Chapter 9 Katie #2
Ciara narrows her eyes to slits when she looks at me. “First name basis now?”
“She can call me Aiden,” he retorts with a smirk.
Ciara rolls her eyes. “And what have I to call you then?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.” His face is as cold as ice, as he says it.
“You’re an arsehole!” Ciara snarls, leaning over the counter towards Aiden.
“And you nearly got your sister raped,” he counters, his voice dripping with disdain. “All for a free drink, yeah?”
Ciara spins on her heel and charges into the hallway, “We’re leaving!”
“Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out!”
I get to my feet, rubbing my temples. “You had no right to say that to her!”
“Did I say something that wasn’t true?” He holds my gaze, and unsurprisingly, I’m the one who looks away first. “You still look pale,” he remarks, his tone softening slightly. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. I just want to go home to my bed. I missed my train last night, and now I’ve got to suffer the long journey on public transport while I feel like death warmed up.
“Let me drive you.”
I shake my head, not wanting to rely on him any further. “I’ll order a taxi. Thanks, though. Really.” I barely make it out of the kitchen when he’s spinning me and cornering me against the wall. His face inches from mine, his breath hot on my skin. “I’m. Driving. You. Home, Katie.”
“I said, I’ll be fine,” I repeat, my voice trembling slightly.
“You’re going to trust Tweedle-Dumb to get you home safely? Who’s she going to call to bring you home, the Taliban?”
“That’s my sister!”
“Then she should have some fucking cop-on!”
I flinch, his voice harsh and cutting through the air. The intensity in his eyes sends a shiver down my spine, but I stand my ground.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice softening. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” He backs away from me, giving me some space. “You were so strong last night, and yet so…”
“So?” I press.
“Broken,” he admits, and it feels like taking a punch to the gut. “Let me drive you home, Katie, please? For my own peace of mind.”
I hesitate for a moment, conflicted by his sudden change in demeanour. My gut says I can trust him to at least get us home safely, but everything I’ve seen, from his instant personality change with Ciara to his outburst towards me, leaves me unsure.
Aiden is beautiful and dangerous, and some part of me is screaming that he’s unhinged and unpredictable.
But he did just save both me and Ciara from being assaulted, or worse. He could have left us at the club to fend for ourselves, but instead, he intervened. Why? I can’t answer that. Not yet. And I don’t know if I want to answer it either.
“Ready, Katie?” Ciara calls as she reappears at the bottom of the staircase.
I force myself to meet Aiden’s intense gaze. “I’m not leaving without her.”
I notice the way his jaw tics and the slight flare of his nostrils. He’s not impressed. He nods, turning away from me and retreating to the kitchen.
I let out a sigh and turn to Ciara. “Let’s go.”
The front door barely clicks behind her when it’s flung open again.
Aiden marches down the front steps wearing the hoodie I took off when we were checking for needle marks.
“You’re in the back,” he says, passing Ciara and heading straight for the driver’s seat.
“Take the fucking door with you!” He snaps when the door slams shut behind my sister.
I wince when my door shuts a little harder than intended, but he doesn’t even seem to register that I, too, slammed the door of his precious car.
“What the hell is your problem?” Ciara asks, but her question is quickly drowned out by the radio blaring from the speakers. Aiden ignores her and starts driving, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
Wow, this is awkward.
We stop at a red light further down the road. Aiden leans closer to me, lowering the music down enough for me to hear him. “Where are we going?”
“Ciara’s in Tallaght.”
He snorts. “Figures.”
“Be nice!”
“I don’t know how,” he grumbles. “What about you?”
“Can you drop me off at Heuston Station?”
“Heuston? One bad night, and you’re leaving the county?”
“I live in Laois,” I snort.
“The fuck you doing down there?”
“Because I can’t stand Dublin anymore.”
“I get that,” he chuckles. The light turns green, and we continue towards the motorway.
It’s pretty quiet on the roads today. Then again, it always is on a Sunday morning.
We make it to Tallaght quicker than expected, and AJ practically dumps Ciara on the curb and tears arse out of Kingswood without a second glance.
He switches the radio off as soon as we hit the bypass, and he seems to instantly relax.
“Heuston is the other way,” I comment, pointing in the opposite direction.
“Yeah, I know,” he replies with a smirk.
“If you’re going to try and kill me…” I laugh nervously.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.” His face is unnervingly calm as he says this. We get stuck at traffic lights coming into Citywest, and it’s only when he pulls the handbrake up that he looks at me and smirks. “I promised to get you home safely, Katie. I intend to do that.”
“It’s over an hour’s drive from here; I don’t want to put you out.”
“You’re not putting me out,” he insists. “I’ve got a house in Tipperary that I’ve been meaning to visit anyway. Consider this a good excuse.”
“How many houses do you have?”
“You mean in Ireland, or?” That grin again—the one that would melt the knickers off a nun.
“I can’t even tell if you’re joking right now.” I look at him, trying to get a read on him. I don’t know anything about him. I make a mental note to Google him later when I don’t have to worry about him noticing me cyber-stalking him out of morbid curiosity. “How old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?” He asks, pulling onto the motorway and accelerating smoothly.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“I’m thirty-one,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice.
I raise an eyebrow, surprised by his response. “You don’t look a day over twenty-six.” Yet the way he carries himself and the confidence in his eyes make him seem older than his years.
We make general chit-chat as we drive, and I discover that his only sibling is Robbie.
His dad died when he was sixteen. He was married young, much like Anthony, and is now divorced.
No children. No pets, though he is a dog lover.
And though I don’t ask, I can venture a guess and say he’s fucking minted.
Add that to his being out here giving off book-boyfriend vibes, and it’s no wonder I’m feeling a little intimidated.
Not by his wealth. I couldn’t give a shit about that, though I will admit that it is impressive to see someone who has achieved financial success without resulting to selling their body to strangers on the internet.
What really intimidates me is his overall confidence and charisma.
Even now, driving around in a mismatched tracksuit, he looks damn near edible.
“You own your own house?” He sounds genuinely impressed when he moves the twenty questions on to me.
“Well, I’m still paying off the mortgage, but yeah, I do own my own house.”
“Fair play to you; it’s not an easy thing now. The banks have been cracking down a lot lately.” He moves into the outside lane with ease, effortlessly manoeuvring through traffic as if he owns the road. “What do you do for a living, Katie?”
“Only Fans.”
He swerves slightly, his eyebrows raising in surprise.
I can’t help it; my head tips back, and I cackle my arse off.
“Are you serious?”
“Why? Are you going to go look me up?” I ask, still laughing.
“Probably, yeah,” he responds with a smirk.
“I don’t do Only Fans,” I turn my head to face him, my laughter subsiding. “Although I think I should, they’d pay me to put my clothes back on, and I’d be mortgage-free.”
“Would you stop!” he chuckles, shaking his head.
“If you must know, I work as a cover designer from home and run book tours.”
“Book tours?” He presses.
“Yeah, I organise promotional tours for authors and help them gain exposure for their books,” I explain, feeling a sense of pride in my work. “It’s a lot of fun and allows me to be creative while working remotely.”
“How did you get into that?”
I shrug, “I had to do something for money when the pandemic hit. I just kind of fell into it. I love it, though. I’d never go back to working for someone else.”
I give Aiden directions from my turn-off, and pretty soon, I’m home.
His phone dings several times, he becomes engrossed in it for a moment before looking up at me.
“Thanks for the lift.” I look back and smile as I climb out of the car.
“No bother,” he calls after me. I turn into the garden and make my way towards the front door. “Katie?” Aiden hops out of the car and quickly catches up to me. “Are you sure you’re alright? You don’t need me to bring you to the doctor or anything?”
I shake my head and reassure him, “I’ll be fine, just a little sore. Thank you for everything.”
Aiden nods, half turns to his car, and pauses. “Do you have anyone down here? Family? Friends?”
“My friend Becky lives in the next estate over.”
His brow furrows. “That’s it?” He turns his attention to my house, looking over everything from the roof to the windows and front door.
He doesn’t ask permission; he simply takes my phone from my hands and starts dialling a number.
I hear his phone ringing in the car as he holds mine up to his ear, and then hangs up.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Taking your number,” he hands my phone back to me without breaking eye contact.
I glare at him. “You could have asked.”
He shrugs. “You could have said no,” he steps closer, running his fingers up the gooseflesh on my right arm. “You’re cold.”
“I’ll be grand once I’m inside.”
He pulls off his hoodie, revealing a well-toned physique underneath. “Here, take this,” he says, handing me his hoodie. “It’ll keep you warm.”
Oh yeah, because the half-naked man in my garden is not going to have the neighbours talking.
“I don’t need it.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
“Take it.”
“You’re fucking mental,” I turn for the door.
Aiden grabs me by the hips and pulls me against him, my back to his front. “Put it on, Katie.” His warm breath tickles my ear. He holds the hoodie out for me to slide my arms into. Reluctantly, I give in; his strong arms wrap around me as he zips it up. “Good girl.”
“Can I go in now?”
Aiden chuckles lowly, releasing me from his grip and stepping back. “Make sure you lock your doors, Katie. You never know what kind of psychos are out there.”
“Like you?” I throw over my shoulder as I put the key in the lock.
I risk a glance back. AJ Quinn is standing in the middle of my front garden, half-naked and grinning like a Cheshire cat. His sculpted muscles glisten under the winter sun, highlighting the intricate details of the tattoos covering his arms and chest.
“I thought you had to be a bit shorter to be this angry.” His feet are fixed to the concrete slabs; he just smiles and stares, like a vampire waiting to be invited into the house.
He waits for me to go inside before he gets into his car and pulls off.
My phone rings almost immediately. “Hello?”
“You’re safe, right?”
“Oh my—goodbye, Aiden!” I hang up the phone and glare at the number on the screen. I know exactly what to save his number in my phone as.
Red Flag.