Page 84 of Ireland

Her brother and father filed out. Her dad paused on the threshold and stared hard at Ronan, forcing him to enter the room sideways. The two men's height and overall body size were so different, her father almost looked small, but the ferociously stern line of his mouth made her nervous.

Ronan squeezed past her dad with his jaw clenched.

Her father’s gaze narrowed at Ronan’s back, then he continued out. Ronan stared after him with a scarily intense glare.

“Hey,” she called out, standing to draw his attention. “What do you need?”

It took him another long second before he turned his head toward her and finished entering the room. He walked up to her desk, looking mouthwateringly delicious in a simple combo of navy slacks and tie paired with a white dress shirt with tiny navy stripes. The fall of his hair around his face was so sexy that her thighs tightened. She wanted him to come close enough that she could smell him, but kept to her side of the desk because she didn’t trust herself not to forget that her door was open.

His hands went to his hips, and he gave her an uncompromising look. “You told your brother about my warehouse in Queens?”

She blinked at him. “Um…”

He growled low in his throat. “I forgot I even told you about it, but you didn’t. You’ve cost me a pretty penny,cher. Jules is damn near apoplectic about it.”

She shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “All’s fair in love and war.”

His eyes took on a hot gleam. His breathing began to pick up, rapidly becoming heavy. With a taut hungry look, he closed the remaining distance to her desk. His voice was muted, for her only. “You’ve made a lot oftracasfor me,cher. You’re nothing but trouble from head to toe. Certain destruction for any man, and yet all I want at this very moment is to tongue-fuck your sweet cunt until you scream for the whole office to hear.”

Ireland swallowed hard past a sudden lump in her throat, fighting the urge to round the desk and press her needy body against his. He should be furious, and maybe he was, but there was a gleam of pride in his eyes and the slightest hint of indulgence in the firm curves of his mouth. Not to mention the lust pumping off him in heated waves.

“I don’t think my daddy would like that,” she whispered huskily, provoked by his amorous gaze, sinful drawl, and the temptation of his splendid body.

“I’d fucking love it,” he told her gruffly. He rolled his shoulders back and stepped away from her, his eyes dark. “And hey, if Jules stops by today, stay out of his way.”

She licked her dry lips. “You’re the one I need to stay away from.”

He backed away with a cocky smile. “Good luck with that.”

The feel of Lucky’s warm, wet tongue on his chin woke Gideon. Grabbing the beagle’s velvety body, he hugged the dog close and rolled to his side, careful to be quiet so as not to disturb his sleeping wife.

Initially, Lucky’s determination to awaken him from nightmares was startling, but he’d become used to it over the years. And truly, cuddling the dog helped to slow his racing heart as reality pushed the dreams back into the distant corners of his mind.

Sometimes, the nightmare was still vivid when he woke, and it was especially so tonight. A blend of memory and his fears, he was left with an icy knot of terror in his gut and cold sweat on his skin. Snuggled close, Lucky licked at the salty perspiration, happy to receive his owner’s grateful petting.

Gideon silently extricated himself and the beagle from the bed and looked down at Eva. She was curled toward him in a fetal position, her face soft and carefree in slumber. There was none of the tightness around the lips and eyes that he’d observed in recent days. She was always breathtakingly beautiful, butsomehow more so while sleeping. He woke before her regularly just to enjoy the sight of her at peace, secure within the safety he provided.

A baby.

He shivered as the night’s chill further cooled the sweat on his skin. The clock told him it was just after three in the morning. Lucky became restless in his hold, so he set him down, grabbed his pajama pants from the bench at the foot of the bed, and tugged them on. They headed out of the room together.

The sweeping view of the Atlantic outside the expansive windows was now a luminous blackness, the moon revealing the edges of the clouds above and the white crests of the tumultuous waves below. It was easy to imagine they were at sea, separated from the world by hundreds of nautical miles. The feeling of remoteness was a charming feature of the oceanfront property they’d fallen in love with.

Nothing else in the world existed when they were here, and he couldn’t be happier. They unplugged—no phones, televisions, or AI assistants—and he needed nothing more than Eva’s company. She was endlessly fascinating to him, her mind so nimble and her heart so big. She nurtured and protected those she loved, and he was damned lucky to be among that number.

But she wanted more. More of him, ofthem. And being intimately familiar with that yearning himself, he understood how she felt.

Entering the kitchen, Gideon grabbed a glass and got cold water from the fridge. Lucky whined at the folding glass doors leading out to the deck. He headed that way, keying in the disarm code on their alarm system before unlocking and pushing aside one pane so they could both exit. It was warmer outside than in the house, the humidity lending a sultry quality to the night breeze. Lucky ran ahead to the stairs and down to the sandy shore below. Gideon grabbed their favorite piece ofdriftwood off the stair railing, leaving his water glass in its place, then followed him down.

The sand was cool beneath his feet, the world leached of color by the silvery light of a waxing moon. The waves surged and retreated rhythmically against the shore, the crashing waves creating a soothing cadence. Lucky danced in circles, eagerly awaiting a game of fetch. Pulling his arm back, Gideon whipped the driftwood stick down the beach, smiling at Lucky’s joy in chasing it.

Hadn’t he imagined playing with a child on the beach and then, later, multiple children? He had memories of playing at the shore with his father and cherished them.

In the early days of his marriage, he’d been afraid of fatherhood, positive that he wouldn’t be any good at the job. It had taken over a year of therapy to manage the nightmares that had made sleeping with his wife dangerous, and the healing was ongoing. He still had bad nights, but Lucky was his literal dreamcatcher, and he’d addressed a lot of the trauma that had made his subconscious a menace in the first place.

As his life stabilized around Eva, possibilities opened up. Making a family with his wife became a new tentative dream. When she’d told him she was pregnant, she had been noticeably scared, which had tempered his excitement. Itwastoo soon, they’d agreed. There was still so much to accomplish as a couple before they’d be ready to share each other with children. But excitement and joy had quickly overtaken the doubts and apprehension.

He sighed and accepted Lucky's stick, throwing it again as he walked out from under the house into the open. The stars glittered profusely, seemingly a completely different sky from the one he slept under in New York. That sky was gray with only a scattering of stars, while this sky was inky blue and a field of sparkles.

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