Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Luca
S iobhán’s nipple was taut, a dusky rose nub thick with excitement. It stood out from her pale breast, the pert swell small enough I could cup it in one hand while pinching its swollen peak. I licked my lips, ready to see more.
“Is your pussy as ready for me as your nipple?” Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes hooded. “Are you wet for me, Shamrock?”
Her lips parted, the start of an answer, but I pushed the left side of her shirt open, and the backs of my fingers dragged across her other nipple. She sucked in a breath, and gooseflesh pebbled her skin. The tips of her nails pinched my shoulders and sent a rush of blood straight to my dick.
I was already half-hard from her wearing my shirt. The smudged and smeared makeup and mascara were gone, her pale skin fresh and clean. She had wrinkles across her forehead, at the corners of her eyes, and bracketing her lips. And those fucking freckles… They dusted her nose and spilled onto her cheekbones.
Something about her in my house wearing my clothes without any makeup… I wanted to bend her over the table and fuck her until she submitted. Until she admitted she belonged to me. Until I claimed her as mine.
“Mmm.” My chest rumbled with satisfaction. “I think you’re more than ready.” I wrapped my fingers around her ribs and pressed the pad of my thumb into her nipple, rolling it and making myself harder with each circle. I leaned in, so close my lips brushed her ear. “Yeah,” I breathed. “You’re ready for me to tongue-fuck you, aren’t you? And you hate it.”
She groaned, soft and restrained, but dug her fingernails into my skin. I chuckled and pulled back to watch her expression. Her eyes flashed with challenge, but her cheeks remained flushed, a rosy glow that matched the pale pink of her lips. Her fury was fighting a losing battle against her desire, and it made me want to dominate her even more.
Anticipation swelled between us, thick and intense. I wrapped my fingers around her breast and squeezed, serving her nipple up like a feast. I sucked it into my mouth, and she moaned, deeper this time and throaty with need. My dick jerked at the sound. Pre-cum smeared the inside of my pants. My erection begged for friction. I pressed my hips into hers, and the wetness was cold and slick against my hip. She rubbed herself against me, straining for contact, and fuck if I didn’t want to end this game, drop my pants, and fuck the fight right out of her.
Instead, I nipped and sucked, determined to give her the same mind-blowing orgasm she’d given me over a year ago at Vesuvio. I flicked her plump nub with my tongue until she writhed beneath me. She deserved that pleasure and so much more.
I released her from my mouth and blew on the wet peak. Her nipple pebbled, and her tiny blonde hairs stood on end. I grinned, so fucking satisfied, and looked up, wanting her to see the victory painted on my face.
The kitchen lights backlit her hair, creating a golden halo around her flushed face. Her blue eyes sparkled, open and yearning. Trusting. If I’d thought her beautiful before, nothing had prepared me for what she looked like in that moment—flushed, needy, and ready for my mouth. It punched me in the chest, and my smug grin disappeared. I brushed the wisps of hair from her forehead and ran my thumb along her brow. For a heartbeat, I allowed myself to stare into her eyes, to share her breath and forget everything but the charge that pulled us together.
Ready for worship, I lowered myself to my knees, never breaking our magnetic eye contact, and slid my hands down the length of her torso. I planted a kiss above her navel then dragged my gaze down the pale expanse of her skin.
Shock froze time. My heart stopped beating. Reality crashed around me as I stared in horror at Siobhán’s ravaged stomach.
The next beat of my heart slammed into my chest. Time rushed forward, and I sucked in a startled breath. My hands locked around her hips, and I surveyed the scene, trying to make sense of the carnage.
A couple inches to the right of her navel, the first gunshot scar punched a deep, circular divot into her creamy flesh. Silvery white tissue radiated out from the entry wound before fading to pink. The second was closer to her center but below her navel, the indentation almost completely obscured by a thick crosswise incision scar that spanned her midsection. A third bullet had entered on the left, another inch down, the scar deeper and more puckered. Two additional surgical incisions slashed her abdomen on diagonals, white dots and lines with dark pink outlines adding to the panoply of destruction marring her body’s otherwise flawless skin.
My breath quickened, and my eyes started to turn.
She squirmed under my attention, no doubt recognizing why I stopped, and tugged at the sides of her shirt, pulling them together around her body.
My eyes leaped to hers, and I couldn’t mask the horror and anger in them. She looked away, lips twisting with embarrassment and panic.
A frantic possessiveness roared through my blood and threatened to fully turn me. I fought it, gritting my teeth even as the tips of my fangs pinched the inside of my bottom lip. “Who did this to you?” I growled.
She squirmed, eyes focused anywhere but where I stared up at her, her dread visible in jerky motions and her struggle to cover her body.
I pinched her hips harder and fought the power in my blood. “Who did this to you, Siobhán?” I asked again, slow and demanding, every instinct in my body desperate to protect. “Who hurt you?” It didn’t matter she was a Shaughnessy. She was mine, and I would kill whoever did this to my little shamrock. Slowly and without mercy.
“It’s nothing,” she answered, robotic and dismissive. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No.” I released her hips, and she wrapped the shirt around her midsection, hugging herself to secure it closed. I rose to my feet and took her chin between my thumb and forefinger.
Siobhán, one of the most feisty, strong-willed women I’d ever met, wouldn’t meet my eyes. They darted everywhere but my face, revealing a side of her I’d never seen before, vulnerable and deeply shaken. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it any more than the quiet, defeated Siobhán from the couch.
I breathed through my nose, trying to calm the power in my blood, trying to calm her. I took her face between my hands, forcing her to look me in the eyes, and gentled my voice. “Who hurt you, Siobhán?”
Her eyes searched mine as if trying to weigh her next words based on what she found there. I kept my gaze steady, letting her know we’d entered a truce.
“You’re not the only one who’s been hurt by my family.” Her words and lips trembled, and the sincerity in her pained expression squeezed my heart even as my blood boiled at the significance of her answer.
I smoothed the hair off her face and tucked it behind her ears. I brushed my thumbs across her freckled cheekbones, needing to soothe myself as much as I needed to soothe her. “Tell me what happened.”
She closed her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. “My father was a mechanic in Ireland,” she said, quiet and slow, and opened her eyes. “And here, before he met my mother. They met at a pub. Love at first sight. They married three months later. Uncle Paddy told him he could do better for his new family if he started a chop shop.”
The delicate muscles of her throat moved through a swallow. “He had nothing. He was an immigrant. I was on the way—we’re Irish Catholic, after all.” She quirked a sardonic grin. “It was a chance to make something of himself. Opportunity. That’s why you and I are here, isn’t it? Opportunity? Our parents thought they’d find it here in America.”
She looked out the French doors, and I let her, dropping my hands to her neck and running circles over her pulse with my thumbs. Her gaze grew distant, haunted.
“I used to go to the shop after school to spend time with him. Da taught me all about cars. I think he thought I could be a mechanic, too. ‘Gel, in America, you can be anything.’” She mimicked a thick Irish accent and huffed. “Maybe that’s true for normal people, but it’s not true for people like us.”
The set of her jaw hardened. “I was sixteen. I went to the shop to bring Da his lunch. I made him a lemonade and a tuna sandwich. It was hot that day.” She swallowed, and her eyes became misty. “The garage door was open. A car pulled up the street.” Her voice broke, and her lips twisted, working to hold back tears or anger or both.
The story was headed to a dark place, one that would likely enrage me and break her. I cupped her face again, forcing her back to me. Her eyes stayed downcast, and tears slid down her pale cheeks. I fought the overwhelming urge to kiss her forehead, to pull her into my arms and protect her from reliving whatever came next. But it wasn’t my place, and I wasn’t that guy. Even if a part of me wanted to be.
“It was some new gang. They just arrived from Ireland and didn’t know any better, didn’t know who ran Southie. They thought taking out a rival shop would give them an upper hand.” She lifted her eyes. “Da took one in the leg. It just grazed him.” She blinked hard, and another tear rolled down her face. “I wasn’t so lucky.”
Her mouth bent in a sad, ironic smile. “You were right about one thing last night—we never would have worked out. I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from this world, and you keep running to it.”
My jaw tightened, my teeth clenching so hard, I thought they might crack. “Siobhán, I?—”
She held up a hand. “Let me finish.”
I shut my mouth and nodded even though I wasn’t sure I could hear the rest. I wasn’t sure I wanted to make her relive the horrors that followed.
“You called me your little shamrock once, before everything.”
“My good luck charm,” I said with a wan smile.
“One of the bullets hit an artery. There was so much blood. But Uncle Paddy and Ciarán arrived at the shop the same time the shooting started. A squad car was there in minutes—one of the Southie cops on the Shaughnessy take. They rushed me to Mass General. Ciarán held my stomach the entire time.” She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “So yeah. Lucky. By all accounts, I shouldn’t be here right now.”
My thumb moved back and forth, slow, methodical strokes along her cheekbone. My mind raced through time and conversations, connecting questions with answers. “That’s why you moved to Ireland,” I whispered.
“I spent the summer before my junior year of high school in and out of the hospital. The doctors stopped the bleeding the day of the shooting, stabilized me, but that was just the beginning. While all my friends were learning to drive, I was having my digestive system rewired.” Her words took a bitter turn. “I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I woke up screaming every night, jumped at every loud noise. And the worst part?” Her lips twisted into a resentful sneer. “They all told me how lucky I was. Started calling me Lucky Vahnie .” She scoffed. “Real fucking lucky.” She looked away and shook her head. “‘You’re a real Shaughnessy now.’ That’s what Uncle Paddy told me. That I’d gotten my scars. That I’d earned my name.” Her head snapped back to face me, and her eyes flashed like blue fire. “I was sixteen .”
If I had the power, I’d have resurrected Pádraig Shaughnessy and killed him all over again. Painfully.
“So when I say I want nothing to do with my family,” she said, her righteous anger focused on me, “when I say I did everything I could to get away from them, it’s not bullshit. And now you know why. Now you’ve seen why.” She gripped my forearms. “We both have scars from this life, Luca. Mine are just on the outside.”
I ground my teeth, my emotions pulling me in opposite directions—protectiveness, outrage, confusion. Regret. After seeing her stomach, after hearing the pain and bitterness in her voice, I believed her. I believed everything she’d told me. Where that left us? I had no idea.
“I want names, Siobhán. I want the names of every person who hurt you.”
“They’re long gone, Luca.” She waved a hand through the air. “Uncle Paddy took out the entire crew. You know how it works. He wasn’t about to let that insult go.”
I ground my teeth. Another sin for which the Shaughnessys needed to atone, this time enacted against one of their own. I’d personally make sure everyone involved—rival gang and Shaughnessys alike—paid their penance in blood.
The doorbell rang.
The neon time on the microwave above the oven read nine forty-five.
“Cazzo. That’s Dominic,” I said, but didn’t let go. Neither did she. “Go upstairs. There’s a Harvard sweatshirt in the bottom drawer of my dresser. And for God’s sake, put on a pair of my boxers.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Top drawer on the left. I have to go to work. I’ll… I’ll get you some clothes and?—”
Realization slapped me across the face. How drunk she was the night before. Her stomach. I dropped my hands from her face and shoved one into my hair. God, I was the worst kind of asshole. “What did you eat yesterday?”
She lowered her eyes and hugged herself. “A bowl of noodles.”
“Fuck, Siobhán, why didn’t you tell me?”
She let out a hysterical laugh and looked at me like I was crazy.
“Never mind. We’re going to the grocery store when I get back.” I took quick strides toward the door and pointed at the stairs. “Go.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
Hand on the doorknob, I waited for her to disappear upstairs. The thought of Dominic seeing an inch of her naked skin drove my eyes to the edge of fire. I squeezed them shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. My mind was a turbulent mess. It constricted my chest and made it hard to breathe.
My plan was shot to hell. Everything I thought I knew about Siobhán was complete bullshit. But I had to keep her here. I couldn’t let her go.
I didn’t give a fuck if she told her family. Let them come after me. Maybe then I’d finally get to put a bullet through a Shaughnessy head. But I didn’t need her running to the cops. She didn’t have any evidence, but I didn’t need the extra heat, especially with the expanding Source racket.
More than the cops, I was worried about Marco. I was within my rights to take Siobhán. He agreed at the sit-down—any Shaughnessy was fair game outside of Ciarán. But he’d make it into a thing regardless, and I wasn’t ready to deal with his shit. Not yet.
Siobhán was the only leverage I had, the only path I saw to vengeance. I’d hold onto her, extract every ounce of information I could. Locked inside that pretty little head were the answers I needed. I was sure of it. I’d gain her trust and get her talking until she revealed her family’s weaknesses. Then I’d exact my revenge. For myself and for her.