Page 45 of After Indigo Irish Nights
His brow knit. He thought of Sorcha telling him about this new language he was to navigate. Here they were. “The happily ever after stuff.”
She made a face before laughing, but he noticed she wouldn’t meet his eyes right then. “Let’s not kid ourselves, Ace—Declan. I’m not Cinderella and you’re not Prince Charming. We’re just two people with a strong attraction to each other who happen to like each other. I figure we’ll find out if there’s more as time goes on. We have years, after all. You good with that?”
“You don’t plan to rush me. I like that.”
“Idon’t like to be rushed.” She climbed onto his lap. “Except in a few things. This seems to be one of them. I’d like you to stay the night—if you’re game. That’s rare for me since my breakup with my ex.”
After their night together, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. “The thought of leaving you isn’t something I want in my thick skull.”
Her fingers traced the back of his neck in a sensual massage as a smile broke across her face. “What time do you have to start training in the morning?”
He grimaced. “Five. The whole crew meets up for a run.”
“God, that’s early!” She wrapped her legs around him. “It’s one now, and I should let you go to sleep, but I can’t seem to stop myself from having you again.”
What man wanted to sleep when a woman like her was naked before him? An eejit, that’s who. “Say that once more, if you please, and with my name this time,” he said, holding her big brown eyes.
She framed his face, her palms warm on his cheeks. “I can’t seem to stop myself from having you again, Declan.”
He adjusted himself and slid into her, their gazes locked. “All I want is to be inside you and feel you around me. Hear you cry out my name.”
“Then you’d better get to it,” she said with a grin before their mouths met in a slow, deep kiss that led to him calling her name as well. With Gaelic for good measure. Because she liked it.
Fitting her against him afterward, he asked, “When you asked me to stay earlier… You said that was a rarity for you. Will you tell me why?”
She sighed in the dark. “My brothers always said they kept their distance from a girl by leaving after sex. I thought it might work for me. If you don’t think about what comes after… If you make sure thereisn’tan after…”
He let that information sink in. “I did the same. After Morag.”
“So we’re in a season of firsts, huh?” Snuggling into him, she yawned. “But if you snore, I’m kicking you out and making you sleep in the other bedroom.”
“Is the bed as small as this one?” he asked, curling up against her as best he could so his legs wouldn’t hang off. But they did. He wouldn’t complain.
“It’s about the same, I think. I’m surprised we didn’t break the bed, honestly.”
Her rough chuckle caught him by surprise. “I thought I heard the frame crack earlier, but I was too occupied to care.”
“Terrific. I can just see myself telling Bets I needed to order a new bed because we broke it having sex. Actually, she’d probably think that was awesome.”
He’d prefer not to think about his mother’s friend finding out he’d broken her bed during sex. Seeing the Lucky Charms dance to Bon Jovi with their boas was bad enough. He didn’t want to talk about broken beds over tea or at the butcher counter. For that story would truly travel. “Go to sleep. I’ll try not to wake you when I leave.”
“Then you’d better kiss me goodbye now,” she said, laying her hand over the arm he’d wrapped around her.
He pressed a soft kiss to the side of her neck and heard her sigh again. She might be tough in some ways, but he was starting to realize she was downright romantic too. He needed to be careful with her. He already knew she would be careful with him.
When he awoke to his alarm, she mumbled as he untangled himself. He kissed her again and grabbed his clothes from the floor using his phone’s torch to guide him. He closed the squeaky door, wincing at the sound, then dressed quickly and headed out the back door.
The full moon was resting on the rolling hills like a giant golden scoop of ice cream, he thought, in the cool indigo night. He caught sight of a cluster of white daisies illuminated in the grass.
He hadn’t left Kathleen a note. He didn’t have any pen or paper, and with the newness of everything, he wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. Something inside him was changing—her too. He’d seen it when he’d caught a flash of that young, vulnerable look on her face.
They would walk a new road together after this indigo Irish night. What would come? he wondered.
He walked over to the daisies and picked a cluster of them, fighting off his own nerves. She deserved flowers at the very least, even wild ones from the garden. He left them on the dining room table before he could reconsider his actions. When he let himself back outside, he jumped at the sight of Sorcha standing in her white dress with the full moon behind her.
“And she says you aren’t Prince Charming,” Sorcha said softly. “You always did have a good heart, Declan McGrath. I am proud to call you friend.”
She vanished as quickly as she’d come, and he took a moment in the garden to steady his heart. The quiet around him was only punctuated by the early cry of a hungry lamb and the mournful call of the curlew looking for its mate.
