I lie in bed staring at the ceiling and listening to my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I feel like every single person in this house is pissed at me. I took all of my anger out on Jessie and as much as I’m entitled to feel angry after what she did, I could have handled it a little better.
I’m worried about Liam and Mikey. I should have told them as soon as I found out but I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t know how to. I didn’t even know if it was the truth until Paul confirmed it himself. How the fuck was I supposed to blow their world apart on the ramblings of a dying man?
The door to my room creaks open, allowing a sliver of light from the hallway to illuminate the darkness. I see her silhouette slipping into the darkness and suck in a deep breath. If she’s here to tell me what an asshole I am, I think my heart might just give out. I can’t take any more anger directed at me right now. For over thirty years I have taken so much of it. My father’s rage. Our mother’s secrets. The guilt of not being able to protect them all. And I would do it all again for each and every one of them. Tomorrow I will stand in front of them and beg my brothers’ forgiveness if I have to, but right now I am tired of it all.
“Are you awake?” she whispers as she tiptoes toward the bed.
“As if I could sleep,” I reply with a sigh that vibrates through my bones.
When she reaches the bed, she lifts the duvet and slips beneath it, pressing her warm body against me. Her soft skin feels so good against mine and I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close and burying my face in her hair.
She responds in kind, wrapping her legs and arms around me like a koala and squeezing me tight. “I love you,” she whispers and that is my complete fucking undoing.
I don’t know what to do with the emotion that wells up in my chest and threatens to spill out of me, so I do what I know best, going to the place with her that I feel most comfortable. The place where I’m in complete control.
I roll over, flipping her onto her back and pinning her wrists above her head with one hand while I tug at her panties with the other. The fabric pulls taut against her skin as I stretch it, digging into her soft flesh. She lifts her ass off the bed, allowing me to pull them off more easily and as soon as they are down to her knees she wriggles them off herself. I settle between her thighs and my cock hardens as it presses against her pussy.
“I need you,” I growl.
“I’m right here,” she whispers before I lean down and crash my lips against hers, kissing her so hard she gasps into my mouth making my cock throb. She spreads her legs wider and I roll my hips against her and her sweet juices slick my cock. I shift position until I’m nudging at her opening and she groans softly into my mouth.
This is the first time we have been together like this since he took her and I’m suddenly overcome with a primal urge to reclaim her for my own, and it scares the hell out of me. I pull back from her and she blinks up at me.
“Shane, please don’t,” she whispers as tears form in her eyes.
Fuck! Am I hurting her? “We don’t have to…”
“No,” she interrupts me. “I want you to stop thinking about what he did.”
I suck in a breath. How do I not think about that? And how do I tell her that it makes me want to fuck her so hard, I am the only man she’ll feel inside her until the end of time? “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t, so stop treating me like I’m fragile. Like I’m damaged.” A sob catches in her throat and it slices a welt across my heart that she would think for even one second that I see her like that.
“You are neither of those things, sweetheart.”
“So show me. Prove to me that nothing has changed between us.”
“Jessie,” I groan. “I can’t hold back with you. Not tonight.”
“So, don’t. I need you too, Shane,” she pleads.
She is so fucking sweet. I don’t deserve her, but I’ll take her anyway. I drive into her, forcing her a few inches up the bed and her pussy grips my cock so tightly it’s a struggle to pull myself out of her again, but I do, only to drive into her even harder. I wrap my free hand around her throat and squeeze gently.
“Shane!” she gasps as she wrenches her lips from mine, blinking up at me with those incredible blue eyes and it only makes me want to fuck her harder. I rail into her, my anger and my guilt dissipating with every single thrust. She is everything I need.
“I love you, Jessie,” I groan before I seal my mouth over hers again.
I press my forehead against hers, our breathing fast and hard and our bodies beaded with perspiration. I brush her damp hair back from her face and she smiles up at me. Despite what I just did to her – all of the anger and guilt I just poured into her – she fucking smiles at me.
“I’m sorry I said those things to you earlier,” she whispers.
“It’s been a tough day for everyone, sweetheart. I could have handled it better.”
“Did Shane Ryan just admit he was wrong?” She smiles at me and it makes my heart beat faster.
“No,” I scowl at her. “I was completely right, but I could have dealt with it differently is all I said.”
She bites on her lip, that smart mouth of hers ready for a comeback any second, so I don’t let her. “When he took you, I thought I was going to lose my mind, Jessie. For real. Thinking about you out there alone and afraid and not knowing where you were almost drove me insane. That you would put us all through that again…”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as her eyes fill with tears.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, sweetheart.” I brush her hair back from her face. “I just want you to understand how much the thought of losing you terrifies me.”
“I know.”
I close my eyes as the memory of feeling so helpless comes flooding back to me.
“Shane?” She reaches up and trails her fingertips over my cheek until I look at her again.
“When I realized it was Paul who’d taken you, the thought that you might think I’d known, and that I’d betrayed you…” I can’t finish the sentence because the words stick in my throat.
“I didn’t think that. Not even for one second.”
I smile as I kiss her forehead and roll onto my back. She turns on her side and lays her head on my chest, running her fingertips over my abdomen.
“I love this tattoo,” she whispers.
I look down at the one she is tracing. It is a Celtic cross with a Gaelic phrase wrapped around it. Each of my brothers have one too. “It means ‘Always Remember.’”
“I know,” she whispers. “I googled it. It’s beautiful.”
“We should get you one, too,” I laugh, only half-joking.
“I don’t like needles,” she says with a shiver. “But you’re welcome to get one of my face or something?”
“Your face?”
“Yes,” she giggles.
“And where on my person would I get such a work of art?”
“Hmm?” she chews on her lip. “Your ass?”
I laugh out loud at that and she does too before she falls quiet again.
“You know what I realized in that horrible basement this morning?”
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
“How much faith you have in me,” she breathes.
“You did?”
“Yes. I don’t know if I could have said those things I did to Conor or the twins without breaking their hearts, even if it was only for a few moments, but I knew that you would get it. Even though I was looking at you, I knew that you would understand who I was really saying those things to.”
I press a kiss on her forehead. There was a second when she called me a liar that I worried she was starting to believe my uncle’s bullshit, but when she spoke of hatred and disgust, I realized that wasn’t for me. I have experienced the love of this incredible woman and I know that it’s true as sure as I know that grass is green.
“That means so much to me after everything we’ve been through, Shane,” she whispers.
I close my eyes and pull her tighter. “It means a lot to me too, sweetheart.”
