Page 56 of Creatures in the Night

“Meaning?” I asked warily.

“Your husband called me to ask me if I could take you out to the cabin and give you some pointers on how to shoot and defend yourself, even if you have to defend yourself against him one day,” she said, making my brows shoot upward in shock. “Now, with Declan being off in the head a bit, I’ll only be able to train you for a few weeks before I’m forced to rest, but since it’s because I’m pregnant, Declan gets a pass on this one.”

“Congratulations,” I blurted.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” she snorted. “I think me and Declan are going to fail at this whole parenting thing, to be honest. Luckily, his mother is an absolute doll, and my sisters-in-law seem to know what they’re doing, should I need any advice.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her candidness. “Well, it’s always wise to know one’s limitations.”

“Yeah, it is,” she sighed. “At any rate, since you don’t feel safe with Noah yet, I’m here to make sure that you don’t need to. Nothing is more empowering than being able to protect yourself, trust me on that one.”

“It’s more than just…I know it sounds crazy, but this is about more than just the attempts on my life,” I told her. “I…I feel like my entire life is out of control, and Noah…Noah is the…the tornado that keeps sweeping through everything that I’ve ever known, destroying it all.”

“I know that you might not believe me, but I understand exactly how you feel,” she said. “Declan’s courtship wasn’t exactly a traditional one, so I get it. I really do.”

“How do you handle being married to someone so…”

“Larger than life?”

I nodded. “Yeah, larger than life.”

“I’m not going to lie and say that it’s not a constant struggle, because it is,” she answered honestly. “However, Declan’s authentic. So, the way that he fights with me is every bit as genuine as the way that he makes love to me, so there isn’t a second of the day when Declan isn’t showing me just how much he cares about me. So, how can I not put up with his bullshit when he loves me to distraction like that?”

I barked out a laugh. “That sounds like a perfect anniversary card.”

Keavy grinned. “Look, I can’t tell you how to handle Noah because he and The O’Brien are two very different people, but I can tell you that Noah is not a liar, and if he’s telling you that he loves you, it’s because he does.”

“Honestly, I don’t know which scenario is worse,” I muttered tiredly. “Loving me or not loving me.”

“Both scenarios are equally terrifying, my friend,” she replied somberly. “Trust me, I know.”

Chapter 35

Noah~

I stood in the shadows like a creeper, watching Shea sleep, and it was a motherfucker to know that she was never going to love me and that I had only my own arrogance to blame for it.

After calling Keavy, asking her to speak with Shea, my way of trying to help Shea adapt to her new life, my cousin’s wife had informed me that I had my work cut out for me when it came to convincing Shea that I loved her. Yeah, Keavy had agreed to help train Shea in self-defense and gun control, but that wasn’t anything that me or any of my men couldn’t have done. I’d chosen Keavy because Shea couldn’t have anything against her, having never met her before.

At any rate, while Shea and Keavy had been getting to know each other, Donal and Odhran had gotten rid of our two dead Russians, and then Declan and I had returned to the manor to question Craig some more. However, when we’d gotten there, Cathal had already sent Craig into the afterlife, but not before finding out how those two fucks had gotten inside my building. Apparently, the original plan had been to catch Shea either going or coming from work, and Craig had given them the code to the building to catch her unaware. With it being too risky to try again at the hospital, they’d come here, taking the initiative to get the job done, which was what we assumed.

Declan had also sent the pictures to Kotov, and after he had confirmed that they weren’t his men, we’d added to our assumptions that they must have been Klive’s men. To make sure, Declan had also sent the pictures to Nero, asking him to have Morocco look into it. While we might not be able to verify that they were with Klive, the more information that we knew, the better.

So, after leaving Cathal and James to take care of Craig’s lifeless corpse, Declan had gone home to do what it was that he did, and that had left me with nothing to do but face off with my wife again. I seriously had no idea how to make her see past all my dismissive bullshit when we’d first gotten married, and it really felt like every bad decision that I’d ever made in my life was coming at me with the speed of a freight train and in the form of my petite wife.

As I watched Shea sleep, I also wondered how in the fuck I was ever going to let her out of my sight again. Even though I knew the reason behind the hits on her life, that still didn’t make it any easier for me to accept. She was scheduled to go back to work soon, and I honestly had no idea how I was going to be able to allow that without losing my motherfucking mind. I was expected to just let my wife go about her business, regardless of the past couple of weeks, and I wasn’t entirely too sure that I was going to be able to pull that off.

Finally walking over to the bed, I sat down, then ran my hand over my wife’s hip. I watched her stir a bit, the sheet sliding down her shoulder, giving me a glimpse of her white tank-top. She wasn’t wearing a bra as I had instructed, which was fine since she was in the privacy of our bedroom, and I’d be lying if I’d said that I didn’t like how she felt comfortable not wearing one. Shea Murphy was everything that I never knew that I wanted in a woman, but in all fairness, I hadn’t been looking for forever with any of the women that had come before her. If I’d had, then maybe I would have realized that I really didn’t have a thing for blondes a lot earlier.

As the sheet slid down her arm, I noticed that she didn’t have her wound bandaged, and the stitched-up skin had anger licking down my spine again. I pushed her loose hair back, and then noticed how she’d chosen to let those stitches breathe as well. She was going to have a scar where her hair was never going to grow back, but I saw that as a good thing. While I had every intention of cherishing her for the rest of my life, her scars would ensure that I never took her for granted ever again.

Sliding my hand underneath the sheet, I felt her bare skin immediately, Shea having gone to bed in only her top and panties. I knew that she was tired and hated me, but those two facts did nothing to lessen my desire for my wife. I wanted her all the fucking time, and I didn’t think that it was something that was ever going to change.

When she rolled onto her back, she unknowingly gave me access to every part of her, so I slid my hand down her panties, her nipples hard against the fabric of her shirt. I knew that her pussy had to be sore after everything that I’d done to her yesterday, but in light of what had just happened, I needed her more than usual.

I slid two fingers between her pussy lips, and I watched as Shea’s back immediately began to stretch like a satisfied cat. As I made my way into her pussy, her hands latched around my forearm, but it wasn’t to push me away. Shea was already moaning, and she hadn’t even opened her eyes yet. She looked like she was having the dirtiest dream ever, and lust really did compliment her gorgeous face.

“Noah…” she moaned, and my heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. Even in her sleep, my wife knew me.

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