Page 53 of Mob Saint

“Cailín, you’re deep in thought. Are you all right?”

I shift my focus from out my window to Seamus, who’s sitting beside me in the backseat of a town car. He drove to my place because he wanted us to have time alone on the drive down to Trenton, and he wasn’t sure how long it might take to strategize before we left. He didn’t want to make one of his drivers wait around until we were ready to leave. That was a blessing in disguise. But he changed his mind once we got dressed. He said he wanted the privacy of the backseat with the glass divider up, so he could keep his arm around me.

He's had it around my shoulders and his free hand covering both of mine on my lap. It’s like having a giant bear wrapped around me like a shield. I’ve had my head on his shoulder for most of the time. He’s left me to my thoughts, but I’m being rude ignoring him. If nothing else, I’m worrying him.

“Yes, Daddy. I’m fine. My mind’s wandering like yours did earlier, but I’m not thinking about rugby.” I turn my head to kiss his neck.

“I’d gladly hold you up in the air if it meant I could look up your shorts.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“You’re incorrigible, you know that?”

“You’re a bad influence.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You’re far too enticing.”

There he goes again. The exaggeration. But when I gaze into his eyes, he means all of it. To him it’s not hyperbole. It’s gospel.

I twist to kiss him properly, and his arm drops so his hand can rest on my hip. It’s deliciously possessive. It’s sexy as fuck.

“I could strip you, cailín, and no one would know but me, even though we aren’t alone. No one would see you but me, even though we’re practically in a public place.”

“I could kneel and suck you off.” I cup his cock, which hardens under my hand.

“Teampaill.”

“What does that mean?”

“Temptress.”

“How do you even know that word in Irish? That’s random.”

“I’m fluent. My entire family is.”

“Oh. I suspected but wasn’t sure since I only heard you speak it that first time we went for a walk.” Though that explains why that sentence he’s said a few times flows off his tongue so smoothly.

“I greeted you in Gaelic in the courtroom. Did you know the phrase?”

“Yeah. I know some simple ones. Mostly what you’d say in passing or might need as a tourist in a village. I can’t think of when else I would use it. Really, it’s just a smattering of Gaelic. When did you learn?”

“The same time as I did English. Everyone grows up mixing the two together until they get to school and can only use English. My parents and aunts and uncles insist we use it when we’re around them as though we might somehow forget without the practice. All of us use it regularly. If not every day, then close to. There’s usually something that comes up that makes speaking a foreign language useful. Or we just lapse into it because we’re as comfortable reading, writing, and speaking it as we are English.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine there are that many people in America who speak Irish.”

“Probably half a percent, and they’re probably all in my family. Our men speak a little for when we absolutely have to give commands. We keep the phrases simple for them.”

Probably because they don’t want even their men to understand most of their conversations.

“That explains why Gareth announced he wants to learn it. He wants to know what you’re up to.”

“We know he’s hacked our emails, and that’s fine. They aren’t the accounts with anything important in them, and we purposely send nonsense to each other in Irish just to piss him off.”

I laugh. “It doesn’t take much to set him off these days.”

Seamus’s smile falls, and his gaze bores into me.

“No, it’s not always directed at me. Shay, I don’t want you to think every word out of his mouth to me is fucked-up. It isn’t. Most of the time he’s fine. It’s just when he isn’t, he really isn’t.”

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