CHAPTER FOUR
NOLA
It’s been a week since Fergus and I got back to Houston from Frisco and we haven’t been apart a day since—and I’ve never been happier.
After a slight moment of panic that we were late for checking out, when he had finished fucking my brains out for the second time, Fergus let me know he had extended the late check-out time for the suite to include Saturday night and we didn’t have to leave for home until late the next morning. I then properly thanked him until his eyes rolled back in his head for round three.
I’ve lost count since then.
On the drive back to Houston, Fergus let me know that on no uncertain terms, that he would not be taking me to get my car from Remi and Tadhg’s house. “Your car is already in my garage,” he informed me. “And don’t plan on driving it for at least seven days.”
He wasn’t kidding.
We stopped at my apartment for what I thought would be just to swap the dirty clothes in my suitcase for clean ones, but I was wrong. After he saw what few items I planned on bringing, Fergus marched out of my bedroom with his phone to his ear, barking orders in Irish to who I later realized was his head of security, Corrin. I had met Corrin a few times before, because his brother Cian is Tadhg’s best friend and right hand man, but it wasn’t until that moment I realized both brothers worked for the O’Carroll’s.
Corrin lives in the apartment above the garage here at Fergus’s house. It has a private exterior entrance, as well as one leading into the house through the garage, so I’m never really sure when he’s around until he just appears. It scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I collided with him in the middle of my second night here.
I woke up thirsty and headed for the kitchen to grab a water bottle to bring back to bed, only to fall flat on my naked ass as he walked around the corner. Talk about embarrassing!
I’ll never tell a soul, for Corrin’s sake and mine, but he may have touched my butt and squeaked like a mouse when he realized where his hand was.
And don’t even get me started on my man’s reaction to me scrambling to my feet, as Corrin tried to help me up while keeping a hand over his eyes. Fergus roared louder than a damn lion when he saw what was going on, then tossed me over his shoulder like a damn bag of potatoes and stomped back to the bedroom, feet thumping along the way like a toddler being put in time out. It was that night I learned what it was like to be with a possessive man. I think I won in the end on that deal—except I didn’t get my bottle of water until the next morning.
It wasn’t thirty minutes after Fergus started barking orders into his phone, that Corrin and two other large, muscular, and tattooed men I’d yet to meet came waltzing in my front door like they’d been here a million times before. All three were carrying broken down cardboard boxes and a plastic shopping bag full of packing tape. When I tried to tell Fergus that I wasn’t going to pack up all of my belongings right then and there, he stopped my words with one hell of a kiss then told me I wouldn’t be lifting a finger. Other than putting anything private I didn’t want the guys seeing in my one duffle bag, everything else would be taken care of for me.
When I asked what that meant, he marched me back into my bedroom, pulled open my nightstand drawer, and looked at me with what I’ve come to learn is his signature raised eyebrow don’t-fuck-with-me look. That same expression makes my panties damp every time he does it. I swear the asshole does it on purpose now because I told him what it does to me.
If I wasn’t halfway to loving the giant brute, I’d clock him upside the head and tell him to shove his sass where the sun don’t shine.
“Ugh! Men!” I fall back on the big sectional couch in Remi’s living room and lay my arm over my eyes.
“What did my grumpy ass, meanie brother-in-law do this time?” Remi asks with a laugh as she plops down beside me and pats my leg.
“It’s what he won’t let me do,” I reply with a huff. “Damn man hid my car keys and hasn’t let me go to work all week. I haven’t even left the house unless it was with him . . . and he has one of the guys drive us everywhere, so I have no say in where we go.”
With a sigh, Remi stretches out on the other side of the couch, kicking her feet up so they are next to mine. “Yea, that did take a bit to get used to.”
“And yes, I know I can work from wherever I can get online, ‘cause I’ve been doing that, but I’d like to go to the office at least one day a week to make sure there isn’t any mail that needs attention. It doesn’t help that no one else in the office can be bothered to sort through the pile to see if anything has their name on it.”
If it weren’t for the amazing salary, great benefits, and having the flexibility to work from home, or wherever I have internet access, I’d probably quit my job. For the last three years I’ve been doing data entry for Hill & Associates, a law firm owned by Jordan Hill, a friend of a friend I knew back in college. The firm has three other lawyers, along with a dozen paralegals, but all their bullshit gets seems to just get added to my plate.
While it’s my job to organize billing receipts and organize paperwork into the correct case files, forward any emails that mistakenly end up in my inbox to the right lawyer or paralegal, and also sort through any inquiries that come through the firm’s website, I feel like everyone in the office uses me for their dumping grounds. This is not what I thought having a business degree was supposed to be like.
Any email they don’t want to reply to . . . forward it to Nola.
A client is being unreasonable and won’t listen to the legal advice they’re being given . . . forward their call to Nola.
Remi kicks my foot to get my attention. “Have you heard a single thing I just said?”
“No.” I chew on my thumbnail as I give her a sheepish look. “I’m sorry. What’d you say.”
“I said . . . I know we’ve talked about it before,” she smacks me in the head with a pillow as she sits up, “but have you thought any more about finding a new job?”
“She doesn’t need a new job.”
“Ahhh!” Remi and I both screech. I jackknife up and sit tall like I got caught looking at something I shouldn’t be.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Tadhg walks in behind his brother, who jump started my heart with his stealth appearance right above me. “Why are you ladies squawking?”
“Where the hell did you come from?” Staring straight up at Fergus, I ask him as my heartbeat starts to slow down. “When did you become a ninja?”
“He got that skill at about five years old,” Tadhg answers for Fergus with a laugh as Remi skips over to him to steal their baby from his arms. “Someone just woke up from their nap and missed her ma.”
Pulling my attention back to him with a finger under my chin, Fergus leans over the back of the couch and drops a kiss on my forehead. “Do you have something to tell me, álainn?”
“I don’t know.” I turn and kneel on the cushion so I can face him. “I was just venting about my job and how you won’t let me go to the office.”
“I can’t help it that I like having you in our house all the time,” he says with a smirk and that sexy eyebrow lift. “It also keeps you at my beck and call when I need some—”
“Ah hem,” Remi coughs, bursting the bubble around us, because for two seconds I forgot we aren’t the only people in the room and this isn’t our house. “If you two can keep it in your pants for a couple more hours, lunch is almost ready.”
“And Liam just called. Nana is on her way home, so all private body parts must remain inside their appropriate clothing item.”
“Good fuckin’ grief, T. Since when do you talk like you live in a nunnery?” Fergus pretends to slug his brother in the arm as we all laugh. Even little Máire lets out a little giggle even though she has no clue what’s so funny.
Getting to my feet, I head to the kitchen to help Remi set the table. The reason we came over today was to eat lunch as a family, because I’ve been informed by everyone in this room that’s what I am now, for the first time since Fergus and I became a couple.
“Where’s my little cubbie?” Nana Máire’s voice calls out looking for her namesake just after the front door dings that it’s opening. Liam, her driver slash personal security, steps in behind her to drop off her tote bag before disappearing back out the door.
“She’s right here, Nana,” Remi answers back in a sing-song voice. “I just put her in her highchair.”
Fergus and Tadhg’s nana, Máire, is just shy of eighty-seven years old, but you’d never know it by her attitude. If it wasn’t for her snow white curly hair and glasses, she’d try and fool you into thinking she’s in her sixties. She is an active one too for her age. She likes to swim, bowl, and I’ve even heard she’s a vicious pool shark. Today she was over at a friend’s house for a weekly Sunday morning book club, and tonight she has night bridge club at another friend’s place, so lunch today was the only time she could squeeze us in. I think that woman’s calendar is busier than her grandsons combined.
“There she is,” Máire makes a beeline for the baby, smothering her cheeks with kisses, then surprises the heck out of me and hugging me from behind. “Hello to you too, Nola. It’s good to see you, a pheata.”
“Hi, Nana.” When she lets me go just a little, I spin around and hug her back. “I missed you too.”
As we all find our spots at the table, she zeroes in on me again. “Has my grandson been behaving himself? You know you can tell me if he’s been out of line and I’ll wack him a good one for you if you’d like.”
That sends everyone around the dining table, except Fergus, into a roar of laughter. I’m laughing so hard, I’ve got tears rolling down my cheeks and a crimp in my side within seconds.
“Hey,” Fergus calls out, arms crossed as he sits back and glares at his Nana, “that’s not nice.”
“She knows you too well, hun,” I say as I pat his leg beneath the table before pulling my hand back and grabbing the bowl of salad in front of me to put some on my plate. “I’m sorry I laughed at you.”
“You could make it up to me by putting your hand back in my lap a few inches to the right from where you just had it.” He takes the salad bowl as I pass it to him, then kisses me on the cheek and whispers in my ear. “I’ll get you back for that when we get home.”
I know my cheeks get red, but I ignore his innuendo the best I can as Nana hands me the plate of pork chops from my left.
“I guess that answers my question,” she adds, almost making me drop the plate in Fergus’s lap. “Where did I go wrong with you two.”
The room goes quiet, everyone I’m sure thinking the same thing I am—that she is actually ashamed of her grandsons. But the quiet lasts for only two seconds before she starts cracking up. “Gotcha!” she says through her laughs.
You can feel the relief flood across the room as the four of us let out a breath at the same time.
“I can’t believe I actually got you guys on that one,” Nana’s chuckles keep going as the rest of the food passes around until everyone has a full plate. “but seriously Nola. Is my Fergie behaving himself now that you’re living together?”
“Kinda,” I say before taking a sip of sweet tea. That earns me an elbow nudge after I set down my glass. “He still hasn’t let me go into the office for even a few hours like I keep asking every day.”
“Fergus Finnegan O’Carroll, what is the matter with you?” She tosses a dinner roll across the table and is smacks him square on the forehead.
“But Nana—”
“No but Nana nothing, boy,” she scolds him with a wagging finger. “I get that this relationship is a new thing for you, but you need to let Nola go to her office is that’s what she wants. Let her spread her wings a little. You can’t keep her locked up in that house all day.”
“I don’t,” he tries to defend himself, but knows he can’t win so even his attempt is only half-hearted. “I took her out to dinner just last night. And I took her to my office on Wednesday.”
“That’s not enough, son, and you know it. Do better.” With that, Nana tucks her napkin on her lap and digs into her mashed potatoes.
The emotional rollercoaster that this family lives would be a doozy for anyone who is looking in from the outside, but I’ve gotten used to the craziness over the last two years since Remi moved to town and I started spending time around everyone when we hung out. Being in this circle isn’t for the faint of heart, and that’s before you even get into what the two men at this table do for a living.
I may not know everything that they do, and I probably never will even though I’m with Fergus now, but I know enough.
I know that Tadhg is the family’s head assassin. After Remi was attacked for being spotted with Tadhg right after the MMM signing two years ago, he had no choice but to tell her enough to understand that while his life and job is dangerous, he himself would never be to her.
Fergus is the same way with me. We have yet to sit down and talk about what he all does, as much as he can tell me anyway, but I know the conversation is coming soon.
I know the O’Carroll name is involved with a legitimate construction company, although I have zero doubts that a few things done behind the scenes are a little bit on the gray side of legal.
I know the family has holdings in a few restaurants, bars, and even a brand new nightclub that recently opened downtown.
I also know there is a vast network of other not so legal operations being handled under the strong hand of my lover. There is a territory he works within, and rules even he has to follow in regard to other families who operate under the criminal world’s thumb, but if he feels any pressure, he doesn’t show it to me. I can’t even imagine the stresses he deals with on a daily basis, but he has yet to put even a fracture of that weight on my shoulders.
Yes, he gets phone calls and texts at all hours of the day and night.
Yes, he never leaves or comes home at the same time every day.
And yes, he has hushed conversations with the nameless men who appear at our door when you least expect it.
But do I complain? No.
Will I ever? Probably eventually, but not so far. I am happy to be on his arm, in his heart, and in his bed.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.