Page 45 of The Irish Redemption

“You didn’t have to drive me home.” Placing one hand on the car door, I slowly ease myself out of the vehicle and bite back a wince as a dull ache shoots through my abdomen.

“I wanted to,” Cormac replies, immediately offering me his elbow.

“Is this your way of making up for what happened?”

I loop my hand around his arm and clutch at him. Feeling the strength rippling through his muscles with the slightest shift gives me a warm sense of security. He might have been with me when I got stabbed, but he wasn’t near me. Having him tower over me as we ascend the steps to my front door gives me a comfort that if something else were to happen, he would protect me.

“Maybe.” He dips his head and when our eyes meet, he lifts his brow. “I would still prefer to have you at my penthouse.”

“No, thank you. I need my own bed after trying, and failing, to sleep these past nights in that hospital.” His offer had been kind and incredibly tempting, but I was exhausted. The last thing I want is to recover in a place that reminds me of my kidnapping.

“It’s not safe,” Cormac insists again, though he doesn’t fight me when I unlock my door and let us both inside.

“You’re here,” I say easily. “I feel plenty safe.”

“I can’t be here all the time,” Cormac replies.

“Ahh, so you wereteasingwhen you said you couldn’t stop thinking about me,” I joke softly while releasing my grip on his arm. “I knew you were all talk.”

“I wasn’t teasing,” he replies as seriously as if we were still discussing the details of my stabbing. “But they know where you live.”

Reaching my kitchen, I set aside the small paper bag containing my medication and move to pour myself a glass of water. “Dotheyknow whereyoulive?”

“Yes.” Cormac sighs.

“Exactly. Here has the benefit of my own bed and my own pillow. So here wins out. Sorry.” Cormac doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to make a face, but the way his eyebrows twitch suggests he would do that if he were ten years younger.

“Your logic is irritating.”

“Just be thankful I’m on painkillers.”

Just as I finish pouring myself some water, his hand appears over mine against the tap and he takes over turning it closed. “I’ll be with you as long as I can tonight. Then Dale will take over.”

“Dale?” I glance from our joined hands to Cormac’s face. “The man you had tailing me ever since you let me go?”

He meets my eyes steadily, not a hint of shame in them. “Yes.”

“You really aren’t going to explain that?”

“What?”

“You had someone tailing me.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” A dull spike of irritation rises, so I pull my hand away from him and turn to my medication. “No explanation?”

“I made myself clear,” Cormac replies. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you so I took steps to keep an eye on you until my interest died down.”

“And did it?” Three pills land on my tongue and I chase them with several gulps of water, then I turn to face him. “Has your interest faded?”

Cormac holds my gaze. “Not in the slightest.”

I should tell him to leave. The sensible part of me knows I should, but I can’t. Maybe it’s how warm his presence makes me feel or how small my kitchen feels with his bulk taking up most of the space. I want him here for as long as I can have him. Which might only be for tonight, and I’ll wake up tomorrow with more sense in my soul, but right now, I’m still stuck yearning for him. It’s been there, warm in my chest, ever since he cuddled me to sleep in the hospital that first night. And each night after until they discharged me.

“Alright,” I say, coughing slightly as a lingering tightness clings to the inside of my throat after those pills. “Well, you do your protection thing and I… I’m going to go and shower.”

Leaving the kitchen, I move through my small apartment toward my bathroom. Cormac follows.

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