“But you said anything, pretty girl.” He’s rough and commanding, forcing the wave of yearning to crash into me, knocking me over without a lifeline to shore. I’m convulsing, choking on tears and begging nonsensical words of no import as he thrusts in and out of me.
I’m shivering—not hot, not cold, just overwhelmed and more confused than before. Declan is talking, but I don’t hear the words in my haze. He slides me off his lap and I fall to the floor in a tangle of limbs and damp thighs that stick together, shaming me. The floor bruises my bare ass and no dignity is spared. My useless legs spread wide, trying to get up, while my head remains confused and my heart sputters to jump start. He tosses my jacket to me. My hearing is in a vacuum, and before I realize it he’s picking me up and adjusting my clothing, kicking me out of the club.
“That’s what bad girls get for trying to top me. Get out and stay out.” Declan pushes me through a side door in the back and leaves me by the curb before walking inside. His footsteps echo on the pavement, and the sound of a flicking lighter and the smell of cigarette smoke are the only things that jar me back to reality. I scan my surroundings but don’t see anyone.
I’m alone, shivering with cold, pulling my jacket as tight as it will go and hoping it gives me a shred of the woman I was before I walked into his club. Declan has done something to me—changed me in some fundamental way there are no words to describe. I barely recall getting
home; a man named Neil I’ve seen once before puts me inside a paid cab. He apologizes. Something about not being able to get Stevens and Rhodes to drive me home. He tells me to drink hot sweet tea and take a bath when I get home. I mumble that all I have is leftover wine on the counter and a shower with cracked tiles in black and dingy white checks. He frowns and says something about subspace when he shakes me to look at him. His eyes are soft but the angles of his face remind me of Declan. He pays the driver a roll of bills and I figure the wine will do, despite its warm bitter taste.
I forgo a shower. Flopping back on my bed, I attempt to block out the night and the ever-throbbing weight between my legs that’s only grown heavier in Declan’s absence. I try rubbing the feelings away, but can’t get the right pressure to trigger a response. I want Declan’s fingers spearing me wide open, but what I want is not what I’m going to get. The weight on my heart cracks under the pressure of the past few years, and I cry into the night, feeling utterly depleted. The last letdown is Declan’s rejection.
I fall to sleep replaying childhood memories that give me little comfort. My dad hasn’t been that man in years, and I’m not a child anymore. The only option left is to find the man he owes his debts to…Andre LeHavre.
Chapter Five
Declan
They say church can change a man. They also say that about fine wine and a good woman. I think it just makes the jagged little sinning pill easier to swallow—but I’ve always been the cynic. My mother made us a deathbed decree, inducing parental guilt to attend—something about saving our souls. I think the pain of the cancer near the end must have addled her brain. What can I say—we’re Irish, and stubborn as hell comes with the territory. Tabby hasn’t come since her attack, and I don’t blame her. Neil is usually hungover, preferring a rave with his latest batch of partygoers to a serious lecture of moral fortitude. That leaves me, the eldest, to carry out Mother’s word and suffer.
I listen to the sermon with one ear. The other is scanning for potential threats made in mumbled whispers while I check the international rugby scores on my phone. My Celts are doing well, and I slap my thigh a little too loudly in excitement. Mrs. Grady—a tired-looking woman with four children and no husband—glares at me, forcing me to shift in my seat and slip my phone back into my pocket. I’ll probably take on her eldest son this summer to do work in my warehouse. God knows they could use the extra income. See? I have a little charity left in my soul, when it suits me.
A commotion from the back draws attention, and I turn find my penance slipping into the last pew with her worthless father. My mood changes, and not for the better. Our eyes meet. Mine narrow while hers open wide in surprise. I give her a chiding smile, watching her cheeks burn in the distance as her eyes do their best to shift focus on the man making a ruckus in the pulpit. Her father remains oblivious and it pisses me off. I didn’t know Sydney felt the Holy Spirit in her soul. In fact, this church isn’t anywhere near to where she lives, which reminds me to check in with Stevens and Rhodes. I never saw her in here before today, and I attend regularly despite the priest’s threats that God might strike me with lightning for being here. Father Ross O’Hennessy likes his Irish whiskey too much to ban me from church. I’ve saved a bottle from my personal cache of Dair Ghaelach just for him.
It’s been a week since I saw her last parading around my club. As much as I tried to dismiss her from my mind, she found ways to creep in unexpectedly: On Monday it was her floral scent. On Wednesday it was the color of her hair when I ate one of my favorite chocolate-and-caramel candies the housekeeper leaves on my nightstand. Fuck—by Thursday all I could imagine were her legs when I saw the girls dancing their routine at the club. She’s effectively worm-holed a place in my brain. That navy trench coat of hers teases me. My mind wanders to that Friday night when it lay wrinkled and rolled up on my office floor. The fact that Father O’Hennessy is talking about the sins of temptation isn’t lost on me.
When the service is over I glance behind me, nodding to a neighbor, and acknowledge I’ll be at the waterfront fundraiser with an associate sitting behind me. Sydney slips out the side almost soundlessly while her father ambles over to light a holy candle in the back of the church, kneeling in prayer. I hope he prays to win the lottery, foolish man. I get up to follow her, wondering why she’s here. My footsteps fall in line behind hers, moving down the side hall and past pews toward the back, letting her have a lead as we weave through people. Some stop me for a handshake or a word about business. I brush them off, watching her. Sunlight from the stained glass windows paints her in abstract definitions, broken fractures of light trying to escape the darkness—but I’m coming for her.
Her footsteps click softly over marble and stone, slipping inside a confessional. I can barely make out the patent navy shoes again with the straps so tight around her ankles I imagine them to be slim leather cuffs from my own collection. Either she’s incredibly religious or stupidly foolish. A priest can’t save her, and the altar boys are clear across the church tending to other responsibilities. Even the choir has left their stands for after-service refreshments. I scan the hall and see we’re alone. It’s almost too quiet, and I open the door to slip inside the dark box. I’m a large man and the space cramps my size. I don’t like enclosed spaces, but for her I might make an exception. I hear her slide the partition open.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” Her face is silhouetted by the screen, but I make out the soft profile of her sloping nose and pouting lips.
It takes everything in me to keep quiet. I cough to mask the chuckle threatening to erupt, and deepen my voice, hoping it’s not obvious.
“Tell me, my child.” I have no idea what a priest would say. Confession isn’t my thing. The last time I went had to be close to two decades earlier at my grandmother’s behest—God rest Gloria’s soul.
“My father is in trouble and I’m trying to help him, but I don’t know if I’m making the right decision.”
“You cannot help those that do not help themselves.” I nod in the dark, congratulating myself for making that sound pretty pious.
“I-I tried meeting with a man, but he’s unwilling to help.”
The unease makes me shift in my seat, but not with guilt. I wouldn’t say I’m completely unwilling either, but I’m not taking on debts that aren’t hers.
“Your father needs to seek out his own redemption.”
“I know, Father, but he’s all I have in this world and life hasn’t been the kindest to him. I don’t have many options left.”
“God will guide him.” My fists clench, pressing into my knees. If God isn’t going to guide him, I certainly will after this conversation—if only to get rid of Sydney’s tempting offer. I’m pissed she continues to defend him. If she only knew the depravity of his choices and how they will affect her if she doesn’t distance herself from him. Gambling is the least of his transgressions, if my informants are correct. I have Stevens and Rhodes looking into him and it isn’t good: stolen gun property, prostitution, a betting ring. The man practically made my father look like a damn saint.
“What should I do?”
What I want to say and what I do say are two paradoxical things. Pretty fucking blasphemous, actually. I’ve been toying with her in here unfairly. To me this is a game, but to her it actually means something, and for the first time I feel a measure of guilt over something I’ve done—or rather didn’t do, in refusing to help her. Someone should tell Father O’Hennessy that there’s a wolf in the shepherd’s house.
“You must do whatever is God’s will, Sydney.” I listen to her sniffle and slam the partition between us closed. Her tears slice into my conscience and I don’t like feeling responsible. Instead it makes me angry, irrationally so, and I want her succumbing to my will. I crave to make my dick hard again with thoughts of making her cry out for other reasons. I don’t like feeling soft around her. I slip out of the confessional determined to fix this. This girl will be the death of me.
I wait until she opens the door a crack and I yank it back, pushing her inside. Her mouth opens to scream and her eyes widen in the dark.
“Hush,” I instruct her as I wedge my body against her in the closet obviously built for people half my size. I want to touch her pebbled skin, but there isn’t any room to maneuver while she’s pressed deep into the corner. My body flexes against hers, leaning heavy into her softness.