please don’t stop.”

“I’m never going to stop.” He thrust again, and that was all it took. She undulated wildly beneath him, taking him as deep as she could in this position, holding him so close she wasn’t sure where she ended and where he began. He moved back, spreading her legs even further and pounding into her. “I’ve said it before, lovely, and I’ll say it again. You’re mine and mine alone.”

Chapter Twenty-One

J
ames traced Carrigan’s tattoo and then moved down the center of her stomach. Her muscles twitched beneath his finger, but she just turned her head and looked at him. Tired pleasure radiated from every line of her body. “I needed that.”

“I know.” He kissed her shoulder. Having her beneath him had been almost cleansing. He felt new and whole and vulnerable in a way he wasn’t prepared to deal with. He’d told her he loved her. She hadn’t said it back, but she also hadn’t run screaming from the room. He knew she cared about him. There was time to build things between them.

He wasn’t about to let her go without a fight.

“Do you ever think about just…leaving?” She closed her eyes. “Sometimes I fantasize about getting in a car and driving until I find some tiny little town where no one’s heard of the O’Malleys and where everyone knows everyone else and things are just
simpler
.”

“I’ve thought about it.” But he’d never left for the same reason she hadn’t.
Family
. “I figure those small-town people have their own problems and secrets and bullshit. It’s the human condition.”