Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
"If you think you can fuck me over, Murphy, think again. I'll cut your balls off and feed them to you."
The threat rolls off Saoirse's tongue like honey while she paces beside my hospital bed, phone pressed to her ear. Even through the morphine haze, my dick hardens at the venom in her voice. Christ, when did sweet little Saoirse learn to castrate men with words?
"The Dublin route is blown. Use Cork or I'll find someone who can follow simple fucking instructions." She ends the call, tosses the phone aside, then notices me watching her.
"About time you woke up." She moves closer, close enough that I catch her scent—expensive perfume mixed with gunpowder and dried blood. My blood, staining the front of her blue dress. "You've been unconscious for eighteen hours."
"Feel like I got hit by a truck."
"You got shot. Because you threw yourself in front of a gun like an idiot." Her fingers brush mine, sending heat racing up my arm despite the pain. "Don't ever scare me like that again."
The raw emotion in her voice makes my pulse spike. I want to pull her down to this bed, bury my face in her neck, feel her heart beating against mine to prove we're both alive.
Instead, I rasp, "Your father?"
"Locked away, screaming about security failures." She picks up a stack of papers, all business again. "Which leaves me running this shitshow while you recover."
Through the drug fog, I study her. The bloodstained dress hugs every curve, the fabric pulling tight across her breasts when she leans over the bedside table. Her dark hair falls loose around her shoulders—silk I've fantasized about wrapping around my fist while I fuck her senseless.
Fuck. I'm injured, drugged, and still want to bend her over this hospital bed.
"You've been here the whole time?" I ask.
"Someone had to handle the crisis." She sorts through documents, ignoring how her dress rides up her thighs. "The organization doesn't stop because one man gets hurt."
One man. Like I'm just another employee instead of the bastard who's been half in love with her since she was fifteen.
"The Belfast contact?"
"Handled. Paid in full with a twenty percent bonus for the rush job." She shows me the transfer confirmation, our fingers touching as she passes the phone. The contact burns through my skin like fire. "McBride's moving the shipment tomorrow night."
"Smart girl."
"I'm not a girl anymore, Conall."
No. She's a woman. All dangerous curves and sharp edges, commanding million-pound deals while blood stains her clothes. The combination of violence and beauty makes my cock throb against the hospital sheets.
My phone buzzes. She reaches for it, leaning across my body. Her breast brushes my arm, and I bite back a groan. Twenty years of wanting what I can't have, and she's close enough to taste.
"When you threw yourself in front of that gun," she whispers, voice dropping low, "I thought I'd lost you."
"Part of the job."
"Bullshit." Her hand covers mine, fingers intertwining. "I can't lose you. Not when I've just found you."
The words hang between us, loaded with meaning that makes my blood burn. I want to pull her into this bed, strip that ruined dress off her body, show her exactly how alive I am.
Before I can respond, the door opens. Niamh enters with coffee and flowers, her sharp eyes taking in our joined hands, the charged air crackling between us.
"You look like death warmed over," she tells me. "But breathing, which is more than expected."
"Always the charmer."
"I save charm for people who don't dive in front of bullets." She sets the flowers down, studies the paperwork empire Saoirse's built around my bed. "How long have you been here, love?"
"Since surgery finished."
"Go home. Shower. You smell like a battlefield." Niamh's tone cuts off argument. "I'll watch him."
"I need to coordinate the London shipment?—"
"The business survived thirty years without you. It'll survive three hours."
Saoirse gathers her papers with obvious reluctance. When she leans over to collect files from my bedside table, her dress gapes open. I catch a glimpse of black lace barely containing her breasts, and my vision blurs with want.
I imagine ripping that lace away with my teeth, sucking her nipples until she screams my name. Taking her right here in this hospital bed while machines beep around us.
"Call if he gets worse," she tells Niamh.
"I'll call if he stops breathing. Otherwise, rest."
After Saoirse leaves, Niamh settles into the chair with a knowing smile that chills my blood.
"Twenty years," she says.
"What?"
"Twenty years of watching her like a starving man watches food." She crosses her legs, gets comfortable for interrogation. "The way you look at her—like you want to fuck her against the nearest wall."
Heat floods my face. "I don't?—"
"Please. Your desire is written all over your face." Niamh's smile turns wicked. "The way your voice changes when she's threatened. How you nearly died protecting her. You're mad about that girl."
The truth sits between us like a bomb. No point denying what's obvious.
"Doesn't matter," I say. "She deserves better than hired muscle."
"Let her decide what she deserves." Niamh leans forward. "Power's shifting, in case you hadn't noticed. Saoirse's running this empire while you've been unconscious. Born to it."
I think of her threatening Murphy, making decisions worth millions, taking control like a queen claiming her throne.
"She doesn't need protection anymore."
"No. But she might want something else entirely." Niamh stands. "Question is whether you've got the stones to give it to her."
She leaves me alone with thoughts that burn hotter than the bullet wound. Twenty years of keeping my distance, pretending duty was enough.
But remembering fifteen-year-old Saoirse in that summer storm...
Rain pounds the estate when I hear her calling from the garden maze. I find her soaked through, white dress clinging to budding curves that have no business affecting me this way.
"I'm lost," she says, shivering.
I wrap my jacket around her, lead her home through paths I know by heart. On the front steps, she looks up with those blue-green eyes, rain on her lashes.
"Thank you, Conall."
Even at fifteen, she's beautiful enough to stop my heart. Now, at twenty-six, she's magnificent enough to bring me to my knees.
I've wanted her every day since. Wanted to strip her naked, pin her to my bed, make her come on my tongue until she forgets every man but me.
My phone buzzes. Text from Saoirse: Rest. That's an order.
Even miles away, she's taking care of me. The woman I've spent twenty years protecting now thinks she needs to protect me.
Maybe Niamh's right. Maybe it's time to stop pretending this is duty.
Maybe it's time to show Saoirse Kavanagh exactly what I want to do to her.