Page 21 of Wine & Warlocks

Could be it was all his imagination, but he’d liked to think she was softening toward him. Surely that’s what her recent affection was all about, right? She’d been less antagonistic and openly laughed with him, touching him at every opportunity. All similar to when they’d first met, and then again on their last night in Ireland before he’d royally fucked up and revealed the lockdown was a sham.

After taking the empty seat beside him, she absently rested a hand on his knee, and any remaining worry left him. A woman didn’t touch a man she didn’t feel connected to in some small way.

“What have I missed?” she asked.

“Not a bleedin’ thing. We’re waiting for Damian to arrive, and Trevor seems to have forgotten the appointed meeting time.”

“Do you want me to check his room?”

“Feck no!”

All eyes turned to him, and he found his cheeks heating. He hadn’t meant to shout, but the idea of Dubheasa possibly finding Trevor Blane in the altogether had Ronan seeing red.

More subdued, he said, “What I meant to say was that if he isn’t down shortly, we’ll start without him.”

“Is that what you meant to say, then? Hmm. Sure, and it’s not jealousy?” Her mouth twitched, and her eyes danced with humor.

Ronan tucked her curtain of hair behind her ear and leaned forward until his mouth brushed its delicate shell. “You know well that I’m jealous of anyone who looks your way, Dove, and I’ll be so until my dying day.”

Her shiver pleased him, and he grinned when she rubbed her neck as if the hairs at her nape were live wires. He always experienced the same sensation when she was near.

“Good,” she whispered.

He couldn’t hold back his bark of laughter, and those present turned toward them once again. This time, it was Dubheasa’s turn to be embarrassed, but she had no qualms about putting the others in their place.

“Mind your own bleedin’ business and not mine,” she snapped at her two oldest brothers.

“Sure, and were either of us sayin’ anything, then?” Cian asked with an incredulous laugh.

“No, but you were damned well thinking it, now, weren’t ya?” she retorted.

Her brother shook his head with a scowl. “Aye, and you’ve a worse temper than Bridg, ya do.”

“And don’t you be forgetting it, Cian O’Malley.” When Dubheasa turned her flashing eyes Ronan’s way, he held up his hands in submission. With a low growl, she dragged him forward by his shirt front and kissed him like he’d been off to war and had just returned. When her tongue brushed his, he lost all sense of up or down. Lost all but his need for her.

Their kiss was interrupted by her brothers as they sputtered their indignation. Someone—probably Cian—pounded on the table to get their attention.

“None of that. You’re our sister, and we don’t want to be fighting the giant, yeah?” Carrick said with a fierce scowl.

Ronan suspected it was for Cian’s sake because the second his brother’s back was turned, Carrick grinned and winked.

Any retort Dubheasa had planned was aborted by the arrival of Trevor, followed closely by Damian. He wanted to curse them all to perdition and steal Dubheasa away, but he held his tongue. It wasn’t as if he could form full sentences yet, anyway. His brain and body hadn’t recovered from their bone-melting kiss.

Ronan shot her a quick side glance and saw she appeared as addled as he was, and he felt marginally better that it wasn’t all one-sided.

Trevor took the chair next to him. With a knowing look and a thoroughly irritating smirk, he said, “I thought I told you two to get some actual sleep last night.”

“Feck off, Blane,” he replied good-naturedly.

The other man laughed heartily.

Other than a curious glance his way, Damian seemed eager to get down to business. “Has Castor contacted you, Ronan? I haven’t heard from him or Quentin yet today.”

“Time difference, maybe,” Trevor inserted with a glance at his watch. “The friend I contacted hasn’t messaged me back, either.”

“We’ll give them a little longer to respond.” Damian took the seat at the head of the table, forcing Cian and Carrick to sit to his right. “Where are Bridget and Eoin? This concerns them, too.”

“Eoin messaged me about five minutes ago to say he’ll be here soon with Fintan and Brenna,” Dubheasa told him. She glanced at her brothers. “But I don’t know about Bridg, Ruairí, or Roisin. That’s for you to answer, yeah?”

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