Chapter 18
Saint
The days after Oisín kisses me like he has the right to leave afterward, the air between us changes in a way I can’t put my hands around without wanting to break something.
It’s nothing obvious. He still sleeps in my bed, eats whatever Tally puts in front of him, sits in the office when Moth calls him in, and still lets Demo talk until the kid runs out of breath or gets dragged into work by someone with less patience.
He still wears my cut when he’s in the main room, and the thin silver ring stays on his finger where I put it.
I catch him touching it sometimes, thumb running along the edge while he reads or listens or tries not to react when Sol’s name moves through a conversation.
The structure is the same, but Oisín isn’t.
I can stand behind him at the bar, put one hand on the back of his neck, and feel his pulse under my thumb shift before his expression changes.
I can drop my voice near his ear and watch his breath catch while he pretends he isn’t listening with every inch of himself.
That part of him is still there, soft under the right pressure, responsive in a way that makes my hands itch when other men stand too close.
The difference is that he no longer offers it automatically. He chooses when to soften now. He chooses when to answer, when to lower his eyes, when to turn his face away because he knows I’m watching and refuses to give me the satisfaction.
It pisses me off more than it should, and the fact that it makes me proud only makes the whole thing worse.
I find Oisín in Moth’s office late in the afternoon with his sleeves rolled to his forearms and a marker in one hand.
The door is open, which is already strange enough to stop me in the hallway.
Moth doesn’t leave sensitive boards visible unless he trusts the person in front of them or expects to dispose of them before they can become a problem.
Oisín is standing beside him, head tilted slightly as he studies the logistics board, the silver ring on his hand catching the overhead light every time he gestures toward a route line.
“You’re still treating the southern pickup like a fallback,” Oisín says, tapping the end of the marker against a blue-pinned path, “but it reads more like a tell. Nobody uses that road unless something else is wrong, so every time you send a vehicle through, you’re announcing pressure on the primary route.
If the Reapers are watching the breaks instead of the product, that road gives them more than the drop does. ”
Moth stands with his tablet tucked against his side, eyes moving between the board and Oisín’s face. “The southern pickup has been clean for eight months.”
“Clean roads make people lazy.” Oisín reaches past him and draws a small circle around a timing window.
“The buyer complaint wasn’t meant to prove bad product.
It was meant to watch our reaction. Who showed up, how fast Sol moved, whether Obsidian overcorrected, whether we changed routes too visibly afterward.
If we respond to every touch by shifting the entire pattern, we teach them which parts matter. ”
I lean against the doorway and keep my mouth shut as Moth studies the board for a long moment.
Most men talk too much when Moth looks at them like that.
They overexplain, apologize, qualify every thought until the useful part gets buried under fear.
Oisín waits. He doesn’t feed those nerves to the room. He lets his work stand where he put it.
Moth finally shifts one of the pins. “You see patterns the way I see numbers. That’s rare.”
The praise hits Oisín before he can guard against it, his face opening by a fraction, surprise moving through him before caution closes over it. Canon missed that face for twenty-seven years.
“Thank you,” Oisín says.
“Don’t thank me,” Moth replies, already marking the change on his tablet. “It means I’m going to give you more work.”
Oisín’s mouth curves. “That sounds more like you.”
Moth makes a faint sound that might be amusement if someone were feeling generous.
“Pull the secondary pickup history for the last quarter and flag every route change that followed external pressure by less than forty-eight hours. I want to know how often we trained our enemies by reacting efficiently.”
Oisín reaches for the folder on the desk without asking whether he should. “Paper or digital?”
“Both.”
“Of course.”
Moth notices me without turning from the board. “Are you hovering for operational reasons or personal ones?”
Oisín turns then, and our eyes meet across the office.
The expression on his face changes, though not into the softness I used to be able to pull from him with a look.
This is steadier, edged with memory and refusal, the kiss he gave me in my office still sitting somewhere between us like a knife neither of us has picked up yet.
“No,” I say. “I’m checking whether you plan to steal my husband permanently.”
Moth moves another pin. “Only during working hours.”
Oisín looks back at the board before his mouth can betray him, but I catch the smile he tries to hide.
***
Later, I’m in my office with Harlan’s broker report open in front of me and a headache building behind my eyes.
The Reaper problem has started throwing off smaller problems, which is what real threats do.
The confirmed push against our product gives us a direction, but not enough room to retaliate cleanly without showing how much we know.
Harlan says the Buffalo buyer is scared enough to cooperate and stupid enough to salvage, which means I have to decide whether debt, restricted access, or public humiliation gives us more leverage. Dead men are simpler. Useful men are work.
The door swings open, Oisín crossing the office with a folder in his hand and sets it on the edge of my desk. “Moth wanted you to see the updated pressure map before the evening call.”
I keep my eyes on the report. “Did Moth lose the ability to walk?”
“He said if he came in here, you’d ask him about the broker report, and he wanted another twenty minutes of peace.”
“He sent you as bait.”
“He sent me as a delivery system.”
“That sounds like Moth.”
I finish the paragraph in front of me, though the words have stopped arranging themselves into anything useful.
The report is still there. The folder is still there.
Oisín is still standing on the other side of the desk, and the room has started paying more attention to him than to the problem I’m supposed to be solving.
“You need something?” I ask.
“Yes.”
That makes me look up. “What is it?” I ask.
“You’re not listening.”
“I heard you.”
“You heard words. You’re still in the report.”
“I’m working.”
“I know.”
I expect him to leave it there, because most people do when I let that edge into my voice. Oisín walks around the desk instead. Before I can decide whether to be amused or irritated, his fingers catch my jaw and turn my face away from the paperwork.
Then he kisses me. For a second, my body doesn’t understand what’s happening because there is no command in it. No obedience. No desperate softness pulled out of him by my hand in his hair or my mouth at his throat.
Slowly, the report disappears from my head.
So does Harlan, the buyer, Sol, the Reapers, the three routes I need to review, and the headache sitting behind my eyes.
Oisín tastes like coffee and mint, his mouth warm and firm against mine, his fingers staying on my jaw as if he intends to keep my attention where he placed it.
Being obeyed quiets one part of me. Being wanted cuts the power to the whole fucking room.
My chair scrapes back as I reach for him.
Oisín lets me catch his waist, but he doesn’t surrender the kiss.
He stays in it with me, taking as much as he gives, one hand sliding from my jaw to the back of my neck while the other grips the edge of the desk for balance.
I pull him between my knees, and he steps into the space without hesitation.
The folder slides off the desk and hits the floor with a soft slap neither of us cares enough to acknowledge.
I stand and turn him until his hips hit the desk. Papers shift under him as he half-sits on the edge, mouth flushed from mine.
“You proud of yourself?” I muse, still kissing at the edge of his jaw.
“Yes.”
I lean in, mouth near his ear. “Careful.”
Oisín’s breath catches, but his eyes don’t lower. “I’m not the one who stopped working.”
I kiss him again. This time he lets me lead for a little while, opening when I press closer, fingers sliding into the back of my cut. When my hand drops lower and my grip turns possessive in the old, easy way I’m used to, he catches my wrist. He holds me there, the line he’s set very clear.
I should be irritated, and I am, but irritation doesn’t stop the heat from moving through me. Oisín slides off the desk, staying close enough that his chest brushes mine when he straightens.
“Read the folder,” he says.
“You came in here to make sure I read a folder?”
“I came in here because you were about to turn the broker report into a murder plan. The folder should happen first.” He bends to pick up the fallen pages and puts them back on the desk with a neatness that feels like mockery. “Moth said twenty minutes. I gave him ten.”
Oisín throws me a small smile before disappearing out into the hallway, my whole body on alert with no outlet.
That wasn’t the same man I first brought back here or met at the club.
He’s become… I’m not even sure and I can’t tell whether I crave more of it or want to put Oisín on his knees immediately.