Chapter One
Ronin Byrne, Age Nineteen
I wake with my head pounding and the sour taste of whiskey clinging to the back of my throat. Sunlight shines across my face through the gap in the curtains, and I lift my forearm to shield my eyes, breathing through the slow roll of nausea until I’m sure I won’t be sick when I move.
I need to stop letting Mick O’Connell talk me into so many late nights at the bar.
Last night comes back slowly, the press of bodies in a Southie bar thick with smoke, the crack of glasses on wood, Mick’s laugh cutting through it all as he slapped my shoulder and ordered round after round, his voice getting louder with every drink.
I’d barely finished my second one when a girl slid onto the stool beside me, close enough that her arm brushed mine.
I didn’t look over right away. Her fingers dragged lightly over my jacket sleeve as she leaned in, the sweet scent of her perfume cutting through the smoke.
“Buy you another?” she asked, her breath warm against my ear.
Before I could answer, one of my da’s men glanced over from a few stools down. “Best be moving on, girly,” he said, giving her a hard look. “He’s spoken for.”
The girl started to pull her hand from my arm.
Before she got far, Mick leaned in from my other side and called out over the noise of the bar.
“Wasn’t his doing,” he said, the drink thickening his Irish lilt.
“Don’t start acting like he’s married already.
” Then he turned back to the girl beside him, his arm going around her waist as he finished his drink.
His words were nothing new. Mick said something like that whenever we were out and a girl took an interest in me, always ready with the same reminder before I could think too hard about it. The future waiting for me hadn’t been my choice.
After that, the rest of the night blurred together.
More drinks. More laughing. The girl stayed close, finding reasons to touch me as she talked, and I pretended to listen even though I barely heard half of what she was saying.
Then she leaned in, lips grazing my jaw as her hand slid up my thigh.
Her fingers kept moving higher until her palm settled right over my cock.
That got my attention. “So,” she whispered huskily, “you want to come home with me tonight?”
When I said nothing, she began to stroke me through my trousers, slow and deliberate, trying to tease a yes out of me. “Not tonight,” I said at last. “I’ve got an early morning.”
I thought she might take the hint. Instead, her hand left my thigh and came up to catch the front of my jacket, pulling me in.
“If you can’t come to my place,” she whispered against my mouth, her teeth catching my bottom lip before her tongue dragged over it, “you can at least come out back with me.”
Then she let go, slipped off her stool, and disappeared into the crowd, leaving it up to me whether I followed.
I should’ve gone home. Stuck to what I’d said.
I didn’t.
The alley was narrow and dark, the noise of the bar dulling to a low roar once the door closed behind me. I spotted her waiting for me in the shadows, leaning against the wall, and realized I hadn’t even asked her name before I’d followed her out here.
“Thought you had an early morning,” she teased before she grabbed my shirt and spun us, catching me off guard as my back hit the brick wall.
Her mouth crashed into mine, her tongue pushing past my lips until I opened for her.
She tasted of whiskey and cigarettes. Her hands slid down my chest to my belt while her mouth moved to my neck.
She sucked and bit at the skin there, the sharp sting making me harder.
Her fingers yanked the buckle loose and she shoved my slacks and briefs down, my cock springing free.
Then she dropped to her knees. I let my head fall back against the brick as her hand wrapped around me, stroking me hard enough to pull a groan from deep in my chest. Her breath was warm against my skin for a second before her mouth closed over me, hot and wet.
“Fuck,” I gritted out as her tongue dragged along the underside of my cock. She worked me with her hand and mouth together, stroking firmly as she sucked, her grip tightening the deeper she took me. I felt my balls draw up tight. The wet sound of her mouth filled the alley.
She sucked harder, faster, taking me deeper until I couldn’t take any more of that teasing shit. I fisted her hair, yanked it tight, and started fucking her mouth. She let me use her. Her fingers dug into my thighs as I drove down her throat, forcing her head down harder.
“Fucking swallow it,” I grunted.
She had no choice but to take it as I came, thick pulses spilling down her throat.
A rough sound tore out of me, and my legs nearly gave out.
When I finally pulled out of her mouth, I had to lean back against the wall to catch my breath.
The alley slowly came back into focus, water dripping somewhere in the dark, muffled music and voices bleeding through from inside the bar.
I tucked myself back into my slacks and fastened my belt while she stood and wiped at her lips with her thumb, smirking like she’d won something.
“See?” she said. “Didn’t even keep you up past your bedtime. ”
Inside, I headed back to the bar while she peeled off toward her friends, heels clicking, already laughing and bragging that she’d just taken the Byrne heir down in the alley.
Like sucking me off where anyone could’ve seen her was some kind of accomplishment.
Around here, everyone knew who I was, so maybe it was for her.
Hell, if letting me use her made her feel special, who was I to argue?
I was already thinking past her, past the bar and the noise, to the morning waiting for me.
Now, standing in my room with the morning light too bright and my head still pounding from last night, I push the memory of the alley aside. There’s no point dwelling on it. I shower, turning the water as hot as I can stand it, and by the time I’m dressed, I feel close to human again.
Downstairs, the fellas are already at the kitchen table with coffee in hand, talking over each other about deliveries and the day’s schedule.
I give the orders like I always do, and one by one they head out to get started.
When only Mick is left, I tell him to meet me at the docks for noon.
I’ve got somewhere else to be until then. I’m going to see Alannah.
Ever since her family came over from Ireland when I was fifteen, Alannah has been part of my life.
Our fathers had been close back home, and when my da needed someone he trusted beside him in Boston, he sent for Seamus.
After that, our families were always together.
At first, I didn’t pay her much mind. Her brother Mick was loud enough for both of them, forever dragging me into some scrape or another, while Alannah was quiet, usually staying close to her mam or mine at dinners and gatherings.
Then somewhere along the way, without me realizing it, that changed.
It wasn’t until a couple of years after they arrived that my father sat me down to talk. That wasn’t unusual. I was his heir, and by then, conversations about the future were part of my life.
But this one surprised me.
He told me that he and Seamus had noticed I was always looking her way when our families were together, and that I kept close to her whether I meant to or not.
Mick had been giving me hell over it for a while, saying I always found some reason to look out for her at school, in the neighbourhood, wherever she happened to be. I figured he was only running his mouth, but once my father said it, I couldn’t deny it.
Then he asked how I would feel about an arrangement. About one day marrying Alannah.
By then, I’d seen more than one kind of marriage work. My parents had chosen each other and built something solid from it. Alannah’s parents had been brought together by arrangement, and their marriage was just as strong. Different beginnings. Same result.
So I agreed to it. Not because I was in love, and not because I’d chosen her, but because it made sense. She knew the kind of life we lived, our families were already tied together, and it wasn’t as if she had ever been invisible to me.
I remember the first time my family went to the O’Connells’ house after they arrived from Ireland.
My mother had taken one look at her and called her a wee sidhe, and she hadn’t been wrong.
Alannah fit the name, smaller than the other girls her age, with strawberry-blonde hair that caught the light, bright blue eyes, and pale skin scattered with freckles.
She’d been cute then, and she’d grown into a real beauty, one I sometimes had trouble believing was meant to be mine.
So the match was made, but we wouldn’t marry until Alannah turned eighteen.
The wedding still felt far enough away that I could pretend it didn’t really count yet.
And it wasn’t as if I’d been innocent when I’d agreed to it.
I’d already had women by then, and being promised to Alannah hadn’t made me stop.
I told myself there was no harm in it, not when none of it had really been my choice.
But what I hadn’t considered—what had only started dawning on me lately—was that the same logic applied to her. She hadn’t chosen me either. If anything, she’d had even less say in it than I did. I’d been asked, and I’d said yes. By the time it reached her, the decision had already been made.
And ever since that thought first crossed my mind, I haven’t been able to shake it.
Because Alannah is mine. She’s promised to me. No other boy has any business getting close to her, and with the wedding still a few years off, it’s time I make sure she understands that.
That’s why I’m heading over to see her now.
I stop at the florist on the way, the same shop my mother has used for years.
Buckets of flowers line the front, and I choose a small bundle of blue cornflowers mixed with white daisies.
The blue is nearly the same shade as Alannah’s eyes, and I know she’ll like them.
I take them to the counter to be wrapped.
I pull up to the O’Connell house and spot Mick out front, leaning against the fence with a cigarette between his fingers. He looks up when I get out of the car, noticing the flowers in my hand. He smirks. “Look at you,” he drawls.
I give him a flat look.
“Docks at noon?” he confirms, flicking the cigarette away.
I nod as the front door opens and Seamus O’Connell steps out. His eyes go to the flowers first. “You’re early,” he says, approval clear in his voice as he holds out his hand for me to shake. Then his focus shifts to his son. “Don’t you have somewhere you’re meant to be?”
Mick rolls his eyes but mutters, “Yes, sir,” before pushing off the fence and heading down the walk to where his car’s parked.
Seamus gestures to the open doorway. “Come on.”
When I step inside, the smell of freshly baked soda bread greets me, and Siobhán O’Connell comes toward us from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, her strawberry-blonde hair clipped back and out of the way.
She stops beside her husband, and Seamus slips an arm around her waist, drawing her close.
She rests a hand on his chest and smiles at me.
“Good morning, Ronin. It’s nice to see you. ”
“Morning, Mrs. O’Connell,” I say.
Seamus dips his head close to her ear and says something too low for me to catch. Her eyes flick to the flowers in my hand, and her smile warms. “I’ll get Alannah,” she says. “One moment.”
She heads upstairs to get Alannah, and Seamus excuses himself. “I’ve got a call to make.”
A moment later, I hear light footsteps on the stairs. Alannah appears on the curve of the staircase in a pale yellow dress, her hand trailing along the banister as she comes down the last few steps. I offer her the flowers. “Alannah.”
Her gaze drops to the bouquet, and surprise flickers in her eyes before she takes it from me. “For me?”
“For you.”
A grin spreads across her face as she looks down at them, then back up at me. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, her mother comes back down the stairs. “I’ll put those in water,” Siobhán says, taking the flowers from Alannah. “You two go on and sit.”
Alannah hands them over. “Thank you, Mam.”
Siobhán takes the flowers back to the kitchen, leaving Alannah and me to step into the sitting room. She sits in one of the armchairs by the window, and I take the one across from her. We make small talk for a little while, but I’m due at the docks soon, and I need to get to the reason I came.
“I’m sorry for stopping by without calling first,” I say. “But I was hoping you might like to go out for dinner with me on Friday.” I clear my throat. “I know we’re already engaged, Alannah, but I’d like us to get to know each other before the wedding.”
Her breath catches, and colour rises into her cheeks, making the freckles across her nose and cheekbones stand out a little more.
“I would really like that,” she blurts out, then presses both hands to her cheeks and laughs softly.
“I mean, yes,” she says more calmly. “I’d like to get to know you too. ”
I can’t help smiling at how flustered she looks. “Then I’ll pick you up at seven.”
She nibbles at her lower lip before nodding. “Seven.”
I stand to leave and lean down to kiss her cheek. When I pull back, she looks up at me with a small smile. “See you Friday, Ronin.”
At the door, Seamus stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “When Cormac mentioned the match between you two,” he says quietly, “I told him I trusted the man he was raising. I’m glad I was right. I believe you’ll make her happy.”
“Thank you, sir,” I say.
Outside, I make my way down the walk toward my car.
Halfway there, I feel eyes on me and glance back.
Alannah stands at the window watching me.
When she sees me looking, she lifts a hand in a small wave.
I return it and keep walking. By the time I reach the car and look back again, the window’s empty.
And suddenly, Friday can’t come soon enough.