Confessions and Other Intimacy
Chapter thirty-five
áINE
Kieran ushers me inside the hotel suite with one big hand pressed possessively to the small of my back.
I stop three steps in, a little stunned by what he considers necessary for our afternoon playing hooky.
"Woah, do you think you got us enough space for our hookup?" I ask him wryly. "Most New Yorkers would kill for an apartment as big as this place, much less that view."
Floor-to-ceiling windows line one wall overlooking a park with the city beyond.
Muted cream and charcoal gray furniture somehow manages to look both elegant and comfortable at the same time.
The whole place smells faintly of lemon polish and whatever rich people pump into luxury hotels to make them smell like money lives here.
There's a kitchenette tucked discreetly behind the dining area with a table large enough to seat six. There's a tray of crackers, cheeses and fruit with a clear plastic dome over it at one end. I'm not surprised. Kieran doesn't let me skip meals.
He's fully committed to keeping my curves just the way they are. He likes my jiggly bits. Adores them even.
The living room is easily as big as the one at our apartment and two doors open off from it. I'm guessing a bedroom and a bathroom. I wouldn't be surprised to find a whirlpool tub in the bath.
Kieran spins me to face him and cups the side of my neck. "It's not a hookup. We're married."
I'm about to say it feels like a hookup, but it doesn't. Is that why he got the suite and not a normal hotel room? So, the sex would feel special and not like we're a couple of Tinder swipe lefts?
"It's nice," I say instead.
"Glad you think so."
"Why do I get the feeling you're not just saying that because you want me all compliant for whatever your plans are for the rest of today?" I ask suspiciously.
The more I look around, the less this place feels like a hotel suite and the more it feels like a furnished apartment.
"I've booked it for the next six months."
"You paid for a hotel suite for six months?" I squeak yell.
Is Kieran planning to live here instead of my…our place?
Is he feeling the pinch of moving in with mom, the girls and me already?
He shrugs. "The property caters to corporate extended stays."
That explains the desk and office setup in a nook off the dining area, but not why he rented it for half a year.
"Why did you book it for six months?" I ask, something hollow growing in my belly.
"Because I want to have sex with my wife." His dark eyes bore into mine, the message there making my core clench. "And she's not ready to move into a house with me and our family."
Relief I don't want to acknowledge, floods me. So, not a place for him to live on his own, but a place for us to have sex without being overheard. Because with him? I'm loud.
And I'm not going there with the girls on the other side of the wall.
Heat spreads up my neck and into my hairline. "It's not me. It's the girls. We need to ease them into another big change like that."
Only, it's a little me. Maybe a lot me.
I'm scared of moving out of the sanctuary I created for all of us after Troy's death. Frightened Kieran will change his mind, and I'll be picking up the pieces all over again.
Only this time with three brokenhearted daughters.
"Sure," he says skeptically.
"You said you understood."
"I did."
"Do you mean you did understand?" As in he doesn't understand anymore? "Or you did say that?"
"Both."
"It's still true," I claim, not sure that it really is.
The girls love having Kieran as a stepdad and seem a lot more capable than me of rolling with all the changes happening in our lives. Of course, it helps those changes are positive ones for them.
The boys who bullied Sadie and assaulted her won't be returning to St. Patrick's Preparatory Academy. Ever.
Somehow, she's developed a texting friendship with the one of them who actually stood up for her when it mattered most. I still don't know how I feel about that, but he's living in Ireland with his dad and Mick Fitzgerald's family, so I don't have to worry about it either.
Much.
Neeve is no longer being bullied at school either. But how long will that last? Do anti bullying programs really work? Especially when the kids will be on summer break soon and they'll have a couple of months to forget everything they learned in the mandatory seminars they've all been attending.
Joy is delighted to have another human to treat her like the little princess she is.
Even mom is exuding quiet joy over her upcoming trip to Ireland. Which Kieran insists on paying for, despite her frequent vocal objections.
Mom is stubborn. Kieran has the movability of a two ton rock.
He upgraded all of her travel and accommodations to first class. She yelled about it. Then cried and said thank you.
"If you say so." There's no overt doubt in Kieran's tone, but I still get the feeling he's humoring me.
"Well, I do. I'm their mom. I know them best."
"No arguments here." He leans down and lifts me up so my thighs straddle his torso, and then shifts one forearm under my ass. "Come on, baby girl. We have better things to do than argue."
My skirt hiking up, I clamp my legs around him and cling like a monkey as he carries me across the sitting room.
"No arguments here," I say, imitating his gruff voice.
He squeezes me and huffs out one of his rare laughs. "Watch that sass. I’m about to have you fully at my mercy."
Yay.
And can't wait.
"You don't need handcuffs to do that." And I don't just mean because he's so much bigger than I am with muscles that would make a bodybuilder envious.
He groans, pushing the door open behind me. Gauze drapes cover the floor to ceiling windows, muting the spring sunshine, but there's still plenty of diffused light to see by.
The bed is enormous.
Like genuinely ridiculous.
The crisp white duvet is turned down and there's another tray on the bedside table holding what looks suspiciously like tiny chocolate pastries.
I kiss his neck, because it's right there, and then flick my tongue out to taste his skin because…same. "If there are chocolate dipped strawberries in the bathroom, I'm going to think you have a fetish for feeding me."
He lifts me a little higher and claims my mouth for a long, delicious kiss. "You're gonna need your strength."
Sweet lord. The deep roughness in his voice shoots straight between my legs.
He drops me onto the bed and steps back. "It's a bowl of frozen grapes on the whirlpool ledge."
"You're going to spoil me." Not that he hasn't already. "Who knew a forced marriage came with so many perks?"
Kieran stops in the act of shrugging out of his shirt. "I didn't force you."
"Didn't you?" My arousal stays at a low boil but my heart wants words between us.
He finishes taking off his shirt and pulls his undershirt over his head, tossing both to the floor. "No."
"Mick outlined two scenarios. Only one of them kept my girls safe. Marrying you."
"I will keep you all safe." Granite hard certainty infuses his tone.
Like it always does when he makes promises to me.
"I believe you."
"Our marriage was necessary for me to do that in our world." He unbuckles his belt and my heart skips a beat.
No matter how serious our conversation is, my body is primed for sex with my husband.
I don't deny it's our world. I can't. I've been living on the painful and frightening periphery of this world ever since Troy's death.
"Only because Mick Fitzgerald wanted more time to figure out who else is involved in Kenneth Shaughnessy's plan to depose him as underboss. I'm his pawn every bit as much as I was Kenneth's."
"Marriage to me made you my queen." Kieran drops his slacks to the floor and kicks them away. "You're nobody's pawn."
I open my mouth to argue, but then close it. Because we have better things to do than argue and his near naked body is driving that point in a very distracting way.
But also? Because if I am his queen and I believe I am, no matter what the reason we had for getting married, then I can't be Mick or Kenneth's pawn.
I'm not married to the king. I'm married to the knight and he will take any player off the board who threatens me.
Even his boss?
An internal shiver rolls through my soul and for all our sakes, I hope we never have to find out.
Because as much as I don’t like Mick's ruthlessness, I believe he has integrity. Besides, I really like his wife and children and don't want to see them grieving his loss.
Which tells me what I believe deep down would happen if Kieran ever had to choose between my safety and his boss.
We've been married less than three weeks, but my heart knows what it knows.
Kieran will always keep his promises to me, no matter what it costs him.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," I say with all the awe and terror that knowledge fills me with.
I am totally unprepared for the passionate beast those words waken.
In a flurry of movement, my shirt is gone…my skirt is gone…there’s a tearing sound and my underwear is gone too. He leaves my bra for last.
He’s fascinated by my large and squishy breasts. Kieran caresses and kneads them with the concentration of a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough.
The leashed violence in him makes me think this is going to be fast but after long minutes of worshiping my body with his hands and his mouth, I know it will be the opposite.
He whispers a litany of praise as he appreciates my body, the words falling constantly from his lips like they don't any other time.
"You are so beautiful." His hands map the curve of my waist.
He cups my backside and dives forward to inhale the scent of my wet pussy. "I can’t get enough of you."
"These are so perfect." He's back to my breasts, pinching my nipples and I gasp. "So damn perfect."
Then he's kissing me again, his lips consuming, his body blanketing mine. He breaks the kiss to suck up a love bite on my neck, making me shiver. "That's right, baby girl. Feel what I do to you."
"Kieran, please!" I don't know what I'm asking for.