Page 20 of Stronger Than Love

“Niall will nail my balls to the nearest tree.”

Her knee came up to rub my groin. “Your balls belong to me.”

Every part of me belonged to Oonagh and she knew it with the same certainty that I knew she belonged to me.

“You can kiss them better when he kicks them.” She smiled when I pressed her against the old stone wall to kiss down her neck. My errant dick started to stir into life again. “I’m going before I end up screwing you up against this wall.”

Oonagh wrapped a leg around my waist in temptation, and I groaned deep in my chest.

“Goodnight, Oonagh.” I pressed another kiss to her lips.

“Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she replied.

One final, long, lingering kiss and I left her standing in the entrance to her house. The whole way home, I wore astupid smile because there was nothing that would spoil my mood. My life had finally reached the point I had hoped and prayed for for years.

My younger brothers were in bed, Mum sleeping on the seat she never left in the living room. I flicked through one of my textbooks waiting for Callum to come home. The loud knock at the front door make my brow furrow. We weren’t expecting anyone at this time of night.

Blue lights flashed from the road, painting Constable O’Hara in strange shades of blue. Terror curled deep in my stomach when I saw the look of compassion in his eyes.

“You need to come with me, son. Callum was attacked earlier tonight and is in surgery. The doctors asked for his next of kin.” His eyes flicked to my passed-out mother in the living room. “You’re all he has.”

Panic erupted in my chest as I tried to comprehend what was happening. I wanted to tell Oonagh where I was going to save her worrying, but Callum needed me. Tomorrow. I could sort everything out when my brother was safe.

My coat hung on the wall behind the front door, my wallet in the pocket. It was the only thing I lifted. All the way to the Royal Victoria hospital, I stared out of the police car with sightless eyes. Callum wasn’t just my brother; he’d been my father as well. There had never been a time he wasn’t there for me. He’d told me to take a chance on Oonagh when I was sixteen because he’d seen the way she looked at me.

My eyes watered and a tear finally broke free, trickling down my cheek. Another followed it, then another until Iwept silently. I needed Oonagh beside me because I didn’t know what to do.

Callum’s face was swollen and covered in bandages; his chest had a massive plaster down the centre of it. Tubes and leads connected him to machines, the bleeping echoing through my head.

“Cal?” I tentatively said, touching his hand. It was cold and clammy, nothing like the Cal who used to grab me by the neck and rub my hair.

A nurse smiled at me, her eyes sadly moving to Callum’s still form. “Give him time, the human body is miraculous.”

I stayed by his bedside, time becoming irrelevant in that place of eternal fluorescent lights and no windows. Occasionally, one of the nurses brought me a sandwich. Several times the machines went mental, screeching to summon everyone to my brother’s bedside as they tried to restart his heart.

In those moments, I prayed to a god I never believed in, begging him to save Callum’s life. We needed him, every one of his younger brothers looking to him to guide them. I slept beside his bed, holding his hand, desperately wishing that Oonagh was there beside me to tell me everything would be all right.

Nothing bad ever happened when Oonagh was at my side. Together, we could face the world. Knowing that she would be waiting for me was the one thing that kept me going those dark days at Callum’s side.

It was only when I got home and found her gone and my brothers taken into the care system that I truly learned the meaning of the word pain.

***

Chapter Nine

Liam

“Hand me up the hammer,” I called down to Niall at the bottom of the ladder. He refused to climb up to attach the banner hooks from the trees since he didn’t have a head for heights. It must be a recent affliction as he spent summers climbing trees and helping his dad build a treehouse. They weren’t generally found on the ground. My lips twitched at the thought of him bungee-jumping into a ravine.

His girlfriend kept staring at me like I was a strange creature that needed deciphering. She was starting to give me the creeps. I tended to stay away from clingy women who wanted more than I was prepared to share. She fell into that category, probably already visualising her wedding dress and how many children they’d have.

Callum was hanging out a window from the house, attaching one end of a rope to a hook he’d put under a window ledge. There were times I swore my brother was half monkey with the way he was able to contort his body.

I grabbed the hammer to finish attaching hooks into strategic places in the tree. We were only meant to be helping, but it was beginning to look like we were the only ones working.

Oonagh wandered out of the house with a tray filled with cool drinks. I nearly fell from the branch I was perched on when she turned around and set the tray on the coffee table. Those leggings should be illegal the way they clung to her ass and legs. Gone were her slender limbs and in their place were curves that were designed for my hands to rest on. An image of her on her hands and knees in the lighthouse, staring at me over her shoulder as I thrust into her fluttered through my head.

Fuck! My dick was definitely paying attention to the visual. I couldn’t remember the last time I had an erection in public. Probably back when Oonagh was in my life.

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