Why did I bait him? I yawn, when I feel the sheets and blankets tucked in around me. I hear a rustling and want to open my eyes, but they seem too heavy. Maybe Cormac does have a tender side.
I drift off to sleep, assaulted by memories of what happened today. But the wine mutes my memories, and soon I’m in a dreamless sleep.
I wake what must be hours later to the sound of movement in the other room. Moonlight illuminates the room from the window, the shade not yet drawn. The door to the bedroom opens, and he enters. He tiptoes into the room as if not to wake me. If he wasn’t an arsehole, it’d be cute.
“You’re back?”
“Do I look like a ghost?”
“Absolutely not.” I roll over to watch him undress. It’s a fair good sight.
“You should get some sleep.”
“Aye.” I don’t, though. I just watch. It’s too dark in here to see his eyes, and I may be imagining it, but I swear I see his lips twitch.
He shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it on a peg by the door. He’s tidy, I’ll give him that. Next comes his shoes, and then his t-shirt, each neatly put away. Soon he’s standing in front of me in nothing but his boxers. He stalks over to the bed, lifts a corner of the blanket, and slides in. I roll over toward him.
“Now can I ask where you went?” I ask, folding my hands under my cheek.
“You can ask me anything you want,” he replies. He fluffs the pillow, then lays his head back. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer. Hell, most of the time I won’t.”
“For my own good,” I say, unable to keep the bitter tone out of my response.
If he hears the sarcasm, he doesn’t react. “Aye.”
A beat of silence passes.
“So where did you go, then? Did you take the sheets to my father?”
“Aye. Your brother was kind enough to take them,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
My stomach clenches. God, I hate my brother.
“Oh?”
He opens one eye and looks at me. “Oh. I knew where your brother would be tonight. I met him there.”
“It took you that long just to hand him sheets?”
He shakes his head and turns back away from me, facing the ceiling before closing his eyes. “No. I told you I had more than one thing to deliver.”
“Aye? What was the other thing?”
“Thorough beating to your brother,” he says with a satisfied nod. “Owed him a black eye.”
I sit up in bed. “Wait, what? You gave my brother a black eye?”
He yawns again. “Two of ‘em.”
“But why?”
“He hit my wife. Bastard’s lucky I let him live.”
“But he… but you… he hit me before we were married. I wasn’t your wife then.”
I might fall in love with a man who defends me.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Again, another beat of silence passes while I process what he’s just told me. “Did you… Cormac, please look at me?”
He obliges. “Yes?”
“Did you… defend my honor?”
He smiles for real this time. Hell, I wish he’d do it more. His eyes light up like jade-flecked crystal, and up close like this, I note a dimple in his cheek I didn’t notice before.
“Course I did.” He leans over and tweaks my nose.
“Hey!” My cheeks flush.
“Hey what?”
“Don’t pinch my nose like I’m a cute little girl.”
“Ah, but you are a cute little girl. And sweetheart, have you forgotten I’ll do whatever I like?”
How could I forget?
I hmph in indignation, but know better than to fight this.
“Well. Thank you,” I finally say.
“For what?” he asks, yawning again.
“For beating up my brother. I hope you gave it to him good. He’s a class-A arsehole.”
He chuckles, the sound so sexy my heart beats a little faster.
“He absolutely is, and I absolutely did. Now sleep, Aileen.”
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come right away.
My brother is hardly one to take a beating without recourse.
I go over what happened today. What happened tonight. My husband is a demanding man, but he’s a protective one. He’s jealous, too.
“Cormac?”
“Mmm?”
“Will there be blowback? Will he retaliate?”
“He could, but I think I made it clear that would be a mistake.”
I lay in silence, wondering what he means by that. Wondering what magic he possesses.
“I can almost hear your brain spinning,” he says. “I said sleep. Now do you need me to force the issue?”
I yawn. “How would you do that? You can’t exactly spank someone to sleep.”
“You can try.”
I surprise even myself by laughing, then shaking my head and rolling over onto my side, away from him. He moves closer to me, slaps my arse teasingly over the thick blankets, and drapes one of his heavy arms over me. It feels nice, somehow. Soothing. I close my eyes, and for the second time that night, fall asleep.
My dreams are dark and troubled. In one, I’m being held prisoner by my father, locked in my room with no windows or light. I wrestle through it, only to find the harder I fight, the tighter the restraints. I wake in a cold sweat, panting. Cormac’s arm’s still tight around me.