Next to no time after she lied to him through her teeth he was on his knees before her. It was every fucking dream come true. Now if only, he would push her back slightly, spread her legs and settled between them. Allow her to touch that black hair, slip her fingers through the cool silk waves.
“I don’t like it when you lie to me, Emmie.”
And she wasn’t a fan of him making her think he even gave a damn about her wayward feelings, not to mention how he turned her into a sex-starved fiend just with a look. But life sucked sometimes.
“I’m fine.”
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her, really looked at her. “Bullshit. What’s going on?”
Swallowing, she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from turning into a sniveling baby. “Nothing.” Though it killed her in a not so slow yet terrifyingly painful way, she forced a smile to turn up her lips.
He leaned closer and she tried hard, so hard but it wasn’t possible to resist when the man smelled so amazing, to keep her attention on something other than the firm lips, scruff lining his jaw.
Nearer and nearer he drew. Her throat dried up like the desert beneath the midday sun. Holy crap, was he actually going to kiss her?
At the last second, right before she would have moved to meet his lips with her own, he snapped his arm out and snagged her phone.
“Give that back,” she screeched as he lunged away from her.
She didn’t hesitate, nor did she think about any consequences. Just leapt off the cushion and followed him to the floor. His body, holy shit, it was even more incredible beneath her than anything her mind could conjure up. And she had developed a fucking vivid imagination when it came to this man.
His cock pressed into her and her breasts were smashed into his chest. His bare one. Her palm was flat against his heated skin and she struggled not to curve her fingers to bite into him. Mark him. Claim him.
Shoving that raw need down, she tore her gaze from his lips and focused it on his hand that held her phone. She reached for it.
“Give it back.”
His blue gaze had deepened further than she’d ever seen on him before.
“Make me.”
Two words that rolled from his chest on a rumble.
That got her to look between his hand and his face. She didn’t have a chance to overpower him.
“I shouldn’t have to.” She couldn’t ignore how breathy her own voice had become. “It’s my phone.”
“And you looked at it and were suddenly in a shitty mood. Not angry but sad.” A slight head shake. “No. Not sad, hurt.”
Bastard was preceptive.
He moved a hand up and brushed it ever so light along her face. “Who is the fuck who hurt you, baby? It’s an unknown number but it is a text and I’ll fucking open it to read, then hunt them down and beat the shit out of them.”
His tone let her know that there was no way this man wasn’t telling the truth. He would do what he stated without compunction. Just like that, the pain revisited to her by any reminder of Paul vanished.
He’d called her baby. Probably didn’t even realize he had committed such a thing, but she wouldn’t ever forget it.
“I believe you would do exactly that.” Tipping her head closer so their lips were near to brushing. “If I didn’t think it would piss you off, I’d kiss you for being willing to fight that battle for me.”
While her body rebelled on the most primal of levels, she moved off his hard length and moved over him to pluck her phone from his hand. Turning her head, she made her feet follow and retreated back to the couch where she made sure to pick up her needles before sitting back down.
His exhale was over exaggerated and she lifted her eyes to him once more. Again, with far more calm than she felt because her insides were a freaking mess. He’d risen up on his elbows, allowing her an unfettered view of his rock hard abs. Need, angry and nearly ugly, wove through her. She ignored it.
“Drama?”
“Tell me who that is or I’ll find out and handle it.” He pushed to a seated position, held her gaze for a few more charged seconds then bounded to his feet and prowled to her.
She wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to contain her wayward lust for this man. Holding up the hand with a needle in it and thankfully he stopped.
“My ex.”
Emmie lowered her eyes from his at her admittance.
“Oh no, Emmie.” He shifted closer, moving his heat around her in swirls of intoxicating temptation. “Look at me or I’m touching you once more.”
She listened.
“If he’s bothering you, let me talk to him the next time he calls.” His arms flexed but he didn’t move closer or farther away from her. “I’ll get him to leave you alone.”
Pain gnawed at her gut but she pasted another smile on her mouth. “Thank you for the offer. I’ll keep that in mind.”
He held her gaze before pivoting to his right, he flopped down on the couch beside her. Nothing new for them to sit together and talk at night. And on the other hand, it was one hundred percent different for she’d just been laying upon him. Every breath she pulled into her starving lungs overflowed with his scent. When she blinked, all she could see was the blend of their skin as he’d held her. The press of his long cock, hard, against her. As if he were actually interested in her.
“Tell me what happened with him.”
She cut her gaze to him and hid her smile, a real one this time, as she watched him lining up her squares as she’d showed him to do and begin to pin them.
It smacked her in the face, this image of fucking domestic bliss. She’d rolled into this place, and he had not wanted her here. Hell, maybe he still didn’t but he’d accepted her.
“I’d rather not talk about him tonight.”
Those blue eyes lasered her. “Fine, another night. What do you want to talk about tonight?”
She tied a knot and lifted it to her teeth to cut it. Blinking once she found him, eyes locked on her mouth, a far deeper blue than they’d been a moment ago.
“Music.”
“I’m listening.”
Emmie wiggled a bit so she faced him more than she had been. Not stopping her work, she just took a deep breath and began.
“I was thinking this, especially once those young men came in to the bar.” She paused searching for the confidence she didn’t have.
“They were looking for trouble.”
She snapped her head up and shook it with ferocity. “No they were not.”
He snorted and she kicked out a foot, connecting with his strong leg. Damn that hurt.
“Feel better?”
Gritting her teeth against the radiating pain moving up her leg, she nodded. “Much, thank you very much.”
“So bloody prim and proper.” His gaze darkened more. “Wonder how that moves to in bed.”
Absolutely refusing to get off the “safe” road she was on right now with this hunk of a man, she shrugged.
“Not important. This is about them.”
He picked up a hot pink square and lined it up. “I’m listening.”
“It’s not easy for people to get into the music world or scene unless they have money, or a great agent. But it is not easy. And I know from personal experience, it’s hard to keep putting yourself out there if all you get is doors slammed in your face.”
She looked back up when she watched the material in his hand settle upon on rock hard thigh. His gaze waited.
“Keep going.”
And so she did.
Finn watched Emmie as she talked. His heart fell as he did. This was her place but she was running this by him as if he had a say in what happened. Or she gave a damn about his opinion.
Either way, he wasn’t willing to rush her. He wanted her to take her time and explain it all out to him.
She had seen something different in those boys than he had. To him it was nothing but trouble, casing the place to see if there was anything worth stealing.
“What do you think?”
I think we need to revisit you sprawled on top of me on the floor. Where your breasts push into me and my cock is cradled by the vee of your legs.
When she’d mentioned kissing him he nearly captured her mouth right then, but someone had restrained. Now he was going to be jacking off downstairs once more or in the shower again.
“You know what I think about them.”
She clenched her jaw and leaned forward.
He held up a hand. “But. I see the wisdom behind what you’re talking about. I think it could benefit the pub if you had live music a few nights. Hell, maybe just Friday and Saturday. Don’t make it an everyday thing, but special and unique.”
Her glow wrenched his heart from his chest and he just fucking handed it to her. How the hell this slip of a woman had pushed beyond all his defenses and got him supporting her decisions when he’d wanted her gone to reclaim his pub, was fucking unanswerable.
“I’ll call them tomorrow.”
“I still think they are looking for trouble.”
“You can think that if you want. I think they are just trying to make a name for themselves and have had so many doors slammed in their faces, they went to the one place that may not. A pub in Ireland run not just by a woman but an American black woman.”
He didn’t have a response. It didn’t appear she expected one. Which was good, he knew no matter how long he thought about it, he wouldn’t be able to come up with a reply that expressed what he wanted.
They spoke a bit longer then she slipped away and brushed her teeth before padding to her bed. “I’ll have some curtains up for you tomorrow. I may have to have you put them up but I just need to do some final touches on them.”
He walked to stand by her, gazing around her space. “Just yell when you need me.” And he wasn’t just talking about for the curtains. “Goodnight, Emmie.”
“Finn.”
He forced himself to walk away as she turned down the bed and arched an eyebrow at him, her hands on the hem of her shirt.
Fuck, he wanted to offer her a hand with that as well. He’d love to strip that shirt off her and indulge in what she kept hidden from the world.
It was a hard night. As in, he was fucking hard all night. He was up and gone before the sun had even crested the horizon.
As he departed Kells coffee in hand, he tipped his head up and saw there were not a lot of clouds in the sky. He should be able to get a lot done around the pub today. So long as his materials were delivered as they should be.
He sipped as he walked, nodding and calling out greetings.
“Finn Brannon!”
At the corner, he paused as he craned his next to see who hollered his name. A low growl rose within his chest as he stared at the rapid approaching figure of William Foley. Bastard had been extremely vocal of his dislike of one Emmie Donaghue and her owning the Emerald Myst.
He finished his coffee and lobbed the empty cup into the trash receptacle beside him. “Foley.”
The man’s face was an angry mottled red. Finn pushed his hands in his pockets as he watched him barrel close.
“You went to Smythe.” The accusation hurled from the man’s thin lips.
Finn barely moved as he watched him with the disguised caution of one observing an animal who was backed into a corner. “I hardly think who I do business is falls anywhere close to the realm of your damn business.”
“I’ve known you longer than Smythe, we grew up together. We were lads together.”
“So.”
“Then what the fuck is this. That money would have helped my family.”
A shrug of I don’t give a damn rolled over his shoulders. “You pick and choose who you will work with. Amazingly, it’s a luxury I have as well. Prices may be higher with Smythe but he’s not bogged down by stupid shit like racism.”
Foley’s face flushed a deeper hue of red. “She doesn’t belong here.” He fisted a hand. “I don’t even think she’s of Patrick Donaghue. I told her not to complain to you, bitch can’t listen. Probably just some scam her kind is known to—”
He didn’t even think, just reacted. Grabbing Foley around the neck, Finn and slammed him into the wall of the nearest shop. Eyes nothing more than narrow slits, he stepped close to the man he had dangling from his punishing grip.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low and deadly. “I must have misheard you. What were saying?” He squeezed harder. “Did you threaten her to keep her from telling me you’re a racist prick?”
The man couldn’t talk and his face was turning an ugly shade of purple.
None of the yelling behind him penetrated the circle that contained him and Foley. His gasps were coming fainter but he didn’t care.
“Sáirsint Brannon!”
That did it.
Whipping around and standing at attention, he shot his furious scowl at his grandfather who strode toward him, a scowl on his own face.
“Are you trying to get sent behind bars? Is that what you want me to tell your Ma? Is that what you want for ma only child? To have to visit her son in jail where he is staying for murder?”
Finn couldn’t find the words and blinked before turning back to William Foley who had been in the process of trying to escape. The man froze when he lasered his gaze on him.
“I’m saying this to you one time, Foley. If you or your boys tries to make any trouble for her bar, I’m coming to take payment out of you.” He pushed up into his personal space. “I don’t care if that means your wife has to whore herself out to make up your payments. Tell your racist fucking friends to make a wide berth around Ms. Donaghue and the Emerald Myst.”
Foley tried to hold his gaze but couldn’t.
“Do I make myself clear?”
His thinning hair moved as he bobbed his head.
“Speak.” Finn’s command was a bark.
“I understand.”
“That also goes for anyone who wishes to work with her. They aren’t to be messed with or you’ll find out exactly what I did in the Army.”
Turning his back on Foley, he focused on his grandfather and walked over to him.
“You do realize what you just did, right lad?”
“Shut a racist fuck down.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Problem with that?”
“I can still beat your ass, lad, mind your tongue.” His white bushy brows converged in warning. “I’ve known her longer than you and like her far more than you.”
Somehow he didn’t believe that. All he did was grunt. A plane ride to Ireland from the United States didn’t qualify in his mind as him knowing her for so much longer but his grandfather wasn’t a man to take lightly.
There were things about the man that didn’t always add up. Were he one to believe in the stories about the wee folk and the magic of the Isle, he would think the old man to be one of their numbers.
The silence stretched between them. Finn would have shifted had he not served his country and faced down men like this before. His grandfather crossed his arms and turned his head to the left seconds before he shot a stream of tobacco juice to the ground.
“Thought you quit that. Ma isn’t going to be happy.”
“I’ll handle my daughter. This is serious, Finnegan.”
“Because you’re making it that way.” He fisted a hand and forced himself to relax. It worked for half a second. Then the words spilled free.
“I may not have agreed with this woman strolling into my bar and claiming it as her own, but she’s busting her ass, has been since she arrived. She is unfailingly polite to everyone. I’m not declaring her as my woman but letting it be known that I will not put up with that type of behavior toward her. Being a fucking racist pig does nothing but bring down the area. Emmie went to him first, asking him to be part of what she needed to do to get the masonry work done. He refused. Had I been with her when he said whatever, he said to her, trust me this is a conversation we’d be having with some bars between us because I would have fucked him up. And without a shred of remorse.”
They were on the street but he didn’t give a fuck who could hear him. Finn meant everything he said.
“And what happens when he goes after those who have agreed to work with her?”
“I warned him about that.” He didn’t flinch from his grandfather’s all to knowing gaze. “I will protect her. As long as she is here.”
“Why?”
Was he serious? “Besides the fact it is the right thing to do? Keep people safe from the idiots of the world? Protect the weaker ones, defend those who cannot defend themselves. The same reasons I served in the Army? Because what this woman has done takes more balls to do than anything most people I’ve met have ever done in their life. She left the place she had called home for her entire life, flew across the ocean with nothing more than three bags, to look at something she’d inherited from a father she lost years ago. She moved here, determined to at least give this a shot, a chance, no matter that she is the only one in the village who looks like her. No matter that some have been less than polite to her. That some of the patrons of the pub have said they will not be back because she is the owner. She’s still carried on with more class and elegance than all of them combined. She refuses to give up. She studies, learns, asks questions and tries to do it all.”
“Finn—”
“No. You asked. Listen. I am the one who has worked beside her day in and day out. She’s up early and to bed late. She still makes sure I get a paycheck, which I didn’t do for myself when I was running this in a shitty fashion. The Emerald Myst isn’t the only pub around but we are holding our own. The numbers are coming up, even though she has been spending to fix it up. The roof is almost completely fixed. I’m able to get back into construction and can pretty much do that during the day until the pub opens. She deserves respect.”
“And you aim to be the one to make sure she gets it.”
“Damn straight.” Holding the old man’s gaze. “Would you have be any other way?”
“Fuck no. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing. That way when your Ma yells I can tell her that I talked to you about this already.”
“I thought you liked her.”
His grandfather smiled. “I love the lass. And I would have kicked his ass too, had I known what he had said to her. I can’t believe she didn’t say anything to you about it.”
“She’s a bit stubborn.”
“Noticed that have you?” McSweeny shot him a pointed look. “She’s a good match for you. And there’s a Blarney Stone you should go visit if you think anyone, myself included, is going to believe you didn’t just claim that woman as your own.”
Something else he wasn’t going to deal with right now. His grandfather’s look was to smug and he walked off only to grind his jaw when the old man’s laughter trailed after him.
He had the most irrational urge to lay eyes on his Emmie.
Not going to think about why I’m claiming her as mine.