10. Cormac
Chapter Ten
CORMAC
A sense of normal doesn’t return all at once. It seems to be coming back in fragments, and I don’t trust it. Not for a second.
But I let it exist because Scout needs it.
I sit on the stone steps overlooking the garden with my elbows on my knees, watching as Scout plays. The fact that he’s outside feels like a victory.
The air is cold, but it brings some color back into his cheeks as he creeps along the edge of the bushes, completely absorbed in his task of looking for bugs to show to Nico.
My shoulders ache from holding so much tension.
Every instinct I have screams to hover near him, to pull him close, or to lock him inside where nothing can touch him. But I don’t. I force myself to stay put and watch him be a six-year-old kid instead of a piece of collateral that men like Lorcan or Adrian could use.
Scout looks over his shoulder and spots me watching. He waves, and I lift my hand in return, my mouth curving into a smile despite myself before he goes back to his bug hunting like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.
How I wish I could live there with him…
Footsteps approach behind me, but I don’t look around, mostly because I don’t want to take my eyes off my son for even a second.
“If you keep staring like that, he’s going to think he’s in trouble.” Brennan drops down onto the step beside me and stretches out his long legs in front of him. “Here,” he offers me a mug of coffee.
From the steam curling around the top, it must be fresh.
“I didn’t know you knew how to operate the coffee machine.”
“All right, you caught me. One of the maids was bringing it out, and I may or may not have intercepted it.”
I snort. “The brunette or the blonde?”
Brennan grins. “Blonde.”
“Of course.”
“I can’t help it if women love a man with battle scars,” he taps the side of his head.
The stitches have dissolved, leaving a nasty red scar that should fade in time.
For Scout’s sake, I hope it does. He doesn’t need another reminder of the nightmare he went through every time he looks at his uncle's face.
The two of us sit in silence for a moment, watching Scout, though I can sense the underlying questions that Brennan is about to ask.
But he doesn’t rush me to talk. He never does. It’s one of the reasons he’s good at what he does, and one of the reasons he gets under my skin.
“He’s different,” Brennan says finally.
I nod once. “He’s quieter.”
“But…still him,” Brennan finishes.
“For now,” I take a sip of coffee.
I can feel Brennan’s eyes on me the entire time.
“What?”
“You haven’t slept.”
“I sleep.”
“You doze,” he corrects.
I don’t bother denying it.
My eyes stay locked on Scout as he darts across the lawn, triumphant now that he’s found a new bug.
“I keep thinking if I look away, something’s going to happen.”
“It won’t.”
“That’s what everyone says. Right up until it does.”
Brennan exhales through his nose. “You can’t control everything.”
“I know.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“Is there a point to this, or did you just come out here to psychoanalyze me before breakfast?”
He shrugs. “Little of both. Kieran and Ronan are running surveillance this morning, but there’s been no movement from Lorcan yet, and Adrian’s people have been unusually quiet.”
“That worries me more than noise.”
“Same… What about you?”
“The plan is in motion. Fiona made contact with Lorcan yesterday.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
My jaw tightens.
Brennan sighs. “You’ve been through a lot, Cormac. What I’m trying to say is, I’m here if you want to talk.”
“I’m tired of talking.”
Scout suddenly trips over his own feet and lands on his backside with an indignant huff.
I’m on my feet instantly, my heart in my throat. But before I can take more than two steps, he’s on his feet again, laughing at the state of his mud-covered clothes.
“I’m okay, Daddy!” he calls out to me, but I barely hear him.
I sit back down slowly, my pulse pounding in my ears. “Feels like I’m failing him every second I’m not standing between him and the world.”
Brennan gets to his feet. “For what it’s worth… You’re doing a better job than our father ever did.”
He claps me on the shoulder before disappearing back inside the house, leaving me alone to stew on my own thoughts.
Later, once most of the house has gone to bed, I pace around in the living room while Fiona sits on the edge of the couch.
She looks composed, almost indifferent, but I know better now.
I know how much she’s able to hide.
Her phone sits silent in her lap.
I’ve already tapped it and locked it down so tight Lorcan himself couldn’t slip past me, but even that wasn’t enough to ease my mind.
I made her wear a tracker, and to my surprise, she didn’t fight me on it, not even a little, which might bother me more than if she had.
“Are you sure you sent the message?” I ask for the third time.
“Yes.”
Lorcan is supposed to call any minute, and my body feels like a live wire.
Even with all the protections I’ve put in place to ensure not just Scout’s but my entire family’s safety, even just hearing his voice within the safety of these walls makes me want to hurl my guts up.
“Check again—”
Just then, the phone finally rings, the sound slicing through the room.
I’m at Fiona’s side in two strides.
She stares down at the phone as if it’s a grenade.
Every muscle in my body tenses as I see his name flashing on the screen.
Fiona glances anxiously at me, and I give her a curt nod.
This is it.
Fiona takes a deep breath before answering the call. “Hello?”
“Fiona.” Hearing my piece-of-shit uncle say her name like that has me balling my hands into fists. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
Fiona takes a moment to steady herself before answering. “There was a situation after I deleted the file.” She glances at me. “It was impossible for me to get away long enough to call.”
“You deleted the file?”
“Yes.”
There is another pause.
I dig my nails into my palms, needing anything to focus on other than the heavy sound of my uncle's breathing coming through the phone.
He should have been long dead, but hopefully, this conversation brings us one step closer to making that happen.
“You’re certain?”
“The file is gone, and I wiped the laptop without any complications or arousing suspicion. Cormac and his brothers have no idea.” Fiona looks away at the mention of my name, though her cheeks redden with color.
How she can think I will be able to forgive her after this is beyond me because this right here, this conversation with Lorcan, only cements her betrayal even more.
“My nephews can’t see for looking.” Lorcan scoffs. “But lucky for you, that works in our favor.”
The bastard sounds so smug it makes my blood boil.
“What should I do now?” Fiona’s throat bobs.
“Nothing. I’ll be in touch soon.”
When the call ends, I hold my hand out, and Fiona places the phone in my palm. I pocket it without looking at her and walk away, needing to put some distance between us.
She gets to her feet. “Did I…do okay?”
“You did fine,” I mutter.
When Fiona says nothing, I glance over, and I see something like hurt flicker in her eyes.
Before I can stop it, anger surges through me, hot and violent, tangling itself up in the relentless want and grief I feel every time I so much as look at her.
I close the distance between us in two strides, my hand clamping around her arm as I shove her back against the wall.
She gasps, looking up at me with a mixture of fear and need.
“I’m not going to pat you on the fucking head for fixing your own mess. You don’t get praise for doing what you should have done from the start.”
A quiet whimper escapes her lips, and I have to swallow a groan.
She might as well have reached into my pants and gripped my cock from how that one sound makes me want to explode.
I lean in close enough that my mouth brushes her ear.
She smells like soap and something unmistakably her. She shivers despite the coldness in my voice, and that only makes me angrier, not just at her but at myself, at the fact that no matter how badly she hurts me, my body wants her.
“This,” I murmur, my voice low and ruthless, as I force her legs apart with my thigh. “Is for me.”
Her eyes flutter closed as I press my hardening cock against her thigh.
I reach for my belt. “This isn’t me rewarding you for doing what you were told, for once.”
“Cormac…”
My name on her lips is enough to make me relinquish the small fragment of control I have left.
Leaving my belt half unbuckled, I take my hands to Fiona’s ass and lift her off the ground at the same time my mouth claims hers.
She parts her lips instantly, letting me slide my tongue inside her warm mouth as she tightens her thighs around my waist.
Until now, Fiona has been hesitant toward my touch, at least at first.
But not today.
It seems she needs the release just as much as I do.
She sinks her fingers into my hair, pulling hard enough at the strands to make me hiss through my teeth.
“Nice try.” I wrap her ponytail around my fist and tug on it hard.
Her head falls back, exposing the long column of her neck that is practically begging to be sucked on.
With my other hand, I roughly pull her skirt up around her waist, exposing a pair of black lace panties.
For some reason, that has me seeing red.
Maybe because it reminds me so much of those early days when Fiona was working as my assistant and I was working on not fucking falling for her.
I push Fiona back against the wall and pull her panties to the side, trying to ignore the sounds of her needy panting. I keep hold of her ponytail, using my free hand to reach into my pants and pull my cock free.
“Please,” she moans as I line myself up with her entrance.
As I jerk my hips, sinking my cock inside her in one hard thrust, I lean forward and bite down on her neck.
Fiona trembles in my arms, her thighs tensing around me as her inner walls clench.
It would be so easy to carry her over to the couch, but I can’t allow myself to make this comfortable. I need it to be rough and messy in order to ignore the feelings that are threatening to surface.
So, I keep hold of her hair, pulling hard enough on the strands to make her cry out as I thrust my cock inside her, hard enough to leave my mark on her for days to come.
I don’t whisper how much of a good girl she is in her ear, or tell her how incredible her pussy feels, no matter how much I want to.
Instead, I say nothing, choosing to occupy my mouth by exploring her neck or bending down and biting her nipple through her top.
She surrenders to my touch completely without complaint. She takes each brutal thrust in her stride, grinding her hips to meet me stroke for stroke.
“Fuck,” I groan, burying my face in her neck when the base of my spine starts to tingle.
Fiona tightens her thighs around me, digging her heels into my ass to drive my cock even deeper.
Beneath my shirt, my skin is slick with sweat as I fight to hold off from coming. Only because once it’s over, I have to go back to pretending to hate her.
“Mark me, Cormac,” Fiona whispers in my ear, her breath hot on my skin. “Show me who I belong to.”
I couldn’t hold back even if I wanted to.
My hips jerk as I spill inside her, grunting with each thrust as Fiona comes along with me.
I hold her head against my shoulder, muffling the sounds of her cries as her pussy clenches around my cock, milking every last drop.
Fiona is still trembling from the force of her climax as I slide my cock free and lower her to the floor.
It’s physically painful to separate myself from her, but I have to.
My hands don’t linger on her waist or brush the strands of hair out of her face that have come free from her ponytail.
I simply shove my cock back into my pants and leave her standing there, her chest heaving and my release trickling down her inner thigh, because I need her to think I don’t care, even though I do.
I care so fucking much that it kills me every time I think about what she did to me.