Chapter Thirteen
Oonagh
Sleep was impossible after last night. I came back here determined to keep my distance from Liam, but there was a magnetism that drew us toward each other with a power that I couldn’t resist.
Every time I tried to hate him, I discovered another reason to love him.
The paradox left me with a pounding headache and sleep deprivation. I stood under the shower until my skin wrinkled and complained, and I dried my hair so straight it gleamed as it was tamed into a high ponytail. My makeup was light but concentrated around the eyes and mouth. It was a trick my friend Angie taught me a few years ago—accentuate one or two assets and keep the rest nothing more than background makeup.
My jeans and shirt would have to do until I got to the hospital. I didn’t want to appear wrinkled for my interview.
The crunch of Liam’s tyres on the drive alerted me to his arrival. To dissipate my nervous energy, I’d already made breakfast and poured strong tea into mugs. No matter what anyone said, I would never drink coffee .
A brief knock sounded at the kitchen door before Liam prowled in. He stopped, his gaze moving to the breakfast waiting for him, and blinked.
“You made pancakes and bacon?” he asked, his voice husky.
It had always been his favourite, the bacon extra crispy, and the pancakes mid-brown.
I sipped my tea, pushing his plate across the counter. Some things never changed, and Liam’s appetite fit into that category. He devoured the entire plate in record time, munching on the bacon with a happy smile on his face. My pancakes had maple syrup drizzled on them since I possessed an ultra sweet tooth.
“You do realise adults drink coffee in the morning?” Liam commented with the devious twinkle in his eye that said he was creating mischief.
“Tea has caffeine in it too, and it doesn’t taste terrible,” I retaliated, clearing the dishes into the sink.
“What is it with you and tea?”
“I’m Irish, it’s in my DNA to drink tea,” I deadpanned.
His laughter washed over me, clothing me in the deep, luxurious flavour of it. “Ready?” he finally asked.
Nodding, I headed to the door.
“Oonagh?” I spun around. “I’m not a doctor, but even I know you shouldn’t go to an interview in your jeans.”
“Really?” Sarcasm dripped from my tone. “Thank goodness I packed my suit to change into.” Lifting the bag from the hanger beside the door, I waved it in front of him.
His brow furrowed. “Where do you plan to change?”
“The toilet. ”
“Fuck that. I need to turn into a professional for the morning and my clothes are at my apartment. You can get dressed there before I drop you off.” He lifted the bag from my hand and pressed a hard kiss on my lips. “Thanks for breakfast. Let’s go.”
When did Liam get so bossy and why did it make my stomach tighten? If another man spoke to me like that, I would be enraged and quoting women’s rights legislation. He took control, dragging me behind him, and it left me hot and bothered. His ass disappeared out the door, clad in tight denim that clung to him in a way that had me biting my bottom lip.
Holy moly, what was I doing?
I needed to stay away from him, protect my heart. Instead, every day and every action hauled me deeper into his web of desire.
After seeing his sleek bike, in my mind I expected a sports car. Instead, there was a jeep that wouldn’t look out of place on any farm in shiny black metallic paint. I stopped to stare, my hands landing on my hips.
“What?” His lips twitched. “I have to go on all types of terrain to chart jobs. This baby lets me go anywhere I need.”
“I guess I should be grateful that you didn’t bring your bike,” I muttered, throwing him a sour look while he hung my suit bag in the back of the vehicle.
“Couldn’t get your hair mussed up,” he replied, tugging my ponytail on the way past.
The ghostly memory of his fingers wrapped in my hair last night sent a shiver of lust pulsing down my spine. My best game face of neutrality settled on my face as I climbed into his monster machine.
Nervous butterflies invaded my stomach and cascaded up into my chest. Up until now, our relationship had been based on this village. This was the first time Liam and I were leaving it together. To distract myself from my mental dialogue, I flicked between radio channels until I found a song I liked.
“Please tell me you aren’t one of those people…” Liam pleaded.
“What people?”
“The ones that keeps changing the radio station at the end of every song.” His eyes left the road briefly to throw me a disbelieving look.
“I don’t like to listen to sad songs.”
“You are one of those people,” he groaned. “You’ll have to forfeit our friendship or stop your evil sacrilege!”
A laugh bubbled up from my chest. “You drive and leave me in charge of the radio controls.”
He chuckled and turned the volume up from somewhere on the steering wheel. We fell into a companionable silence, humming along to some songs and singing to others. Liam’s voice was deep and sensual, like dark chocolate melting on your tongue. The time passed quickly, his car eating up the miles.
Before arriving home, I’d been unsure if I wanted a permanent position anywhere, since I’d spent most of my adult life travelling the globe to help people in war-torn areas. Every chapter had a beginning and an end, and the last few jobs had made this chapter feel like it was dragging. I stared out the window with sightless eyes, watching the swans on Strangford Lough as they glided effortlessly on the water.
It was only when Liam touched my arm that I realised he was talking to me. “Oonagh?”
“Yeah?”
“I asked what your interview was for.”
“Um, general surgery. There’s no need for a trauma surgeon here.” My career had consisted of operating on people in horrendous conditions with few resources. There were times when we’d had to operate by torch light.
“Will you miss it?”
I shrugged. “In the beginning, everything was a new experience, then those experiences were tested to the limit of endurance. Trying to operate as bombs decimated the city around you. Children dying from diseases that basic immunisation could prevent. Sleep was limited and resources were the same. I left thinking I could make a difference in the world, but now I realise I was putting a plaster on a severed artery and hoping it would hold.”
“What changed your plan?”
Silence stretched around us. I’d never shared my story with anyone who wasn’t there at the time. His fingers intertwined through mine, infusing strength into me.
“Everything changed with one man,” I said in barely a whisper. “We’d operated on a young man and he was lying on a trolley in a corridor since there was nowhere else to put him. Everything was chaos as we moved from one patient to the next. Dissidents stormed the hospital and shot all the survivors of the attack, including him. I had an epiphany- type ‘what’s the point moment’. We weren’t saving them, merely patching them up to return to war.”
Liam’s hand tightened around mine. “You were doing your best.”
A bitter laugh tumbled out. “Our best meant nothing out there.”
He didn’t reply, what was the point? There were images in this life that could never be unseen, sounds that would forever haunt you, and smells that suddenly take you back to a time and place that was long gone.
A hot tear trickled down my cheek and I angrily dashed it away. Now was not the time for the flashbacks that preluded the full-body shivers and sweats.
Liam’s thumb caressed a reassuring circle on the top of my hand. “Everyone has demons that emerge every so often to try and drag you into hell. Sometimes you need to ignore them, but other times you need to look those bastards in the eye and tell them to go back from where they came. You’re strong enough, Oonagh. Just remember that every day you survive, you’ve proved that you’re strong enough.”
Counsellors had tried to normalise my reactions, asked to talk about my experiences when we got home. None of it made a difference. I’d looked in the face of evil while he still held a gun and I would never forget the abyss that returned my stare.
“Some days it feels too much.” I confessed. Unable to face a life without Liam in it, I’d joined Doctors Without Borders and ran away. Now I was back, here he was, and my feelings were fucking with my head more that I dared to admit .
I wasn’t the same person he remembered. Bits of me were broken and I didn’t know how to fix them. Terror curled deep inside at the thought of him discovering all the secrets that kept me overseas for so many years.
“There are days we all want to hide under the duvet, Oonagh. Believe me, I get it. When Dad died, I was numb for months, then Mum passed the next year. My life fell apart one event after the other like dominoes on a board, each one pushing the next one down until there was nothing left…” His voice trailed off until we were enveloped in silence.
“I’m sorry.” It would never be enough. “I was scared and vulnerable, and there were other events unfolding in the background. My heart wanted to believe in you, but when she was standing there in your hoodie that still smelled of you, one of your leather wristbands on.” I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“What?” The car swerved when he tried to turn around and stare at me. “What the fuck?”
“Please, Liam,” I stuttered in a small voice. “Loud noises scare me.”
His hand gripped mine again, the sustained pressure helping to ease the panic rising in my chest that threatened to engulf me.
“Breathe, baby.” He expertly navigated the car while holding onto me most of the drive.
I tucked my legs under me and turned to face Liam, my head resting on the back of the seat while I watched him.
“What?” He tossed a quizzical look with one eyebrow raised in my direction.
“Why were you angry earlier? ”
“Because I had few possessions when I was younger, but stuff used to go missing all the time and reappear in strange places. What you said earlier made me realise that the bitches next door must have been stealing our stuff.”
“Please don’t shout at them.”
His brow furrowed again, and his jaw tightened.
“They had very little as well, Liam. They wanted to be accepted but went about it the wrong way.” My other hand wrapped around his, so it was sandwiched between both of mine.
“You have too kind a heart.”
“No.” I pressed a kiss to his hand. “But compassion is in short supply nowadays and you can’t be angry at someone for wanting to be more than where they came from.”
“Hmmm,” Liam hummed in reply.
He eventually reclaimed his hand when we reached traffic and he needed to shift gears. I could never visualise Liam anywhere but the village where he grew up, so I had no clue as to where he would choose to live. His apartment overlooked the River Lagan, and it was very much a bachelor pad decorated in various shades of grey and black.
One of the walls in the living room was covered in canvas prints of his family since childhood. My lips lifted as I stood engulfed in the memories. Included were images of Niall and me, laughing up at Dad as he took pictures of us. There was a canvas of my last summer with Liam, his arm flung over my shoulders carelessly and my arms wrapped around his waist .
Liam wandered into the living room wearing black dress trousers and a white shirt hanging open as he buttoned the cuffs.
Holy moly, he was a sight to leave any heterosexual female panting.
“Oonagh, I can’t get this bloody cufflink in.” He stopped, his gaze moving from me to the canvas pictures on the wall. “I tend to forget they’re there, and it never occurred to me when I said we’d get ready here.”
“I didn’t even know this one existed.” I touched the image of the two of us together.
He shrugged. “Callum took it and developed it around Christmas that year.”
I lifted his arm and struggled the cufflink into place. It was such a domestic task that a lump formed in my throat.
“Okay, done. Where can I change?” A shaky smile formed on my lips, my neutral mask starting to slip.
“My bedroom’s the first on the right, or the guestroom is at the end of the hall.” He began to button his shirt over that chest that really deserved to be displayed more often.
His room was devoid of the very personality that Liam exuded at all times. The only personal touch was a framed picture of all the brothers together and another one of us together when we were sixteen on his window ledge.
I quickly changed, checked my eye makeup, and applied deep red lipstick that accentuated my features. Smoothing down my skirt, I returned to the living area.
Liam turned around to face me, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. It was a universally accepted truth that a man in a tailored suit had the same effect as women in skimpy lace underwear. My breath caught, and my heart stumbled over a few beats until it found its rhythm again.
It was the look in his deep blue eyes that made me stop walking. His gaze slowly ran from the top of my head all the way to my six-inch heeled knee-high leather boots and back up again. He trailed his thumb over his bottom lip before shoving his hand in his pocket.
“Um, you’re applying for a job as a doctor, right?” he asked, his voice lower than normal.
“Uh-huh. I bought the suit in London last year for a conference I was guest speaking at. Is it okay?” I glanced down, a crease forming on my forehead.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, you look great.” Liam took a predatory step forward and my eyes widened, my feet stuck to the floor. “Just to be clear, when we get back, I have every intention of fucking you in it. You have no idea what you look like with your hair ready to be wound around my hand, your eyes sultry, and those lips…”
I swallowed nervously as he took another step forward. His gaze narrowed on the gesture.
“Those red lips are going to be wrapped around my cock while you’re on your knees on the floor.”
“Liam?” I gasped as his hands spanned my waist, tugging me hard against the length of his body. His response to me was evident, pressing into my belly. His lips hovered over mine, his breath mingling with mine, tempting me to close the distance.
“Later,” he promised, ghosting a kiss on my lips before stepping back. “Right now, I have to get you to your interview. I’ll pick you up when it’s finished. ”
“You don’t have to…” I began to say, but his furious look cut me off.
Liam grabbed my hand and led me to the door, my head reeling from the past twenty-four hours. I needed to get control of this situation before it engulfed me and dragged me under the ocean of emotions that were threatening to drown me.
***