Page 105 of Her Irish Savage

“No,” I moan as his tongue thrusts between my fluttering folds.

But Patrick and I have a language of our own. He’s my Daddy. I’m his little girl. The first night we fucked here, he gaveme my safeword. Sonomeans yes.Nomeans more.Nomeans don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t…

I break around him, great heaving breaths ripping my throat as I come.

This time, I’m conscious when he shifts my body. He eases my legs onto the bed. He runs his hand over my corset. He pinches my nipples where they’re framed by chains, but all my nerves have fired, and I don’t stir.

He settles his lips by my ear. “Little girl,” he whispers.

“Daddy.” I shape the word with my mouth.

“Do I need to wear a johnny?”

He’s telling me he knows how much we hurt each other. He’s saying he trusts me to tell him the truth. He accepts me, whatever I’ve done in the time we were apart. He understands.

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “You don’t.”

His fingers are nimble on the hook and eye closures that fasten the back of my corset. He sighs as he pulls away the leather. He traces the imprints of the chains like a blind man studying theVenus de Milo.

Finding the zipper on my skirt, he peels the vinyl from my body. The top edge dug into my hip bones; there’s a bruised red line like an angry bikini. He traces it with his tongue.

He licks my navel. My sternum. My throat. He sucks on my left nipple, and then my right. His mouth finds mine, and our tongues lock. As he drinks me, as I drink him, his cock comes home.

I shift my hips to give him a better angle. I gasp when he glides inside me, because he’s bigger than I remember. “I wanteverything,” I whisper. “Don’t hold back.”

He fills me. And when we’re as close as any two humans can be, when my thighs tremble against his, when my breasts quiver under the weight of his chest, he begins to move—long, slow strokes that slay me, leaving me helpless beneath him.

“Sweet Jesus,” he groans as his fingers close around my wrists, pinning my hands above my head. And then he says, “You’re incredible, little girl.” His voice is low and steady, like he’s reciting some sort of truth he memorized a lifetime ago. “You were so brave, reaching out to me with that phone call. You showed so much trust, tying yourself up for me. You took your spanking like a warrior queen. You’re my strong girl. You’re my good girl. You’re perfect.”

I break before he does—perfectdoes it. He slides deep as I fold around him, as I bury my face in his shoulder and mew, mew, mew with an orgasm so hard I literally see stars.

And when he starts to come, the stars turn into snow-white leaves, raining down on both of us, burying us in light. I hold him, and he holds me, and my Daddy’s right—we’re perfect, together.

I don’t know how much time passes before I feel him stir. He slides open the nightstand drawer, and he reaches for something far in the back. I hear the sound of plastic on plastic, but I don’t have the energy to open my eyes.

The smell of rosemary and sage reaches my nose as his hand smooths the cream over my ass. His touch is firm enough to keep me from squirming, light enough to spare me pain.

“Arnica,” I say, and my voice is rougher than I expect it to be. The scent of the cream carries me back to that first night, after he found me in Madden’s apartment. “So, we’re back to where we started.”

“Not exactly,Scáthach.”

“Now will you tell me what that means?”

“That depends. Are you ready to open the cigar box?”

I groan as I stretch beside him.

We lie there for a few minutes. But then I realize I want to ask him a different question. Ineedto. So I trace the outline of the lighthouse on his biceps and say, “That night on the golf course. Kevin Joyce said you’d end up dogshit. Like your father.”

He stills, and the air in the room suddenly feels dangerous. But I want to understand him. I need to know everything abouthim. So I fan my fingers across the storm clouds on his arm and ask, “What happened to your father?”

“He betrayed the Crew.”

“I know that. How?”

It takes Patrick a century before he decides to answer. “The feds got Da on a heroin rap. Distribution. A high-school kid ODed in the jacks so Da was looking at a mandatory twenty to life. He sold out his clan instead.”

“What happened?”

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