29. Keir
Keir
R elief coursed through me as we left Finnan’s office and made our way down the hall toward the stairs.
Molly would be safe from any blowback that might come from Owen’s death.
Her bombshell about who had really sent the bullet still sent shockwaves through me.
If Owen had been successful in breaking away from his father’s clan, he could’ve started a civil war.
All the allies of the Sionnach Clan would’ve had to pick a side, while all their enemies would’ve picked the meat off the bones once it was done.
“Jynx, let’s go to bed,” I murmured as we passed my— our —room.
She flicked me a glance that traveled from my face to my hands. “If you fuck me again?—”
“ When I fuck you again,” I corrected on a growl.
Her cheeks flushed. “You still want me after everything I’ve done?”
“You couldn’t stop me from wanting you.”
She sobered. “Why do you call me Jynx?”
I huffed a laugh, I’d been wondering when this question was going to come up again. “Because after we fucked in my Rover that first time, you became my Jynx. Everything went to hell, and it was all because of you.”
She peered up at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, baby. Your brand of crazy is exactly what I need in my life. You are what I want in my life.”
A small smile tugged at her lips. “I’m going to need your hands on me when we finally make love again, so we need to see Fallon.”
“All I need is my tongue, Jynx,” I growled playfully.
“Nurse’s orders.” Laughter danced in her blue eyes.
Reluctantly, I agreed. We continued down the hall and descended the stairs, making our way into the kitchen. Fallon still had the medical supplies out on the bench, but she was now beating something in a bowl, while Mila melted butter in a skillet, and Orla sliced up fruit.
Orla glanced up from what she was doing, smiling widely at her sister. “We’re making pancakes,” she said, beaming.
“It’s been a while,” Molly replied. “Sure you remember how?”
Movement from my periphery caught my attention, and I turned to find Orin leaning against the wall near the butler’s pantry, his gaze fixed on Fallon as she washed and dried her hands.
“Ready for me to patch you up?” Fallon asked, spinning around and tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear.
Moving toward the stool under the countertop, I gestured for Molly to come and sit between my spread thighs.
“But I’ll get in the way,” she protested, though I wasn’t having any of it.
I met Orin’s gaze from across the room, and for the first time, I got it.
I understood the primal possessiveness that somehow both sharpened and softened the Reaper’s edges.
Fallon accepted him and all his faults, and I knew Molly would be the same for me.
We weren’t ready to buy matching monogrammed towels or anything, but I knew she was the woman I wanted.
As Finnan had said, she was a better fit for me.
After all, couples that slay together stay together.
Fallon worked with a quiet efficiency, taking pointers from Molly since my woman had a few more years of study under her belt.
Pride warmed my chest, knowing she would fit in here.
My girl would hold her own among the clan members.
When I let out a hiss of pain from a particularly deep gash, Molly tried to get up, but I refused to let her go.
Instead, I peppered kisses across the side of her neck, and I felt her melt against me.
To keep my mind off the pain, I kept whispering all the dirty things I wanted to do into her ear. She grew still against me when she felt my hard dick pressing against the small of her back, then she shifted ever so slightly into it, grinding subtly.
Turning her head slightly, she asked incredulously, “Really? Now, in front of everyone?”
“You drive me crazy.”
She huffed out a laugh but said nothing more.
Fallon wrapped both my hands the same way she had Molly’s. “If you need anything,” she said.
“I can ask Molly,” I finished, feeling Orin’s death glare burning into the side of my face.
Fallon bobbed her head. “Your body needs to heal, so rest is key. Molly, I don’t have to tell you that.”
I felt Molly stiffen against me a split second before Orla asked, “Who’s Molly?” Her chartreuse eyes darted between Fallon and her sister. “Cait?”
Molly cleared her throat and stepped toward her sister. “When I ran, I had to change my name,” she explained. “They know me as Molly.”
“Will you change it back?”
She shook her head. “Molly was what my da wanted to call me. Mum vetoed it and called me Caitria instead. I’ve been Molly for almost a decade now.”
Orla seemed to think about it for a moment. “Can I still call you Cait?”
“Of course you can.”
Orla smiled and went back to slicing, and I tugged on Molly’s arm. We returned upstairs. When we got to my room, we entered, and then I kicked the door shut.
“I need to get cleaned up,” she said. “Do you have something I can wear?”
I pulled out one of my shirts from the dresser and handed it to her on the way to the bathroom. At the last moment, she turned and beckoned me toward her.
“What do you need, Jynx?” I asked, moving toward her and staring at her mouth. I knew what I wanted. “Come join me. I’ll help you too, since you can’t do it yourself.”
Once inside the bathroom, she stripped me of my clothes, her fingers gentle and slow.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most intensely beautiful woman I’d ever let get close and who hadn’t run off at the first chance.
Well, sort of. She was the master of running, but there was no way I’d be letting her get away from me again.
Hooking my finger under her chin, I drew her face to mine. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“It’s about my mother.”
“Has she tried to make contact?”
She shook her head. “Owen said my mother was the one who made the deal with him. She wanted me home, and Owen was obsessed with me. Together, they came up with a plan to make it happen.”
“How did he know your mother?”
“He used to be one of her johns, when they were both younger, I suppose. But he claimed she was now his business partner. She ran his brothels, and in exchange, Owen got me.”
“Your own mother sold you?”
She shrugged, then the reality of the news hit her. She blinked up at me with anguish on her face. “My own mother sold me.”
Wrapping my arms around her, I pulled her close, tucking her head under my chin. “She doesn’t deserve you, Molly.”
“I know, I’m not upset for me. I saw her spiral after my father’s death. She’d turned to drugs to numb the pain, but the habit cost her more than money. It cost her me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She knew what Brian was doing to me and didn’t give a fuck. She said it was a life lesson I had to learn.”
My anger seethed beneath my skin. Killing women wasn’t my thing, but for Molly, I would make an exception. My jaw was clenched so tight my head ached. “She said that?”
Molly let out a humorless laugh. “So it’s not so hard to believe she’d sell me, is it?”
“I would kill her for you. If you asked, I’d do it.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But despite her shortcomings and failing me … I don’t think Orla believed Owen when he told us our mam had organized the kidnappings. She still thinks she’s a good woman.”
I went to cup her face but growled when the thick bandages around my hands stopped me.
Not giving a shit, I pulled the metal clasp off and unraveled the bandage from my least damaged hand.
Molly cupped my hand to her face, staring at me like I was her life raft in a sea of grief and deception.
“Just say the word, Jynx, and she’s dead. ”
“Is that your solution to everything?” she asked, her blue eyes darting between my own. “To kill it?”
Shrugging, I explained, “It’s the life I’ve led.
What I’ve learned.” Leaning forward, I claimed her mouth in a searing kiss that felt like a vow.
I wanted her to know I would burn down the world for her, and viciously murder anyone who sought to hurt her.
In fact, her mother might come by an accident if I heard one more thing about her actions against my woman.
I let my hand drop, skimming the side of her breast over her clothing, and smiling at her sharp intake of breath. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
She looked down like she’d forgotten what we were doing in here. Slowly, on account of one broken hand and one mangled one, I tugged the hoodie over her head, letting it drop to the tiles beneath us. She shimmied out of her jeans and underwear, leaving her only in her bra.
I cupped her breast, feeling her nipple bead against my palm. Deep in her throat, she made a small whimpering sound. Lowering my head, I took that sensitive bud between my teeth through the lace, biting down.
She hissed, her hands coming to rest against my shoulders. I wanted to feel her fingers tugging my hair when I ate her pussy, but I didn’t want her in pain.
“Like that, baby?”
“You know I do.”
With a wicked grin, I shifted to her other breast, nibbling her nipple into a firm peak.
“Your body is so responsive to me, Jynx.” I placed one more open-mouthed kiss against her breast, then motioned for her to lose the bra. Reaching behind her back, Molly unclasped it and dragged the straps down her shoulders, but kept the cups over those nipples, hiding them from my view.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting shy now,” I teased.
“No, but I wanted to ask you something before we got distracted.”
I toyed with one of the straps, dragging it past her elbow and revealing more of the top of her breast. “You can ask me anything.”
With just the tip of her finger, she drew circles against my pec. My nipples hardened under her touch, and she dipped lower to scrape her nail against the peaked flesh. A hiss escaped me, telling her everything she needed to know. That she had complete control over me.
“In Finnan’s office before, when he asked about Fallon, and you said…”
Grabbing a clean face washer from the small pile beside the sink, I turned on the faucet and waited for the water to heat. “I said she was nothing to me, and I meant it Jynx.”
Peering up at me, she asked, “Just like that?”
“I was infatuated with her, I can’t deny that. But I think I was more in love with the idea of what she represented than Fallon herself.” When I was satisfied with the temperature, I slid the small square of terry toweling under the flow and soaked it.
“I don’t understand.”
Sliding the other strap over her elbow, I hooked my finger in the center of her bra and pulled, exposing her to me.
Fuck, she was gorgeous, and she was mine.
“Fallon represented everything I thought I wanted in a woman. I wanted someone soft and compliant. Someone who healed rather than maimed. Someone who would do as I told them.” I shook my head, unable to believe what I was about to say.
“I wanted someone who could absolve me of my sins.”
“What sins?”
I stared into her guileless blue eyes flecked with seafoam green, knowing I’d finally found my equal.
“The first time I killed a man, I was twelve. I didn’t want to kill him, but I’d been hanging around with Finnan and his half-brother since I was two and I wanted to join the clan that Finnan would one day run. ”
“You were only twelve?” she asked in a whisper.
I nodded, loosely balling up the face washer and dropping it to the counter. “I remember everything about that day. Why it had to be done. How it had to be done. It was my initiation into the clan.”
“You were so young, though.”
“Only three years younger than you when you killed Brian,” I pointed out. “The guy I shot was the son of a man that Finnan’s dad, Kellen, wanted to persuade into working with the clan. I wanted to be part of the brotherhood so badly I did what was asked of me.”
“Why did you want to join the clan?”
“Finnan and his half-brother, Torin, were the only brothers I wanted, even if they weren’t related to me by blood. Kellen was the father figure missing from my life.”
“What about your mother?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about the woman who had birthed me in a very long time. “She was a whore at one of the brothel’s the clan ran twenty-five years ago. She was nobody of importance.”
“You don’t know who your father is?”
“No.” It used to bother me, but I’d learned soon enough I was better off without him. Besides, I had Kellen to fill that void. “It doesn’t matter who he was, anyway. My mother got nothing from him aside from being knocked up.”
“How old was she when she had you?”
“Seventeen. Just a baby herself, really.”
“Where is she now?”
“Dead.”
Tears clung to Molly’s lashes, and I hated that I’d put them there.
Reaching up, I collected a single tear and brought it to my mouth.
Tasting her. Her eyes never left mine. “Fallon was a pipedream. I’ve always struggled with losing my innocence that day, and I felt like Fallon would be pure and good enough for both of us, but…
” I tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear.
“I was wrong. What I really wanted was someone strong enough to stand up and fight beside me, not just patch me up afterward.”
On a shaky sob, Molly kissed me, pressing her breasts against my bare chest. Skin to skin, I felt her heart as it thundered beneath her ribs, the tempo an echo to my own.
Within seconds, the kiss turned into an inferno burning between us.
I had to claim this woman. Now she knew everything there was to know, I had to seal our fates together.