What am I doing?
Chapter thirteen
áINE
Kieran shuts the door behind us and sits down on the side of the bed before snagging my wrist and pulling me toward him.
"What are you—" I lose my voice completely when he lets go of my wrist to take a hold of my waist and lift me into his lap.
I'm on my knees facing him and it's awkward as heck.
Apparently, he thinks so too because he presses my legs apart, so I straddle him. My butt settled on his rock-hard quads, my knees are now on the bed, and his big hands are curved around my legging clad upper thighs.
My fingers curl into his shirt, like I'm trying to hold him in place even though it's obvious neither one of us is going anywhere.
"What…we can't…" I blow out a breath and collect my scattered thoughts. "We need to talk, Kieran."
"It's easier for me to talk when I'm touching you."
He had been a lot more voluble earlier. "I thought it was because you were turned on."
He shrugs. "Either way works."
Which means what? That he's turned on right now?
"You're excited?" I dip my head to look down between us.
And sure enough, there's already an impressive bulge behind the placket of his cargo pants.
"We're in a bedroom, baby girl, that's a given."
Baby girl again.
I don't think I'm supposed to fall for my convenient husband in a marriage being forced on me by the mob. But he's making it hard to do anything else.
It's like he's been programmed to say all the right things and do exactly what we need him to, me and my girls.
Except… "You should have talked to me about Neeve and Joy not going to school today." We'll get to the Ellie thing in a minute.
"I meant to earlier." Those talented thumbs brush back and forth along my inner thighs. "We got sidetracked."
Ungh. What? Oh, yeah. Talking. "So, you meant to talk to me about the whole girls playing hooky and us going to Disneyland instead of Vegas thing?"
But he got distracted. By my breasts.
Why does that make me feel so proud? And pleased? Maybe because his preoccupation with my body came with two mind-altering orgasms.
"Yes." His gaze drops to my suddenly heaving chest. "And no."
Did I put on the wireless lift-and-entice bra Ellie talked me into buying last year in the after Christmas sales?
Yes, I did. My cornflower blue, capped-sleeve knit top with the deep scoop neck that reveals an inch of my cleavage, hugs my enhanced curves before flaring just below my ribcage, the flirty hem hitting me midthigh.
After his reaction in the kitchen earlier, I thought he'd like it, but the predatory expression in his scalding espresso gaze says he's on the verge of getting sidetracked again. Want pulses in my core in sympathetic need.
"Show and tell time is over for today, big guy." Though I really, really wish it wasn't. "More words necessary," I force out, doing my best to ignore his Siren's call to my inner hussy.
Kieran's head snaps up and his gaze locks on mine, chagrin creasing the skin around his eyes. "I meant to tell you about the girls. Wanted Disneyland to be a surprise."
"Why don't you want the girls in school? I thought this whole arranged marriage thing was about protecting them."
"We're not married yet. I won't risk Kenneth using Neeve or Joy to bring you back in line."
I don't argue that Kenneth wouldn't try to do that very thing. He started blowing my phone up with texts after three calls from him went to voicemail while I was in the shower.
But use my daughters to do it?
"How would he? He's not on the list of people allowed to take them out of school." I realize how na?ve my words sound even as I'm saying them.
The Kenneth Shaughnessys of this world don't abide by the rules and he is the one who pays my girls' tuition.
A sickening thought comes to me. "I bet people already think I'm having an affair with Kenneth. He's been paying my daughters' tuition for the last four years."
"That ends now." Kieran squeezes my thighs, like he's emphasizing his words.
But he's not going to get an argument from me.
"Agreed." I'd rather put my girls in public school then let that asshole keep paying their tuition. "He's already paid for this year though."
Kieran scowls. "I'll arrange for St. Patrick's to refund all the tuition he's paid over the last four years."
He really does find it easier to talk when we're touching. No, he's not talking in paragraphs or anything, but he's also not testing my patience with one-word answers.
"I'll take care of it." It'll clear my savings out, but once I get a better job, it will be easier for me to start putting money aside again.
"No," Kieran says decisively. "I pay for my family."
"One: this isn't the 1950s. Two: we weren't your family when he paid the tuition." I tick each reason off with a finger tap to his chest. "And three: I'm not marrying you to get a sugar daddy. Or any other kind of daddy."
That's not my kink. I don't have any kinks. Or at least, I don't think I do. If the sexcapade in the kitchen taught me anything, it's that six years of marriage to Troy did not equal any sort of real experience in that department.
Kieran blew my mind.
"One: It doesn't matter what decade or century it is.
I take care of my family." He scoots me closer, so his cloth covered erection is pressed against the crotch of my leggings.
"Two: you're my family now." He rolls his hips, making me gasp.
"Three: Allowing me to take care of my family does not make me your sugar daddy.
" His left hand comes up to clasp my nape. "It makes me your husband."
Whatever response I might have made is blocked when his lips press against mine. I go under like a sugar cube dropped in my morning tea, my body melting into him just as fast too.
I'm dry humping him and in serious danger of needing to change my panties when my mom brain manages to get a message past my out-of-control ovaries.
Not. The. Time. Need. To. Talk.
Twisting my head to the side, I break the kiss, but his lips just move on to the side of my face and down my neck.
"Stop." I'd feel better if that sounded more like an order than a moan, but I'm trying here. "Come on, big guy. Please stop tempting me. We need to talk and one of the girls, mom or Ellie is going to come knocking on that door any minute."
Or all five of them. FML
Kieran lifts his head, but his grip on my hips doesn't loosen. "Big guy?"
"Have you seen yourself? You could play body double for the Incredible Hulk. What are you, six-foot-five?"
"Six-three. Not that tall," he says dismissively.
I lean back as far as his hold on my nape will let me. "A whole foot taller than me." With shoulders the size of boulders and thighs as thick as tree trunks.
I really like being able to sit on his lap and not feel like I'm squishing him. It would take a falling mountain to flatten Kieran Lleshi.
"I'm going down to the school later today. I'll take care of the tuition then."
Aargh! "You are really stubborn, you know that?"
"It has been noted," he says sardonically.
"I just bet it has." I frown. "Why are you going to St. Patrick's? If it's another meeting with the principal, I should be there."
"Not the middle school. Neeve's teacher and classmates need a vocabulary lesson."
Both St. Patrick's Elementary and St. Patrick's Preparatory Academy are run under the auspices of the diocese. The elementary school is still housed in the convent that started the school but the middle and high school that make up the preparatory academy have their own campuses nearby.
The financial office that handles both the elementary school and preparatory academy is located in the convent, along with most of the other business offices related to the schools and the convent itself.
The few nuns who still live in the convent have their quarters on the top floor of the old but beautiful brick building.
"What? Why?" I feel like I'm saying those two words way too much this morning.
But since yesterday, I've persisted in an on again-off again state of total confusion. And it's been more on than off.
Kieran tells me about a discussion he had with Neeve earlier while I was getting ready that makes my heart hurt in my chest and my teeth grind with anger.
"I can't believe the children in her class are calling her that. And I really can't believe the teacher didn't let me know it was happening." I'll definitely be having words with Mr. Wrye. He thought an apology was sufficient? In what universe? "But why didn't Neeve tell me?"
It feels like I failed my kid. Heck, I did fail her if Neeve didn't think she could come to me with something like this.
"Probably trying to protect you." Kieran's hand moves down from my nape to rub circles on my back.
I don't deserve his comfort though. Do I? I let my daughter down. I let them all down by listening to Kenneth Shaughnessy and staying in New York.
"That's not her job." Shoving against Kieran's chest, I try to climb off his lap. "Let me up."
"What's wrong?" Instead of letting me go, he wraps both arms around me to keep me exactly where I am.
"I failed my daughter." Tears I refuse to shed burn the back of my eyes. "I failed all of them. Sadie wouldn't have been attacked yesterday if I had moved out of New York when I found out the truth about Troy."
"You were trying to protect them."
"Because I stupidly believed everything Kenneth Shaughnessy said to me and put them in more danger than they ever would have been if we had moved out of state six years ago." I swallow against the bile trying to rise in my throat.
"Once he told you what he did, the threat became real."
Because I knew too much. Only, "Kenneth would never have admitted to Mick Fitzgerald what he'd told me. So, there wouldn't have been any threat from the underboss."
"The rat would have come after you."
"No." I shake my head, dislodging a tear I'd been trying so hard to blink back. "He couldn't risk dragging me back and putting a spotlight onto his plans."