Iwalk out of the bathroom to find Shane standing in my room with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. He looks as fierce as ever and I wonder if he’s still mad at me for what I said in his office earlier. But I don’t even care anymore. The things he said to me last night cut me deeply and I’m not sure I will be able to look at him the same way again.
“What do you want, Shane?” I ask with a sigh as I cross the room and stand in front of him. As usual, he smells incredible.
He holds out his hand to me, and I look down at it hesitantly. “Come with me,” he orders.
“Again? And just what are you planning on doing tonight? Driving me to the state line and kicking me out of the car?” I arch an eyebrow at him.
“Stop being a brat and come with me.” He grabs my hand now and my pulse quickens at his touch. I dutifully follow him out of my bedroom, down the hallway, and to the elevator.
“Where are we going, Shane?” I demand.
“Wait and see, Hacker,” he says, and I roll my eyes in annoyance. Thankfully, he doesn’t see me, or he’d probably reprimand me for it.
We step into the elevator and take it to the ground floor. Shane steps out first and I follow him. He walks straight to the SUV he offered me last night and the car beeps to life as we approach.
I stop in my tracks and pull my hand from his, crossing my arms over my chest. “I already told you, I’m not leaving.”
He sighs deeply in frustration and frowns at me. “I know. Just get into the car.”
He pulls the passenger door open for me, and I shake my head in annoyance before climbing inside. I suspect that if I don’t get in voluntarily, he’ll just pick me up and throw me in anyway.
I stare out of the window as we drive away from the city and my heart races in my chest as we get further and further away from the place I’ve come to call home. “Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” I turn in my seat and ask him.
“It’s a surprise.”
I chew on my lip nervously, and he reaches out his hand and brushes my cheek with his knuckles. “Don’t you trust me, little hacker?”
I stare at him. I’m not sure how to answer that question. “I thought I did. But then last night…”
“Last night, what? I didn’t force you to leave, did I?”
“No. But now I know that you want me to, I feel like I’m on borrowed time. I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, or where you’re taking me, Shane,” I admit, the tremor in my voice clearly audible now.
“I would never hurt you, Hacker,” he says softly. “Well, not unless you want me to. What happened the other night. You wanted that, right?”
“I did. But…” I shake my head. There is no use reasoning with him.
“But what?” he frowns.
“After. You just dismissed me. I wanted more than…” Damn! Why do I keep speaking in half sentences?
“You wanted me to fuck you,” he finishes for me. “You wanted me to make you feel better. But that’s not the point of a punishment, is it? The real punishment is you going to bed alone with your cunt dripping wet.”
I roll my eyes and he sighs.
“You’re never honest with me, Jessie. You are with Conor and the twins.”
I turn in my seat and glare at him.
“If you had come to me the other night and told me what you needed, then I would have given it to you – the pain and the pleasure. But, instead you lied because you can’t be honest with me.”
“I… Damn!” I don’t even know what to say.
“You think it was easy for me to send you away? I was as hard as fucking stone for you. You could have asked me to let you stay. You could have asked me to come with you, Jessie. You could have been honest about how you were feeling instead of walking out and hating me.”
“God, I wish I hated you?” I snap at him. “Besides, you make it hard to be honest with you, Shane. You’re completely unreadable. I think you might be the most difficult person I have ever met in my life!” I cross my arms over my chest and sit back in my seat.
“At least that was honest,” he says with a faint laugh.
“Anyway, none of that matters considering what you did last night,” I breathe as the memory cuts a fresh welt across my heart. “You said you’d never hurt me, but you did. Those things you said…”
“I know,” he whispers. “I was way out of line, and I’m sorry.”
“How much further is this place?” I say, looking out of the window.
“Not much. We’re almost there.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, we pull off the highway and onto a dirt track leading into the hills. I glance at Shane, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead, seeming to know exactly where he’s going. Finally, we come to a spot near a lake and he stops the car and unclips his seatbelt.
“Where are we?” I ask as I peer out of the window. There is nothing here but the lake and trees.
“Come and see,” he says as he climbs out of the car. He walks around to my side as I’m opening my door and takes my hand. I grab onto it as I step out, wondering what I’m stepping on. It’s so dark out here, I can barely see. He keeps hold of my hand and leads me closer to the water. When we reach it, he stops and looks out at the water with a strange look of contentment on his face. Meanwhile, my blood is thundering in my ears. What the hell is going on here?
“Would you look at that?” he says, nodding towards the lake.
I turn and look. It is a beautiful sight. The water is almost black, but the reflection of the full moon ripples on the surface, illuminating the lake and the surrounding trees.
“It’s beautiful,” I admit.
“It’s yours,” he says softly.
“I’m not sure about that, Shane,” I smile. “As powerful as you are, I’m not sure a lake and the moon are within your gift to give.”
He turns to me, his face full of emotion. “If you’re going to stay with us, then you’ll need this.”
I frown at him, not understanding what he means.
“I know my brothers can be a bit much,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“And I know that I can too,” he adds. “I used to come to this spot at least once a week. Just to have some quiet and some space from them and their constant noise. It’s hard being the one who always has to have the answers, Jessie,” he says with a sigh and despite him being a complete asshole at times, my heart aches for him. He puts himself under so much pressure.
“I suppose I get that. But if you give this spot to me, then where will you go?”
He smiles at me. “Wherever you are.” My breath catches in my throat and my pulse quickens. What the hell is happening here? “I realized this morning that I haven’t been to this place for over two months. Not since you came into our lives. You bring us all into balance somehow, Hacker. You take the worst parts of each of us and make them softer and more tolerable. I want you to have a place to run to when you need some space – and some peace. When you need away from my brothers, or from me.”
“Shane, you don’t have to do this.”
“I want you to have this place, Jessie,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “Because if I’m going to let you in, I need to know that you will never leave. If you’re going to be one of us, then you always will be. So, this is the place you can run to when we get a bit too much. If only for a little while.”
I blink away the tears. This might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. “Shane, I can’t take this.”
“Yes, you can. And if you’re worried about privacy, I own this land. I’ve always planned to have a cabin built here someday.”
“Wow, that would be incredible. A cabin out here,” I say as I take another look around. “I would love to spend time here with you and your brothers.”
“You would?” he smiles at me.
“Of course,” I whisper.
“I know what you said today, and you had every right to say it, but tell me you didn’t mean it. Jessie. Tell me that I still get to touch you. Tell me that I still get to have all of you.”
“I don’t know, Shane. You made me feel completely worthless. Like I was some whore. You talked about me like I meant nothing to any of you.”
He reaches up and tucks my hair behind my ear. “You mean more to me than you will ever know, Hacker.”
“You expect honesty from me, Shane, but that’s a two-way street. Where is my honesty?”
“I’ve never lied to you,” he frowns at me.
“Maybe. But you have never let me in either. You never tell me what you want from me. You don’t share any of your life with me.”
“What do you want from me, Jessie?” he shakes his head.
“Something real, Shane. Anything real?” I plead with him.
He licks his lips and stares at me. “I called the wedding off.”
“To Erin?” I ask.
“She’s the only woman I’ve ever been engaged to, so yeah,” he frowns, and I bite back the retort that’s on the edge of my tongue.
“Why?”
“She had a pregnancy scare,” he says with a sigh and I blink at him.
“It’s not like that,” he shakes his head. “I’m not a complete asshole, Jessie.”
“I know,” I whisper as my pulse thrums against my skin.
“She wasn’t pregnant. I’d always told her from the start, I was clear that I never wanted kids. And she said she felt the same. Then, she had this scare, and I found out she hadn’t been taking her birth control properly and she was just so fucking laid back about it, like she hadn’t completely lied to me. She admitted she thought I’d change my mind one day. But I had never, ever give her any indications that I would. I do not want to carry on my bastard father’s bloodline!” he snarls, and I reach out and take his hand in mine. “The plan was we were going to live in the apartment for a few years, and then convert one of the other floors for ourselves. But, after the whole baby thing, I found out she’d put a deposit on an apartment overlooking Central Park. Without even telling me.”
“Haven’t you ever told your brothers about this?”
He shakes his head. “No, because besides all of that shit, she blamed them for us not working out. She said that they were too dependent on me. Conor and Mikey and Liam think I was miserable because we’d broken up, but I wasn’t. I was miserable because I knew that she was right. I would never leave my brothers, Jessie. My family is everything to me.”
“So, why did that make you miserable?” I frown.
“Because, I realized I would always put them first. Above everyone else. I don’t want kids, because I feel like I already have some. I have been looking after my little brothers since I was four years old. And I don’t resent that. I love them. I would make every sacrifice one hundred times over for them.”
“So, you chose their happiness over your own?”
He shakes his head. “No. I chose my brothers over the possibility of falling in love with someone again.”
“Oh, I see,” I nod. I understand him so much more than I did half an hour ago. I wrap my arms around his waist and rest my head on his hard chest. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
He runs his hands down my arms and rests his chin on top of my head. “You know, my mother always used to tell me tales of curses and witchcraft back in Ireland. But I thought she was crazy. I never believed her. Now I’m not so sure.”
“You think I’m a witch?” I look up and grin at him.
“You’ve certainly got me under some kind of spell.”
I swallow as I look into his eyes. The moonlight highlighting the darkness in them.
I have never felt more loved in my whole life than I do by him and his brothers.
“It’s no spell, Shane. I love you. It’s that simple. And that complicated.”
He stares at me and I can’t help but feel like I have just crossed a line that he didn’t want me to cross.
He leans forward and seals his lips over mine, kissing me so fiercely that I almost lose my breath. Despite the cool air, my whole body is flooded with heat and desire. I have wanted him inside me since he sent me out of his office two nights earlier. He steps forward, walking me backwards until my back is pressed flat against a tree.
“Shane,” I pant as I wrench my lips away from his.
He groans out loud, mistaking my desperation for hesitation. “I need you, Jessie. And there’s no-one out here but us.”
“I don’t care who sees us,” I breathe as I reach for his zipper. “I want you. Right now.”
“Hacker,” he growls as he reaches for the edge of my dress and pulls it up around my waist before he tugs my panties to one side. “You’re going to get me. Every fucking inch of me, because you make me so hard I could come just from touching you. There is nothing I love more in this world than burying my cock in your hot cunt.”
“You have a filthy mouth,” I gasp as I pull his hard length free from his pants. He buries his head in my neck and growls against me as his hands drop to my ass before he lifts me until I can wrap my legs around his waist. There is no warning from him before he pushes his full length inside me.
“Shane!” I shout into the darkness as a rush of my cream coats him.
“Always ready for me, my little hacker,” he whispers against my ear. “Soaking wet and ready for my cock. Every. Fucking. Time,” he thrusts with each word until I am coming apart around him. There is something about being out here in the open with him that makes my heart beat faster and the blood pound through my veins. Every sense is heightened.
I rake my nails down his muscular back as I take everything he has to give me.
“You want it harder?” he groans.
“Yes,” I groan, and he rails into me with all his strength. The tree bark at my back bites against my skin through the thin fabric of my dress, but the pain only makes the pleasure of him driving into me over and over again all that sweeter. Soon my legs are trembling with my impending release and because he knows my body so well, he increases his pace until my walls are clenching around him and I am shuddering against him.
“Shane,” I groan as the waves of pleasure crash over me.
“I fucking love the way you squeeze my cock when you come, Hacker,” he growls in my ear and a few thrusts later, he climaxes with a roar.
Shane is quiet on the drive back to the city and I wonder if telling him that I love him has completely spooked him. Especially after he’d just spoken about never wanting to fall in love again. When we get back home, he walks me to my room. “Goodnight, Hacker,” he says softly.
“Goodnight,” I whisper. I stare at him, wondering whether to ask him to stay the night with me. I want to wake up with his warm, hard body pressed against mine. But I swallow the words. I know he asked me for honesty, but I have laid myself bare to him and if that isn’t enough for him, then I don’t know what else to do. I suppose I have to accept that this is his way, and this is the pattern we will always follow. He might never tell me that he loves me, but I feel it sometimes anyway, and maybe that is enough?
I lie in bed staring into the darkness and listening to nothing but the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. My back stings slightly from the tree bark digging into it earlier, but it makes me smile – a reminder of the place Shane shared with me. The soft click of my door opening and footsteps padding across the floor makes me hold my breath. I know it isn’t the twins because they couldn’t be that quiet if they tried, and there is definitely only one set of footsteps. The scent of fresh air and his distinctive cologne fills the room as he approaches.
“Shane?” I whisper, sure that it can’t be him and my senses are deceiving me. Because he has never slept in my room before.
He doesn’t answer me as he reaches the bed and lifts the covers. The mattress dips beside me as he slips beneath the duvet and presses his body against mine. When his rough hand skims over my hip, I know for sure that it’s him and I smile to myself.
“Hey,” I say as he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me close to his chest.
“Hey, Hacker,” he breathes.
“What are you doing in here?”
He swallows. “I shouldn’t have let you come to bed alone.”
“So, why did you?” I ask as I shift my body so I’m facing him. His hand slips onto my ass and I run my fingertips across his cheek.
“Because you make me feel things I don’t like feeling, Jessie. You have my heart in a vice.”
The tears spring to my eyes. I love this man so much. He and his brothers are everything I have ever wanted in life. Each of them makes me feel whole and cherished and protected, in their own unique ways. Living without them now would be like living without air. But I know that he is struggling with his emotions and I want to be what he needs too. “Well, that’s better than your balls,” I giggle, and he slaps me lightly on the ass before pulling me tighter to him again.
“Ow,” I giggle. “My ass is still tender, you know?”
“Go to sleep,” he hisses in my ear. “Or I’ll put you over my knee this time.”
I press my face against his chest and inhale his intoxicating scent. “I love you, Shane. I am never going to leave. I promise.”
He presses his lips against my forehead. “I know, Hacker,” he breathes. “Now go to sleep.”
