Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
The little squeal she couldn’t quite stifle sends heat straight to my cock. I want to hear what other sounds I can pull from her.
I can’t help but tease her. It’s so easy. “Slowly. With my teeth, maybe.” I watch her pupils dilate.
“Cavin.”
“My sisters say they’re torture devices anyway,” I add, trying to sound casual when I’m imagining sliding the straps down her shoulders, watching that emerald fabric pool at her feet. “Among other things that need removing,” I add, trying to sound casual when my blood’s currently on fire.
“They are,” she agrees, then sighs. She gives me a sidelong look. “And I don’t want to wear these shoes anymore either, and if you make that sexual—”
I laugh out loud and shake my head.
“What would you wish you were wearing right now?”
“My comfy stretchy pants and a jumper,” she says with a genuine smile that lights up her whole face. “The soft kind that feels like a hug.”
Christ, she’s going to kill me.
“Where’d you buy them?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Online usually. I don’t like going into stores. Too many people, too much noise.”
“Wait, hold on a sec.” I pull up a shopping app on my phone at a red light, then hand it to her. “Pick whatever you want. I’ll have it delivered to my place within the hour.”
She blinks at me. “You can do that?”
“Aye.”
When I hang up, Erin’s on her phone, smiling at a text. Jealousy bubbles up. Who’s she chatting with now?
“That’s sorted,” I tell her. “What kind of takeaway would you like?”
“Oh,” she says, her eyes wide. “I get to pick that too?”
“Aye. Tonight’s about what you want, love.”
Her smile could light up the whole of Dublin.
“I’d half kill for some chicken curry and vegetable samosas,” she says with a grin.
“Me too,” I say, “but only if they season it with garam masala.”
She blinks at me. “You like Indian food?”
“Love it. Had a mate in prison who was from Mumbai. He’d go on about his ma’s cooking for hours. Made me crave it something awful.”
“Prison,” she says quietly. “That’s where you were. In prison.”
“Aye.” I glance at her, waiting for the judgment, the fear.
But she just nods, processing. “What for?”
“Aggravated assault. Put a man in the hospital who deserved it.” I don’t tell her I wasn’t the one who did it, but I took the hit for my da.
“Oh.”
That’s it. Just “Oh.” Like I told her I’d been on holiday.
“Does that bother you?” I ask.
“Well... yeah. 'Course it does. But it's not exactly shocking, is it?"
I reach over and squeeze her hand again. “You’re something else.”
She ducks her head, but I catch her smile.
And for the first time since this engagement started, I think maybe, just maybe, this could actually work.
Maybe we could actually be… happy.
The thought should terrify me.
It doesn’t.
Chapter Seventeen
Erin
I can’t stop looking at his hands on the steering wheel.
It’s ridiculous, really. They’re just hands. Large, scarred knuckles, a thin white line across his left thumb that looks like an old knife wound. The way his fingers grip the leather, confident and controlled.
But all I can think about is the way those hands felt cupping my face. The gentleness of his thumbs brushing away my tears. The restraint in his touch when I know, I know, what those hands are capable of.
I saw him fight. Saw him destroy a man with methodical precision.
And then he touched me like I was something precious.
The contradiction is doing things to me that I don’t fully understand.
“You all right over there?” His voice breaks through my thoughts, quiet and a bit amused.
I realize I’ve been staring. Heat floods my cheeks. “Fine. I’m fine.”
“You sure? You’ve gone all quiet.”
Because I’m imagining what it would feel like if you touched me everywhere else the way you touched my face.
I clear my throat. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
You. Your hands. The way you looked at me when you apologized. The way your voice went rough when you said you’d be taking off my bra.
“Nothing important,” I manage.
He glances at me, and there’s something in his eyes that makes my breath catch.
“Liar,” he says softly. “I’ll add lying to your punishment.”
My pulse kicks up. “I’m not.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Erin.” His voice drops lower. “Your cheeks go pink. You bite your lip. And you won’t look at me.”
I force myself to meet his eyes, even though it feels dangerous. “Maybe I just don’t want to tell you what I’m thinking.”
“Why not?”
Because it’s inappropriate. Because we’re not even married yet. Because I shouldn’t be thinking about the way his shirt stretched across his shoulders when he handled those fighters, or the way his voice sounds when he calls me “love,” or what it would feel like to have his hands on my bare skin instead of just my face.
“Because,” I say primly, folding my hands in my lap.