Chapter 25
Isabelle
Double-checking the oil’s temp, I flour the counter before grabbing my dough from the fridge. Rian is out late again, and I can’t get the images of him covered in blood out of my head. It scared me for all the wrong reasons. I’d been terrified…that it was his blood. That somehow he’d been hurt until I saw the leering glare, the dark desire burning in his eyes.
I sigh, falling into the calming motion of rolling out the dough. Baking isn’t my preferred choice, but it’s too late to eat a full meal and my sweet tooth is calling. A prickling sensation on the back of my neck has me glancing at the door, and my heart jumps when I see the very man I’ve been thinking about.
He’s leaning on the frame. His buttoned shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows and tight fitting black jeans are free of blood. His beard is a little longer. He hasn’t trimmed it in a few days, and it makes him look a little more rough than usual.
“What are you making?”
“Beignets.”
Rian’s eyebrows raise. “Beignets? I didn’t expect that.”
“I want to go to New Orleans one day, especially the French Quarter. Everything about it seems…transcendent. And to learn about the food from the locals would be a privilege.”
It’s a secret I’ve never told anyone, a desire I couldn’t fathom would come true. A hope that was crushed the minute I wasn’t allowed to travel for school.
“New Orleans is beautiful.”
My hands freeze and I turn to him, my mouth open. “You’ve been?”
Rian’s lips quirk in the corner. “I’ve traveled a lot, Isabelle.”
I roll my eyes, returning my attention to cutting out the squares so I can fry them. “Right, men have more freedom to do whatever they want.”
His low chuckle washes over me, and the muffled thuds of his shoes as he moves closer to me have my stomach tensing in anticipation. He didn’t touch me this morning, probably because after our bloody shower, he didn’t allow me to leave the bed for hours, taking me over and over. Both of our bodies were rung out for everything they’re worth. Both of us wear marks to prove it. By the second round, my anger at him had dimmed enough to beg him to come inside me. I shiver as my nipples harden at the reminder.
I shouldn’t love the warmth of his chest pressing into my back, but I do. Tension I didn’t know I was storing relaxes as his fingers glide down my arms. “With the brotherhood, we had more freedom than others. My father ran the Irish how he saw fit and let us run wild. We were young, ambitious, and determined to conquer what we could. The brotherhood scattered all over the globe to make connections. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” His last words are whispered in my ear, and I tilt my head toward him.
“You will?”
He hums. “Mhmm. Once it’s safe, you can go wherever you want. As long as the brotherhood is at your side.”
While I don’t wholeheartedly agree with his reasons for keeping me out of Luca’s territory, I understand his worry over letting me go when he had to kill someone he once trusted. I told him last night that I’d stop pestering him about going back to my father’s restaurant in the compromise he asked for, if he seriously considered letting me go back to work sooner rather than later.
I frown, hating the suspicion it’s going to be longer than I want for us to be safe, but get distracted when his hand circles around my wrist. His arm comes around my waist, pulling me closer.
“This is your favorite snack then? Show me how to make it.”
My heart swooshes in its cage. “You want to learn how to make my favorite dessert?”
Rian’s cobalt eyes stare down at me. “I want to learn everything about you.”
Emotion clogs my throat, so I clear it and face the thinned out dough. “I’m cutting it into squares to fry up. I’m pretty much already done, but I can show you next time. I…I made this because I was worried about you and couldn’t sleep.”
He grabs the knife from my hand, setting it on the counter before forcing me to face him. His thumb outlines my lips before his hands slide down to my ass, lifting me up and turning to place me on the island on the other side. It puts us at eye level, and my legs wrap around his hips to keep him close to me.
“You were worried about me?”
I stare at him incredulously. “Is that such a wild thought? You are my husband.”
Rian swallows, his fingers causing goosebumps as they caress my inner thighs right under my sleeping shorts. “You shouldn’t wear something so sexy for everyone to see. You are mine, and only mine.”
A smile graces my lips. “Aren’t you the one who said no one would dare stare at your wife?”
His teeth dig into his bottom lip, but I can see the amusement in his eyes. “They better not, but who wouldn’t look at such beauty?”
I swat at his chest. “Now you’re being too much. No one looked twice at me before you.”
Rian straightens up, staring at me intensely. “I can assure you they were, Isabelle. Luca’s protection had them too scared to act upon it.”
I want to refute it, but the more I think about it, I can’t. The times at school when boys would flirt with me and then act like I didn’t exist the next day. The dances I never got asked to, so my brother took me instead.
“But why? He didn’t feel that way about me…at least I don’t think.” I frown. Did Luca have feelings for me and I never noticed?
Rian’s fingers dig at my jaw, pulling me closer so he can kiss my lips softly. “I think it was for Ricky. Luca doesn’t have any sisters, so perhaps he thought of you as one.”
I narrow my stare and crinkle my nose. “I’m going to kick his ass the next time I see him. He had me feeling like no one wanted me! At twenty I didn’t care, I wanted to cook. But at fifteen, it stung a little.”
He tsks. “At fifteen, Ricky definitely made the right choice. You should have seen what Cillian did to the boys interested in Aisling at that age.”
I roll my eyes. “Godspeed to the boys interested in our daughter.”
A growl rumbles out of his throat, then he laughs. “If you think I’m protective, you haven’t seen Cormac with someone he loves. Our little girl will have too many uncles for those fuckers to hide from.”
He leans down, pressing his mouth against my ear. “But I’d fight them all for a daughter who looks anything like her mama. Those brown eyes looking up at me knowing she’s a piece of both of us. The whole world would need saving if anyone dared to hurt her.”
I shiver, my heart is melting more for the man who stole me from the life I had planned. I’m damned if I think I could ever leave him. I turn to brush my lips against his, curling my fingers into his shirt. “Who knew you were so romantic?”
“Only for you, Isabelle. I never wanted to settle down until the thought of keeping you.”
I kiss him, tasting the whiskey on his lips, then pull away to nod at the stove. “Turn it off and take me to bed. I’m hungry for something else.”