FROM WHAT SHE’D HEARD, Evander was carried out by his goon. The other guy, the body, she wasn’t sure what happened to that. Conn’s conversation with Niall was in their mother tongue.
Movement and voices seemed endless and then, in a single heartbeat, silence.
Calm came with it. Seated alone in the center of their bed, time ebbed and flowed, washing over her, cleaning away any glimmer of regret or uncertainty.
Without a sound, Conn materialized in the bedroom, coming to a stop at the end of the bed. One beat. Two.
“Need a drink?” he asked from the back of his throat. “A ride out of here?”
Something about him was different… or maybe it was something about her. Whatever it was, the change lingered on the tip of her tongue, she just couldn’t pinpoint it.
“Cushla Machree—”
“I need my man,” she said, tilting her head. “Why the distance, baby?”
Dropping to the bed, he came to her, scooping his hand across the side of her head, sweeping her hair into a fist that locked at the back of her skull as his kiss crashed against hers. Forced onto her back, she clung to him, whimpering, pleading, grateful for all he was and that they’d found each other.
He ripped his mouth away. “I won’t apologize.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she panted. “You don’t say the words, but I feel your heart, Mo Grá.” Killing for her, again, and inflicting a potentially fatal wound on a man for thinking about touching her, how could she not? “I want you to love me like that.”
Just as she’d said about him wanting her. The depth of that passion, its potency, was a blessing, a gift. One she didn’t feel worthy of.
“I’d have killed the worm,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Him near you—”
“I belong only to you; it’s your right to protect me.”
If only she could protect him with the same ferocity. How far did that go? Was she testing him with her risks or trying to embrace his world? This man, all of him, belonged to her with such purity of intention that her embrace would never be enough to repay him.
His lips brushed hers, slowly pressing harder until his fist dug into the back of her skull. They could just be there together, everywhere, whatever else happened in the world couldn’t touch them in the intoxication of their kiss.
And that was the worry she hadn’t faced.
He’d murdered a man for touching her. Wasn’t the first time he’d killed for her, and she doubted Evander’s goon was innocent. For all Conn gave her, she took and took, only digging him in deeper. One day, as Whisper said, they could face criminal action or injury. Because of her. Some McDade illicit misdeeds might not be on her, but the list of those that were grew daily.
Shooting Evander wasn’t something anyone would just get over. It wouldn’t be forgotten. The man had been obsessed with her for years. Maybe seeing her with Connel broke the spell and changed Evander’s perspective. Had she become a cheap slut? No, she couldn’t let him into her mind like that, couldn’t let him control any of their narrative. If anything, she feared being with Conn would fuel Evander’s desire, not with any kind of love or genuine emotion, spite would be the source.
She turned her head to free her lips. “Mo Grá, will there be retribution?”
Evander wasn’t just shot, wasn’t just bleeding, he’d been humiliated in front of others. Who would pay the price for that? The immature egotist wouldn’t let it go easy.
“Always, Macushla.” His hand loosened to comb through her hair and his other arm locked around her waist to drag her up the bed beneath him, landing her head in the pillow. “For you.”
But she didn’t want to be that. “I don’t want to be the cause of—what about your deal with Evander?”
His mouth didn’t leave her skin. “Nothing’s more important than this.”
Was there anything more important? Submerged in him, in them, the future could be dark, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Except she had to care about him, about more than the way he made her feel and how he appreciated her. Support, that was her role. She couldn’t just stand back and watch everything turn to shit.
Something within her, something—she pushed him back. “Connel.” His curious frown required a beat. Breathing deep, she licked her lips. “I’m in love with you.” When he tried to kiss her again, she resisted. “There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you. I know you say it all the time and prove it over and over and I’m…”
“Baby—”
“I’m not pulling my weight,” she confessed a truth that startled her. “The words aren’t enough, the words are useless, an insult, when stacked against what you bring to the table.”
“That’s my call.”
Was it? He’d never ask anything of her. Never had, never would. He took protecting her and solving her issues seriously while she… how did she show her love?
“You could go to prison. For killing that man, for shooting Evander.”
“I’d have killed him if you hadn’t told me no.”
“How does that make me good for you? I jeopardize your freedom. The family need you. Your job is to run things, to take care of your people. If loving me distracts you from that, jeopardizes your freedom…” The McDades would come to hate her. “You’ll resent me one day, when you realize what loving me has cost you.”
“It’d cost me more to lose you.” Propping his weight on his elbows, his forearms framed her face. “If you walk out, if you leave me, it better be because you don’t love me. It better be that you’ve figured out you’re better than this, more worthy than my level. And you’d better hope I believe it, because if I don’t… there isn’t an obstacle I won’t obliterate.”
Desperation raced her heart. “What does that mean?”
“Only you can stop this. I’ll never see you as anything other than mine. You are the only one with control.”
Over him? Over them?
“I’m bad for you, for the family. How can you give yourself to this? Your people… they’ll see I caused this, that just by existing, I weaken you.”
The twitch of his brow became almost… disbelief.
He rolled away, cutting all physical contact. “Then go.”
Bewildered, the move took her aback. “What?”
“Go. If you mean what you say, go.”
To prove that the family meant more, was that his point? Though she’d made her own. If all she did was damage, he’d be better off without her.
Lip service or a reality she believed? Conn meant more than her desire. No question.
She left the bed by her own side, something she couldn’t remember doing while Conn shared it with her.
This man was a monolith who supported his family, ensured jobs and livelihoods. Was he always on the up and up? No, who was anyone to judge? Lives depended on him, hers included.
Going into the closet, she dressed quickly. Leaving Stag wouldn’t be easy. Without it before, she’d spiraled. And this time Strat wouldn’t be there to support her either. How had she become poison to the people she loved? Lach would be in her apartment. Was he next on her list of people to screw up?
She turned, tying her hair back, and came to a stop. Conn stood in the closet, just three feet away, and she hadn’t heard him approach.
Driving his hands into her hair, he pulled her close, right into him until her face was against his chest. Her safe space. Him, she always craved.
“It’s not possible to walk away from this,” he murmured into her crown, his voice muffled by her hair. “We’re a part of each other now.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, to be a liability for the family you love.”
“A family you’ve defended. A family that values you. You’ve bled for us, Macushla. Stood up to the cops, stood up to your own blood. You are the core of us.”
“The McDades belong to you. You’re the core of them.”
He pulled her head back to meet her eye. “And you are the core of me. Macushla…” His grip tightened as he shook her once. “Recognize your power. Accept it.” Beseeching her, his frustration glowed bright. “Your father, your family, they underestimate you, baby. Here, with me, you are not at the bottom of the ladder. You rule here. Just like you did kicking your father to the curb. That power is yours.”
“It does something to me,” she admitted. “Being with you, being a McDade, it excites me. I feel like I belong—”
“You do belong.”
“Would you have shot Evander tonight if I hadn’t been with you?”
“You don’t have to be around for him to talk about you or for me to defend you.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Whether you’re here or not, whether you leave our bed tonight, you will still be our McDade. You are one of us. We stand together. We fall together. Your name is ours and ours is yours. You wouldn’t hesitate to go to war for our people, for our name. Why is it so difficult for you to believe we’d do the same for you? No one is to blame. We all know the risks and we’re in it together.”
“My brother’s the only other man I thought would be with me no matter what.”
He scooped up her hair to hold it in his fist in a ponytail. “Now you have an army of them. An army eager to please. An army you command.”
“You command.”
“And who commands me?” he asked. “Ask and it’s yours.” His eyes narrowed as his mouth came closer. “I’d fall to my knees for you, Cushla Machree.”
“No…” the word was a whisper. Her eyes closed. “I want you to rise, to push the McDades higher than any other. I want you untouchable, invincible. I want you with me, always.”
“I’m with you.”
And as long as that was true, she’d weather anything else. Let their enemies come for them; they’d handle every storm together.