Page 18 of The Love Destroyers

She glances over her shoulder at me, giving me a look that makes my dick take notice, then plugs a code into the pin pad next to the door. “Try to stay out of trouble,” she says wryly, shoving the coat at me. “I can’t be anyone’s lawyer right now.”

I’m reminded of her trouble. Of Jeffrey, who really should be handled by someone, even if it’s not the two of us. It really doesn’t settle well, leaving her like this. But her mess is not my problem, and I don’t want to take ownership of it—even if a part of me would like to take ownership ofher.

“Sure,” I say, not grabbing the coat. “I’ll be a model citizen. They’ll be giving me an award by year’s end, just you watch.” She gives the coat another shove, and this time I take it, my hand overlapping with hers. She lets it. Her eyes on mine. Her mouth a tempting pout.

“What about the flask?” I ask.

Her lips tip into a sexy smile, her eyes flashing at me as if she’s a cat about to sink her teeth into me. “I’m going to keep ituntil the next time I see you. Maybe I’ll bedazzle it. Everyone’s been telling me I should pick up a hobby.”

“Do you want me to take what’s mine, Emma?” I ask, crowding forward a step. I’m talking about the flask, but I’m not deaf to the other possible meaning. Bad idea or not, I want her.

She watches me for half a second, her lips parted. I can see a flash of her tongue, and I want it. I want all of her. I’m no stranger to wanting women, but this feels different. Maybe because she’s easily as dangerous as I am—she may be letting herself play dead, but there’s no denying who she is at her core.

She opens the door but stands in the opening—and it feels like a big moment. The end of something or perhaps the beginning.

“Are you going to invite me in?” I ask. “It may be a bad idea, sure, but no one needs to know.”

Something shutters in her gaze, and she slips inside, giving me one final view of her shapely ass. “Goodnight, Seamus. Happy Fucking New Year.”

And then the door closes behind her, leaving me outside on my own with a dick so hard it could be used to bludgeon someone.

I gotta hand it to her…

It’s a hell of a way to start the new year.

“I’ll be seeing you,” I say to the closed door.

CHAPTER FIVE

EMMA

Mid-February

“What do you think, Mother?” I ask, shifting the new armchair in the parlor. It’s emerald green, with antique gold studs. A true looker. The second I saw it, I knew I had to have it.

It’s a Saturday, a month and a half into the new year, and I’m about fifty percent into my home beautification project. My brother, Rosie, and I had a bonfire with the oil portrait my father had commissioned for his fortieth birthday and toasted marshmallows over it—until Claire, who’d come with Declan, Googled what we were doing and reported that the fumes might be toxic. I had the time of my life jumping on the old beds in the guests rooms before sending them out to pasture. And I hosted a poker night, offering up some of my father’s favorite antique shit as the stakes, with my mother’s blessing.

It's the only time I’ve ever been happy to lose.

I also put up new wallpaper—myself!—after watching several home improvement videos on YouTube. And then hired someone to do the rest, because it’s tedious as hell.

Some of these projects have been rewarding, but the house still doesn’t feel cleansed. It’s as if there’s something rotten at its core—the Smith family curse, maybe. My father’s ghost, not quite exorcised. I passed his office earlier, which no one has entered for a decade other than the cleaning service my mother used, and I swear to Christ I heard something scratching in the walls. Old houses have all kinds of ambient sounds, and I’m guessing it was one of them—old bones, my mother says—but a chill ran up and down my spine.

Or maybe I’m projecting. I have a nagging feeling that I’ve thrown myself into this undertaking to run away from my problems, just like Seamus O’Malley accused me of.

I haven’t spoken to him, but I got his number off Rosie’s phone when she wasn’t watching—for the niece of a former criminal, she’s not overly careful. And I sent him a photo of his flask a couple of weeks ago, in all its bedazzled glory.

It only took him seconds to respond.

Miss me, huh?

That made me laugh, not that I’d ever tell him, and immediately type out a response.

Not as much as you miss this hot piece

I followed up by sending a photo of the back of the flask. I’d replaced the Hello Kitty stickers with a laminated photo of Taylor Swift.

You know, my father gave me that before he died.

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