18. Harper
Chapter 18
Harper
I’m so exhausted and shaken from the day—the morning, the gunmen, Cian’s information—to really ponder the absurdity of me showering while he sits on the closed toilet a few inches away and babysits. I consider myself thankful for the opaque shower curtain.
What I really need right now is a moment to think. I probably would have gone for a shower even if Cian hadn’t insisted. Didn’t need a reminder of how gross I already am after today, thank you very much.
I climb in and draw the curtain, strip naked before I change my mind, and deposit my folded clothes on the sink countertop, keeping everything but my arm covered. The whole shower creaks when I turn on the water, and I flinch and shiver from the cold spray.
Cian remains quiet, which is nice. I can almost pretend I’m alone.
If I close my eyes while the water douses me, I can almost believe it too.
But then I see a new, darker, more dangerous reality in my mind, and my eyes pop open like I’m coming out of a nightmare.
I can’t believe I’m being targeted by the De Luca family.
I mean, what the ever-loving fuck? The De Lucas want me because Finn and I were engaged for a few months? They’re going to use me as a way to get back at him? Hell, I didn’t even marry the guy!
Speaking of marrying Finn… I wanted to do a little dance when Cian said that he and Riley were an item now. That possibility played into my decision to run, but while I hoped deep down that stranding my intended at the altar would clear the path for my sister, my optimism remained dampened. After all, Riley went all those years without ever admitting to her crush, and Finn turned hard after his first wife was murdered. Somehow, though, it sounds as if they conquered the odds and found each other.
If true, their love match would go a long way toward easing my guilt over drawing my twin back into the family fold.
My flight reflex blossoms. I should be on the phone with my sister, fact-checking every single thing Cian said out there. Intuition blinks on in my brain like a faulty overhead light.
There’s probably way more to this story than Cian shared. Why else would he try to keep me away from the phone?
He fed me some highlights to preoccupy me, but I’ve probably yet to hear about the real drama.
My heart leaps into my throat.
Oh, god. I’m in so much more trouble than I ever realized.
Evading the Kings is one thing. With them, I know who and what I’m up against. The De Lucas and some batshit crazy revenge game they’re playing? To say I’m out of my depth here would be an understatement.
I hate to admit it, but if Cian hadn’t found me first, today might have been my last day on Earth.
The heat from the shower opens my pores and pummels my tight, panicky muscles. My mind remains as tight as a fist, but the tension in the bathroom challenges any attempts to relax.
Cian is right there . And I’m right here, naked, mere inches away.
The whole situation is awkward as hell.
Maybe talking would help, but I don’t know what to say.
Like he’s telepathic, Cian pipes up.
“I, uh…” He clears his throat, raising his voice so I hear him over the shower’s rushing rapids. “I answered your questions.”
I just wait.
“Are you going to answer mine?”
“What questions?”
“About this afternoon in the…you know.”
I must be pink all the way up to my hairline. He’s really bringing this up a second time ? After I so obviously and pointedly refused to answer the first time?
What a dick.
“What about it?” Nerves raise my pitch a few octaves.
“Was that really your first time?”
Lust and attraction ping through me, humiliating me even more. Today turned out awful, but the flush of moisture that rushes south when I think of having Cian’s cock in my mouth is inescapable.
I don’t want to tell him.
“Does it matter?” The teenage petulance in my voice embarrasses me to the point that I want to curl up and die.
“It matters.”
The sincerity of Cian’s assertion surprises me.
I almost wish I could see his face.
“Why?” I know I’ll regret asking this question as I comb a strand of wet hair off my face.
“Because you’ve been on my mind nonstop since that night in the bar.”
I know he’s not flattering me, so why am I flattered? So what if I’ve starred in a few of his wet dreams or whatever? Who cares?
I try to make my voice haughty even while my heart flutters. “So I turned down your invitation to fuck. That doesn’t explain any?—”
The curtain rod squeals, and the fabric shoves to one side. I cringe against the cold tile as Cian pushes under the water, into my space, his hulking body eclipsing me.
“You’re such a spoiled brat,” he snarls, his hands coming up to grip my arms, squeezing them as he shakes me just a little. “I was worried about you. I drove myself crazy hunting you down.”
I swallow, my mouth dry even as the rest of me drowns.
Cian worried? About me ?
My internal organs somersault as I struggle to wrap my head around that idea.
“So crazy,” he continues, still squeezing my arms, oblivious to my plight, “that I wasn’t even going to come after you when we finally figured out where you were. I didn’t trust myself not to let it get personal.”
I gaze up at him as water soaks his clothes and curls his already-curly hair. Is this really Cian Mahoney staring back at me with that bitter, pained twist to his mouth?
After a minute, I find words again. “What changed your mind?”
“What?”
“I mean, why did you come get me if you didn’t want to?”
His eyes flicker a little, something flashing in them that I don’t quite recognize, and then he pulls away like he’s finally noticed his clothes are sopping wet. I don’t realize I’m waiting for some grand, emotional explanation until he says, “Didn’t have a choice. No one defies Shane.”
His hot gaze skates quickly over my breasts before his jaw tenses and he ducks back out of the shower, closing the curtain behind him.
The disappointment deflating my chest hurts .
I shove my palms against my eyes and breathe deeply. “Well, how did the De Lucas know I was in Hawaii?”
“No idea. We thought they’d kidnapped you. When we went to rescue Finn after the De Lucas got him, Enzo told us that he had you.” Cian’s words spike my heart rate even more. “No one knew where you were, and the De Lucas were after Finn and his new bride, so it seemed possible, likely even, that they’d abducted you.”
Cian thought I was in enemy clutches all this time?
And he was worried?
The shockwaves of Cian’s admissions rock me to my core. I’m perilously close to believing the most dangerous lie I’ve ever encountered. The one that claims Cian Mahoney, deadly enforcer and playboy extraordinaire, might care for me.
This is all too much.
Because if Cian cares about me, then…
Every sexual thing we’ve done to each other in the past twenty-four hours is?—
I unleash a scream louder than any sound that’s ever wrenched out of my throat.
Cian rips the curtain back one more time. I’m wheezing for breath, pointing, frantic, as the biggest, ugliest cockroach I have ever, ever seen scuttles out from the shower drain, bypassing all the water flowing into it, and sprints up the wall toward the showerhead.
You’d think that after having my workplace ambushed by men with automatic weapons, I would not be scared of an insect a thousand times smaller than myself. But I guess being around men with guns has nothing on the primal fear response that cockroaches elicit in me.
I flatten myself against the opposite wall, terror and disgust doing some morbid tango inside me. And then Cian does the single most revolting thing I have ever seen in my life. He snatches that giant hideous creature off the shower wall with his bare fucking hand.
My horrified gasp is involuntary.
His knuckles pop as he crushes the roach in his fist.
Paralyzed with relief and revulsion, I can’t pull my eyes away as Cian kicks the toilet lid up and drops the limp insect carcass inside. I didn’t even know a cockroach could be killed like that.
Cian flushes the dead menace away, knocks the lid shut, and proceeds to wash his massive hands in the little blue sink. All this while I stand there in the stall behind him.
Somehow, even with all my experience with the mafia, that was the most brutal, graphic, vile, and violent thing I’ve ever seen someone do.
If Cian would do this — kill a cockroach just for scaring me—I already know what he’d do to anyone who threatened my safety or my life. When enforcers are assigned to protect people, nowhere in the assignment does it specify that the target should be protected from insects.
When he finishes washing his hands and turns back around, I study Cian Mahoney like I’ve never seen him before.
What if everything I thought I understood about him is wrong?
He examines me too. For entirely different reasons.
I forget I’m naked until that tickle under my skin informs me that my nipples are stiffening. His heavy gaze glides over my bare body like a paintbrush. I’m self-conscious and wishing I could hide, but he ripped the shower curtain, so all hopes of bathing privately died a tragic death.
And maybe I’m okay with that.
My pulse races, and I feel like I’m vibrating. A dam breaks in my chest, unleashing a reservoir’s worth of emotion. Everything inside me rises to the surface, boiling like the wild lust on Cian’s face.
The disparity of his clothed body and my bare one starts to get to me. I gulp air before hoisting my chin and issuing an order.
“Take your clothes off.”
He strips so quickly that I almost miss the show.
And Cian knows what comes next, so he’s already climbing back into the shower. Soon, water rains on his back. He’s facing me. Good.
We’re both afraid. For what other reason could he be standing there, hesitating, his muscles twitching? He knows the same way I know. After we plunge into what comes next, there’s no coming back.
For better or worse, we’re about to mark each other forever.
The moaning starts the second I pull him into me. Those big hands are all over my bare body, both of us wet and slippery from the water while Cian melds his lips to mine.
I could die just like this.
It would be my pleasure.