Page 93 of Irish Reign

“You think Cole Wolf didn’t think of all that when he volunteered to go fishing?”

“Cole...” She trails off, and I watch her test half a dozen questions about her former freeport client. She settles on the most surprising news I’ve given her about the hacker genius. “Hevolunteered?”

“When I told him it was a wedding present.”

Her eyes are shiny, but she nods. Finally, she says, “It’s a lovely gift.”

“For the bride who has everything.” She smiles at that, so I figure it’s safe to go on. She’s no longer in danger of ruining her makeup. “No prosecutor can build a case against you now. Everything that happened that night—you can put it behind you forever. We’ll burn this all tonight. At home.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I…” And then she meets my gaze. I capture a glimpse of something soft in her expression, something shy, but she settles on a wicked grin. “I have a gift for you too.”

She shouldn’t be giving me gifts. But I step back and wait to see what she has in mind.

“The last time I wore this skirt,” she says. “I left some business unfinished.”

That gives me a notion where she’s going with this. Cleverpiscín. I settle my hands on my hips. “You did, did you?”

“I tried my hand at poetry, but I didn’t quite match the high quality of rhyming from you and the others.”

“It’s a skill we Irish have,” I boast, not quite hiding a grin.

“I’m not good at making things up on the spot, but with a chance to think a bit… I think you might like what I’ve come up with.”

“Let’s hear it,” I say.

She squares her shoulders and raises her chin, the very image of pride. And then she recites:

“There was a young lawyer in Philly,

Who fell for a man, willy-nilly.

Her one need was blunt?—

His cock in her cunt,

And that’s why she screamed out so shrilly.”

I understand what it costs her to revisit that night, when she embarrassed herself in front of me. In front of Fiona. In front of all the Fishtown Boys.

And I know what is takes for her to use the word—cunt. She’s always hated it. Always found it ugly.

It’s the word I used against her, the sharpest weapon I could throw. But she’s claiming it now. Making it hers. That’s the same thing she’s done with the Fishtown Boys, merging her life with mine.

So I don’t laugh, even though I think she means me to. Instead, I hold her gaze as if we’re already upstairs, already standing in front of the altar. I say, “Not bad, for a first offense.”

“Oh there’s more,” she assures me.

“Go on then.”

She swallows hard and strikes another pose.

“Samantha’s learned all of the rules now,

End-of-day, wear a skirt, not her black trou.

Her one need’s still blunt,

Yourcock in her cunt,

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