What Love Can Do: O’Neill Brothers (Home to Green Valley Book 1)

Twenty-Three

Quinn slowed his car to make the turn toward Langley Bridge.

After waiting an hour for Lilly to show by the bridge with no sign of her, Quinn had left to talk to Paul Brennan at Mulligan’s for the third time that day, but only after Quinn talked to all his brothers, including Con, about his plan to buy the pub and only after leaving Lilly the flowers he’d bought for her. By then, he’d known there was no way Lilly had left for good without telling him goodbye. She’d be back at some point, but just in case she got to the bridge before he returned, he’d left the flowers and his note. Now, things with Paul settled, knowing that he had his brothers’ full support and that they’d be helping him with renovating and opening the pub even if it didn’t mean they’d all stay in America for good, Quinn was determined to wait all day and all night for Lilly if he had to.

He turned down the road, driving the seventy or so meters before he saw her hazy form in the distance. In her hands were his flowers.

She waved tentatively. Heart beating hard, he parked next to her car. Without a word, walking as fast as he could, he made his way to her. Uncertain whether she was still angry with him, he stopped right in front of her, shoving his hands into his pockets when all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and kiss her. “Hi, Lil.”

“Hi,” she said.

He tapped the petals of one daisy. “I see you found the flowers. And my note.”

“Yes. Yes I did.” She hesitated a moment. Opened her mouth as if to say something. Then she shut it.

And launched herself into Quinn’s arms.

They embraced and kissed with urgency, as if they’d been separated for years instead of two days. It would always be this way for them when they were reunited, he thought.

Eventually, their kisses slowed and lightened to whisper soft caresses until finally, he pulled back. “Lil, I’m so sorry about the way I behaved yesterday. I was angry and stressed out of my mind wondering what to do with my life, but I had no right leaving the way I did.”

“God, no, Quinn. You had every right. I mean, holy crap, you looked to me for love and solidarity, and I couldn’t stand up to my mom right then. I’m sorry, Quinn.”

“It’s alright.” He came up to her and lifted her chin. What a doll face she had. He could never get over just how beautiful she was. “We’re together now. And that’s how I want it to stay. Even when it’s not possible to be physically together, I want our hearts to be one. Is that what you still want?”

“God, yes! I won’t lie. I’m still scared, Quinn. I never expected to fall in love right before going off on an adventure.”

“I never expected to fall in love right after going off on one.” Their lips touched again, and he soaked in the scent of her skin, the way her hair smelled. He tasted the saltiness of tears on her lips and cheeks and instinctively swiped across her eyelids.

She broke the kiss, pressing her forehead into his. “What have you done to me?”

“I can think of a few things.” A hard slap bounced off his arm. He laughed. “Ow, woman! I could say the same, you know. I don’t know what you’ve done to me, and it’s a cruel practical joke of life that you’re leaving just as I’m staying.”

Light brown eyebrows furrowed over spectacular diamond blue eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I’m staying, Lil. I’ve been with Paul at Mulligan’s and he’s selling it to me. Once they get here, my brothers are going to extend their trip to help me get the place renovated and up and running. We’ll have to change the name of it. Something like The Cranky Yankee but Irish, a little more upscale. I want to target a more professional crowd, young wine country tourists with money to spend.”

A smile spread across her cheeks. “The Bubblin’ Dublin?”

He laughed. “The Roguish Irish?”

He loved it when she clucked her tongue and smiled sexily.

“I like that. Hmm…what about The Stylish Irish? That sounds more trendy, doesn’t it?” Her hand slipped into his, as her cheek rested against his chest.

“Not bad, not bad. We’ll have to think about it. But Lil, I love that you want to be involved. I know you have commitments in Miami you have to tend to first, else I’ll kick your arse, but…when you’re done there, maybe we can talk about you coming home again. Can we do that?”

“I’ve already decided,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. She tilted her face up to gaze at him. “This place, as much as it sometimes drives me crazy, is where I belong, Quinn. After I’ve had my fun in Miami, I’m coming back to open a bakery.”

“Sweet. Guess we’re both coming home to Green Valley then. Mam would be proud.” He bent to kiss her. Nothing like a cool autumn wind to make one hyperaware of just how hot your bodies were or how warm her lips felt drawing in his. His arms wrapped around her. She seemed to lose herself in them, clinging onto them as she pressed her body against his. “I love you, Lil,” he whispered into her cheek. “I really do. I know that might change, as your true colors come out and you get uglier with time, but—”

“Hey!” She smacked his butt with an even thwack of her hand. “Or when you’re not rock hard anymore and your six-pack turns into a Guinness keg around your waist.”

“Ah, touché, fair lass.” He laughed, hugging her even tighter. “All joking aside, I do love you. And not just because you’re gorgeous, but because you’re talented, funny, and well, yes, because being with you means a free lifetime supply of breakfast muffins.”

Lilly pressed her body even closer. “Nothing in life is free, Quinn. You’ll have to pay for those muffins somehow.”

“Will a kiss do?” He put everything he had into his kiss, cradling her face, and loving her, tasting her until he felt her body slump slightly in his arms. Making her weak in the knees. He loved doing that to her. “Not enough?” he chided. “Alright then, how about this?” Scooping her off her feet, flowers smashing against his back as she pleaded to be put down, he carried her all the way down the bridge.

“What are you doing? Oh, my God, Quinn, I swear, if you pretend to throw me into the water, I will never speak to you aga—”

Quinn smashed his lips onto hers to quiet her, a laughing smile against her muttering threats. He carried her down the path and set her down gently on the hood of his car, watching as her back arched in the sexiest way. He lowered his head to kiss her neck and chest. Once she moaned underneath his caress, her body bending up to him, he knew she was his.

“Make love to me,” she said in a barely audible whisper, eyes closed.

There was no one around, as they were a couple kilometers from Forestville and the next town was a while away. He slid off her jacket. She shivered from the cold, or maybe it was from nerves, fear, love all rolled into one. He kissed her softly, thinking to reassure her, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She nipped at his bottom lip even as she stripped his shirt off. She wanted him purely, unabashedly, and she wanted him now.

Her fingers worked at his button and as she pushed down his loose jeans, she kissed him, unbridled, without rhyme or reason. Quinn made quick work of her pants, unbuttoning and sliding them off her slender hips. A quick gasp told him her skin had made contact with the hood of the car, which was warm. “You okay?”

“A little hot,” she murmured into his lips. “But you’re hotter.”

Quinn had never been more ready to love anyone, more prepared to slide himself into her softness and work her, fill her until she cried out in ecstasy. If he ever had a to-do list with a thousand things on it, all with high priority, making Lilly feel good would still be #1 on the list.

This time would definitely be a quickie, as evidenced by their frenzied movements, punctuated with moans and pulling at her shirt to stay balanced, since her silk-covered ass kept sliding off the car’s hood. They repeatedly broke into fits of laughter.

“Get in the car,” she ordered, tugging him by the hand toward the backseat. He opened the door and climbed in, groaning when he saw her slip her panties off. The sweet spot between her legs played peek-a-boo with him since she still had her shirt on, something he wanted taken care of immediately. “Lilly…” he groaned.

She slid onto the seat with one knee planted, as if waiting for him to get comfortable. “Lie back,” she instructed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, bringing the cowboy voice back into rotation and making her laugh. He was all too happy to oblige if it meant seeing that gorgeous smile. Quinn lay prone, gazing up at Lilly’s flushed face, as she climbed and straddled him, leaned back and peeled off her shirt. She gave him a wicked smile and rested her hands behind her on his thighs. Holy shite, she was a vision when she sat that way, and he couldn’t believe this woman loved him as much as he loved her. What had he done to deserve her?

“This won’t take long,” she said.

“I agree.” Reaching up, he pulled down her bra for a better view of her nipples. Then he watched as this beautiful woman opened herself up, slid onto him and off again, slowly at first then faster, building and working them both into a higher level of intensity. Her fingers expertly worked herself in that way only a woman could—no man would ever know exactly how to do it. At one point, she seemed to get distracted by his chest and stomach, and reached out to rake her fingertips across his abs.

“How does that feel?” she asked through eyelids at half-mast. She looked so sultry, so unbelievably sensual and on-fire, he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to hold himself back.

“Fucking amazing,” he said through a hoarse whisper.

“I agree,” she groaned. Her head tilted back, and her back arched ever so slightly, pushing her beautiful breasts forward.

“I love you, Lilly, most perfect woman. So much.”

Her eyes fluttered into the back of her head and she cried out. “Yes…”

Only then did he allow himself to creep near the edge, but it was the flush spreading across her body, the tightening of her legs against his torso, that sent him reeling, arching, and releasing himself into her. And then in a crumpled, panting heap, she fell, ear against his heart until their breaths subsided.

Smile on his lips, the valley around them calm, Quinn knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he’d picked the right place to call home.

And the right woman to call his.