Chapter 25 #2
It’s not fireworks. It’s detonation. Something that reaches down into the oldest parts of me and blows them wide open.
We end up tangled together on our sides, breath coming in harsh pulls, skin slick with sweat.
I gather her in against my chest, careful of her arm, careful of everything, and press my lips to her temple.
She doesn’t say anything.
She doesn’t have to.
Her breathing slows gradually, hitching once when a stray aftershock shivers through her, making her clench around where I’m still buried inside her. I grit my teeth and stay put, giving her body time, giving us both this moment.
Eventually, the need to move wins out over my caveman brain. I ease out of her, slow and careful, and roll to my back, bringing her with me so I don’t crush her with my weight. She curls into my side on instinct, one leg thrown over mine, hand fisted in the fabric of the sheet.
Within minutes, she’s asleep.
Just like that.
I lie there and listen to her breathe.
Tallulah Gentry doesn’t know it yet, but she just signed her soul to the devil, and his name is Bran Kelly.
Slowly, with excruciating care, I ease myself from the bed.
She murmurs something in her sleep, brow scrunching. I pause, hand hovering over her shoulder, ready to soothe.
She shifts, rolls onto her side, and settles again, lashes dark against the pale of her cheeks. Moonlight spills through the half-open curtains, turning her skin silver, painting shadows in the hollow of her throat.
I pull on a pair of sweats, not bothering with a shirt, and stand there for a long moment, just looking.
How the hell did we get here?
She was a fucking virgin.
I would never have guessed, never have thought—
My stomach clenches at the memory of how tight she was, the way her body fought me for that first stretch and then welcomed me. The little choked sounds she made, hands fisting in the blanket, her stubborn insistence that she was fine even when I could feel the tremor in her legs.
I shake my head and slip out of the room, pulling the door mostly closed behind me.
I’m a dead man. That’s all there is to it.
The problem is, I can’t bring myself to be sorry.
I’ve never had another woman fit me like that—not just physically, though that’s its own kind of miracle. It’s something else. The way her mind clicks into mine. The way her stubbornness meets mine head-on instead of backing down. The way she sees everything and still chose to let me in.
It’s not a matter of size or technique. It’s…connection.
Fuck me for saying it, but there it is.
In the kitchen, I pour myself a drink. The whiskey burns all the way down, a familiar fire that does nothing to dull the churn in my gut.
I stare at the lasagna cooling on the stove and snort.
Domestic life, Kelly. You’re really ticking all the boxes.
I lean my elbows on the counter, turning the glass in my hand.
I’m keeping her.
The thought is dangerous, and the thought is clear. It’s also the only one that feels true.
It’s just that I’ve never disobeyed a direct order before. Not once since I came to work for the Irish as a teenager. You listen, you execute, you live. Simple.
Since taking this job, it’s been one act of disobedience after another.
Mentally, I tick through each offense like I’m tallying sins in a confessional.
Didn’t bring her to Philly, like Kael would have preferred.
Definitely didn’t keep my hands to myself.
Put her within spitting distance of the man hunting her more than once.
My jaw tightens. I tip back the last of the whiskey and let it scorch its way down.
That will be the last time I fail her.
Thurston’s misstep at the farm had become my boon—Miguel instead of her—but it never should have happened the way it did. I hadn’t been there. Not yet. I’d been on my way, thinking I had more time. Thinking the monster would play by rules he never agreed to.
If I’m honest with myself, though…I don’t hate how things have turned out since.
Tally is mine.
The words drum a steady beat in my head and heart.
Now I just have to make sure she understands that and navigate the fallout in such a way that I escape with my dick and my life intact.
Headlights sweep across the front window, washing the living room in white for a second.
The glass hits the counter with a soft clink as I set it down.
No one with anything good in mind comes to a man’s house in the dead of night.
My primary gun is in the bedroom, within easy reach of the bed. I’m not going back in there and risking waking her up—for her sake, not mine.
Luckily, I’m not stupid enough to keep all my eggs in one holster.
I pull out the middle drawer of the island and reach for the taped grip of the weapon stuck to its underside. The tape gives with a familiar rip. The gun fits my hand like it always has.
I cross to the window and angle two fingers between the slats of the blinds, just enough to see.
A single car. A single man.
He climbs out, closes the door carefully, then opens the back and pulls something from the seat—a bag, maybe—and carries it to the porch.
Then he waits.
He doesn’t ring the bell. Doesn’t knock. Just stands there, shoulders square, weight balanced, as if he already announced himself in some way I didn’t catch and is politely allowing me time to answer.
The knot between my shoulders eases a fraction. This is East Coast Irish modus operandi down to the boots and the posture.
Probably one of Kael’s.
Probably.
“Probably” gets you killed, Kelly.
Still holding the gun, I move to the door and open it a crack, body angled, barrel low but ready.
“Who’s there?” I ask.
“Scully,” comes the reply, resonant Irish tones solid in the cold air.
I swing the door open fully and flick the safety on, keeping the gun pointed toward the floor.
His gaze flicks to it anyway, cataloguing, and I tuck it beside my thigh, no apologies offered.
“Sorry about that,” I say. “Habit. You’re here from Kael?”
He nods once. Stocky, red-haired, older than me by a decade at least, with the kind of calm eyes you only get after you’ve seen a lot and survived more.
“Aye. I have the girl’s computer,” he says, lifting the bag slightly. “Kael wanted me to take a look around, make sure you were good here.”
Relief loosens something in my chest I hadn’t realized was coiled there.
I take the bag from him. It’s heavier than it looks. “Thanks. Have at it. Just be quiet…Tallulah is sleeping.”
“Tallulah?” he repeats, one brow arching.
Right. To most of them, she’s Twiggy. The nickname I saddled her with years ago that stuck everywhere but in my head.
“Twiggy,” I correct.
Scully nods, tugging his collar up against the mountain chill. His breath ghosts out in short puffs.
“All right, then. I’ll walk the perimeter, see what can be improved,” he says. “Kael wants regular updates.”
“I’ll make sure he gets them,” I say. I shift my weight to block his line of sight into the house. “Thanks for the delivery. I’ll get her set up in the morning.”
He tilts his head, curiosity flickering there for a second. “She’s asleep?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, voice coming out flatter than I intend. “Long few days.”
“Aye,” he agrees quietly. He studies me for another beat. Whatever he sees must satisfy him, because he just nods, steps back off the porch, and disappears into the dark around the side of the cabin.
I close the door and throw the deadbolt.
Rude, maybe. I could have invited him in, offered him a drink, at least pretended to be a polite host.
Right now, though, I’m standing at a breaking point where Tally is concerned. If she were to stumble out of that bedroom dressed in anything less than a goddamn snowsuit in front of another man, I can’t promise I’d do the smart thing.
Better he stay outside.
Better he stay alive.
I set the gun on the counter within easy reach and rest my hand on the bag with her laptop inside.
Business can wait until morning.
The woman sleeping in my bed?
That’s the part that won’t wait forever.