Page 15 of Her Irish Savage

And fuck my da for turning everything to shite.

A muscle starts to twitch deep inside my jaw. That’s the first sign my meds are wearing off. But If I dose now, I’ll never sleep tonight—even after sitting up all last night to watch Fiona.

Instead, I focus on my breathing. In on a four-count. Hold for a?—

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” I swear under my breath as Fiona emerges from the red brick building.

I’m not the only one who notices her. The six little footballers stop dead in their tracks, every last one covering his crotch like he’s defending a free kick. An elderly couple clutch each other, and I wonder how long it will take 911 to get here if they both stroke out. Three dude-bros wearing backward baseball caps and saggy jeans literally start to drool.

Fiona has poured herself into a sleeveless scarlet catsuit. The vinyl one-piece has a deep V at the front that isn’t working very hard at covering her generous tits. The thing must zip up the back, because there isn’t a hint of a seam from her sternum to her crotch. The shiny vinyl grips all the way to her ankles, showing off her five-inch-high black stilettos. Her arms are cased in tight black gloves.

None of that, though, is the reason I’m staring like a sex-starved teen-age boy. Over forty-six years, I’ve seen more than my share of tits and hips, of flat bellies and smoothed-over cunts.

But I’ve never seen what Fiona has managed with her face. Her face and her neck and the generous spread of flesh between those magnificent tits…

I sponged her clean last night. I rubbed arnica into her skin. I held ice packs against her body, beside her nose, under her eyes. She’s battered and she’s bruised and no single night of care could ever heal what Madden Kelly did to her.

But apparently makeup can.

“What the actual fuck?” I ask as she strikes a pose in front of me.

The young father in the minivan hollers for his charges. Theoctogenarians stagger back to their car. All three horn-dog bros gape at me like I’m a feckin’ god.

“How the hell…”

Fiona dips her chin, using the motion to look at me through eyelashes coated in a gallon of black goop. “I keep a few tricks up my sleeves.” Her rippling shrug is designed to deprive every straight man in a hundred-mile radius of all blood-flow north of his belt.

“Get in the car.”

Her lips are the exact same shade as the catsuit, and somehow twice as shiny. My cock knocks against my zipper as she pouts. “I didn’t have change for a soda. Will you buy one for me?”

“Get. In. The. Car.”

“I’ll pay you back.” Her sultry tone leaves no doubt about how she’ll make good on her debt.

“Fiona…” I glance around like I’m transporting moonshine over state lines. One of the drooling bros has his phone out, catching video. The thought of her headlining his spank bank tightens my fingers into fists. “Get in the car,” I choke out a third time. “And I’ll get you a soda.”

She smiles like I’ve just offered her the sun, the moon, and the stars. “Mountain Dew,” she says. “Diet.”

I wait until she closes the Land Rover’s door before I stalk to the vending machine. I make a point of bumping into the delinquent with the phone. We both hear the screen shatter when he drops it, but he’s not suicidal enough to say a word.

Mountain Dew. Diet. I flash a credit card at the machine and a bottle drops with a sound like a soul arriving in hell. Storming back to the car, I get in on the driver’s side. I shove the drink at her, hard, like I’m not afraid of any feckin’ vinyl.

She makes a sound like a kitten sighing. “No straw?” she asks.

“It’s a goddamn vending machine,” I growl. “Of course there’s no straw.”

She sniffs and puts the drink in a cup holder. I jam the Land Rover into reverse and flee the parking lot like I’m driving the getaway car on a million-dollar bank heist.

We’re ten miles from Boston before my breath stops feeling like barbed wire in my throat. By the time I pull off the interstate, I’m angry with myself for playing her game. When we cross into Southie, into Old Colony Crew territory, I force myself to sound bored.

“What’s your plan here? Beyond painting your face and pouring yourself into that thing?”

She fiddles with the cap on the unopened bottle of soda. “We’ll go straight to thedún.”

Thedún. The fortress. The house her father claimed in the heart of Southie, decades ago. I know it better than I’m willing to admit. I’ve seen a lot of blood flow there.

“And what?” I ask. “You’ll just waltz up to the door and knock?”

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