Chapter 23 Kieran
Kieran
“Kieran, is that you?” Joanie’s voice drifted from the bedroom.
I took the stairs two at a time. “Yes. It’s me. I’ve been searching for you for an hour.”
My voice came out angrier than I’d intended.
Joanie stood at the full-length mirror in the corner, fumbling with the clasp on a thin chain.
There was no sign of the sexy list. She must have stashed it away.
Adrenaline ran through me at the sight of her.
Her emerald-green silk dress clung to her phenomenal body.
The low-cut bodice highlighted the swell of her smooth breasts.
Joanie always looked beautiful, but I hadn’t seen her like this—confident and oozing glamour and sophistication.
A rush of warmth overtook me, and I knew I must be staring, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
“I can’t help it if my phone runs out of battery.”
Who gave a fuck about batteries and phone? My pulse pounded. The dress looked so good. It would look great when I slid it off her, or better yet, slid it up and bunched it around her waist while I had her bent over the kitchen table.
She gave a little growl of frustration. “Can you help me get this necklace off, please? It’s so fiddly.”
I moved to stand behind her. She swept her hair up and held it out of the way for me. My fingers brushed her neck lightly as I worked on the clasp. I wanted to plant a kiss on the soft skin of her shoulder and breathe her in.
Her voice was thick. “Are you mad at me?”
“I was.” Now I was so turned on I couldn’t think straight.
“You were mad at me?”
No. Not over the table. Then I wouldn’t be able to see her pretty face and that luscious red mouth. I’d rather have her laid out for me on the bed, bare and trembling with anticipation.
“I was mad. I’ve been looking for you. But I’m not mad now.” I unclasped the necklace. “Here.”
She spun to face me and take the necklace out of my hand. The movement made her dress pull tighter across her perfect cleavage. We were still standing so close.
“Why were you mad? I haven’t done anything wrong.” She held out her hands and huffed out a breath. “I’m an adult. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Of course I was worried. Why didn’t you make sure your phone had enough battery before you went out? What was I supposed to think?”
“I don’t know. That I’m capable of taking care of myself. I don’t appreciate being talked down to.”
Hang on a minute. “What are you getting angry with me about?” I was the one who’d just run around the jetty for an hour.
“Because I don’t like being treated like a kid. I get enough of that from my dad. I went out on my own because it was important to me. It’s something I wanted to tick off my list.”
My pulse pounded, but I’d have to feign ignorance. “You have a list?”
Her eyes slipped away. “It’s just some silly thing I’m doing. It doesn’t matter.”
My heart thundered as I stepped closer. “You can tell me about it if you want to.”
She peered up at me. “You want to know?”
My skin prickled with anticipation. “Yes. I might be able to . . . help you with it.”
She nodded to herself. “Skylar suggested I write a list of things I want to do, like a bucket list. It’s a way to . . . get back to myself, I guess.” She shot me an uncertain glance.
“I see.”
“It’s nothing that exciting. I’d like to go horse riding on a beach. I’d like to try pottery and learn another language. Ollie did one of those zookeeper-for-the-day experiences once. I love animals. I’d like to do something like that . . .”
OK, but what about the good stuff? I reached out and trailed my fingers down her bare arm. “It sounds like a good idea.”
A tremble ran through her, and she took a step toward me. “Do you think?”
“Yes.”
“What would you have on yours?”
“I’ve already done a lot of the things I wanted to do when I was a kid. Playing for Madrid . . . playing at Wembley. I was voted Best Hair in the Premier League twice in a row by Girlzone magazine. I’m most proud of that one.”
Playing for my country should be top of the list, but now I’d seen her in that dress. Who gave a fuck about England?
She smiled. “Best Hair, huh? Those are all football things. What do you want to do outside of football?”
I wanted to touch her again, but I didn’t dare. Would she ever trust me enough to tell me what was on the other side of the list? “I haven’t given it much thought. I’d like to ride a camel.”
She burst out laughing. A lovely, rich, tinkling sound.
“Why is that funny? Wouldn’t you like to ride a camel?” I kept my tone deadpan because that always seemed to make her laugh. “I can’t believe you’re laughing at me right now when I’m being vulnerable sharing that with you.”
She laughed harder. “I’m sorry. I appreciate your honesty, but of all the things in the world . . . It’s so random. What is it in particular about riding a camel that appeals to you?”
“It just looks fun, doesn’t it? So bumpy.”
I breathed in her floral perfume. Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “I’d like to see you riding a camel. I bet you’d be flopping about all over the place.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Flopping? I’d be riding that camel like a boss, I can assure you.”
She folded her arms across her chest, and her cleavage looked so amazing I was about to fucking die if I couldn’t bury my face in it.
I bent to whisper in her ear. “I have a lot of things I’d add to my list now I’ve seen you in that dress.”
She lifted her gaze to peer up at me. “What kind of things?”
Joanie wanted to take it slow, and if I was smart, I shouldn’t be taking it anywhere at all.
Still, like the fucking horny idiot this woman had turned me into, I couldn’t help myself.
If she wanted a rebound, then I could be the guy.
I didn’t care as long as I could be with her.
“I probably shouldn’t say them out loud.
Most of them involve taking off our clothes. ”
She bit her lip, and it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. “I’d like to ride a camel too, now you’ve mentioned it. You’ve really sold it.”
“You’d probably need very strong thighs.”
She raised an eyebrow. “No problem. I had a pony growing up.”
“Of course you did.”
She laughed. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It’s a rich-girl thing, isn’t it? Nobody I knew had a pony growing up. There were a few horses chained up on the estate, but I don’t think they were meant to be there.”
She frowned. “A rich-girl thing? I can’t help it that I grew up—”
“Privileged?”
Her frown deepened. “I suppose it depends how you define privilege.”
“I’d define it as having a millionaire rock star dad and a pet pony.”
She stepped back, creating distance between us. Fuck. We’d gone from flirting to irritation in a heartbeat. Shaking her head, she walked away from me onto the balcony.
I followed her outside. Warm night air wrapped around me. “What’s wrong?”
She peered over the balcony railing onto the dark grounds. “I know I’m lucky in many ways, but my childhood wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I’ve never liked the attention, and I don’t need you judging me. You’re so blunt, Kieran. Sometimes you say stuff and it’s . . . not that nice.”
I peered up into the sky. The night was stuffed with stars, as if there were too many of them.
As if there was more light than dark. There was so little light pollution that you could see every single bright-silver point.
I couldn’t believe the sky could be so empty and indifferent but so full of beauty at the same time.
The weight of all those stars crushed me in the silence.
Joanie was right. Sometimes I wasn’t nice.
Sometimes I was a full-on dick. So what?
I didn’t owe anyone anything. I’d grown up around people who saw a smile as a weakness.
People could take me or leave me. But I didn’t want to be a dick to Joanie.
I cared about her too much. She deserved better.
I reached for her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She snapped her arm away. “Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to fall for someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Someone who is so obviously going to break my heart.”
Tears glittered in her eyes, and Joanie was as beautiful as that star-choked sky. She was a million silver glittering points. More light than dark. I wanted to say the right words to make this better, but somehow they got stuck between my heart and my mouth.
She hugged herself. “The trouble is, it’s too late. The damage is done.”
“What damage?”
“I really like you, Kieran. I didn’t want to. You’re a footballer. You’re grumpy, and you never smile.”
“I smile.”
“I’ve never seen you smile. Not really. I suppose you get that look when you’re joking around.”
“What look?”
“I don’t know . . . playful . . . like you want to smile, but something holds you back.”
Was that true? I smiled sometimes, didn’t I? “Look, I’m sorry. I was so fucking worried about you tonight. I never want anything bad to happen to you, and I don’t want to break your heart. You’re right. I’m a dick. I am broken in a lot of ways.”
“In what ways?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
We’d moved close again. “It matters. Everyone is broken in their own way. That’s just being human.
The point is, we have to understand each other’s brokenness so we can work with it.
Aren’t we all just scrambling along, trying to do better?
It’s like you said when you saw me in the gym.
Showing up and doing the work is enough.
The thing is, I don’t know if you want to be better or not. I hardly know you at all.”
I drank in the golden tones in her eyes. She was so soft and warm and gentle, and all I wanted was to be closer. There was so much solace in her and so much patience. I wanted to bury myself in her and lose myself. To melt into her and take away all this hard numbness inside that plagued me.
I’d had to switch off my feelings when Dad left. Mum and Jack had needed me to be the man of the house. I never wanted to end up like my father. Better to feel cold inside than twisted up with anger and violence.
I took her hand in mine. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me, but for you, I want to be better. And I want you to know me. I want to know you, too. If you’re broken, it doesn’t faze me. I can show up and do the work. But I don’t think you are. I think you’re just right.”
I brushed my lips against hers, tasting pineapple lip balm.
She drew back. I held perfectly still, seeking reassurance, waiting to see if she’d come back to me.
Please come back to me. She took a stumbling step forward and pressed her warm body to mine.
Her mouth touched my lips, and she kissed me with an unexpected intensity.
A torrent of lust rose in me, and my emotions were too raw and unchecked to be restrained.
I let my hands roam over silk. My palms grazed the swell of her hips, her toned stomach, her firm breasts.
She moaned into my mouth and kissed me harder.
Her hands explored my body. Not solace, but passion.
This was losing myself, and I so desperately wanted to get lost. One night and Joanie’s gentleness could make everything better.
We stumbled around the balcony, entwined, breathing heavily, with our hands all over each other.
It was more like grappling than making out.
Mortimer Fox had made me promise to be a gentleman, but he’d made a mistake.
I was no gentleman. Here I was panting and groping his pretty daughter, desperate to get her naked and feel myself moving inside her.
My lips found her ear. “You should have knocked on my fucking door. You don’t ever have to read alone when I’m around.”
Her mouth recaptured mine. Joanie’s kisses were breathless and fervent. Her body pressed against me, and I was so hard and drunk on lust, and heat, and sensation, my balls ached.
Gently, I pushed her back. “Let’s slow down.”
She pulled me back to her lips, and I couldn’t resist. How could I resist her in this dress? I’d lost any sense of rational thought the moment her lips had captured mine.
I buried my face into her neck, breathing her in. “We’re supposed to be taking it slow.”
She trembled against me. “I don’t want to stop.”
My heart pounded. “Are you sure?”
She rolled her head back, and I kissed the soft skin of her throat.
“Please,” she gasped.
“Please what?”
My lips traveled from her shoulder back to her jaw.
I steered her so her back pressed against the wall, because if I fucked her against the balcony, I’d probably fuck us both over the edge.
I couldn’t be restrained. Not now. I hiked her dress up and grabbed her thigh, hooking it around my waist. “You want me to fuck you, Joanie?”
Her head rolled back on her neck and she ground against me. “Please.”
“Please? You don’t have to say please with me. There’s no need for please. Just tell me what you want. Say, ‘Kieran, get on your knees for me. Kieran, come here and fuck me,’ and I’m at your service, but I need you to say it.”
Her voice was a husky whisper. “Yes. I want you.”
I pulled her underwear to the side and slid a finger through the heat between her thighs. She was absolutely fucking soaked. A low guttural groan escaped me. Oh, this was on. “Anything you want. I’m completely weak for you.”