Page 49 of Her Irish Savage

“I killed three more on my own. One word from Da, and those assholes could have been buried at sea. But he didn’t care.He didn’t punish them. I did, though. I promised I’d get revenge, and I keep my fucking promises!”

She slams the mug onto the counter so hard it collapses into a pile of knife-sharp shards. I don’t think she realizes how much she’s told me, how much of her past I know now. She howls—in pain or fury or frustration—and she starts to grind her hand into the mess.

“Stop!” I shout, one syllable that she can’t cut off, that she can’t deny.

I’ve known girls who cut. Women who hurt themselves because pain is the only sensation that registers. Hell, I’ve been a Dom for plenty of subs who need to ache before they can come.

But I won’t stand here and watch Fiona do that to herself.

She’s startled enough by my shout that she freezes. She’s breathing hard. She bites her lip. Then, with perfect calculation, she flexes her wrist and slowly leans into the shattered mug again.

“I said stop,” I tell her. And I close the distance between us, grabbing her wrist to keep her from harming herself.

I feel the small bones beneath my fingers. This close, I can see her eyes are dilated; they flicker with every rapid breath she draws. Her lips are parted, just enough that I can see her sharp, white teeth.

“What will you do if I don’t?” she asks. And then she shifts her weight onto one of those cuffed stilettos, jutting out a hip and raising her chin. “Daddy.”

I pull her arm to her side, stepping even closer. “Don’t call me that unless you mean it.”

She looks at me steadily. “Whatever you say,Daddy.”

She’s perfectly, devastatingly calm, so I force my voice to stay even. “This isn’t a game.”

She pouts. “But what if I like to play?”

“I have rules.”

Her smile is radiant. “Then itisa game!”

“Number one,” I say, ignoring her brattiness. “No little girl of mine hurts herself.”

She looks at the ruins of the mug on the counter. Her fingers curl, protecting the red marks on her palm where she hasn’t yet broken the skin. Rubbing her hand against her hip, she does that devastating thing again, looking straight at me. “Yes, Daddy.”

“My little girl doesn’t throw tantrums.”

I see the precise second she realizes I’m serious. I watch her start to argue. She wasn’t throwing a tantrum. She was justified. We’re standing in her home; she gets to make the rules.

One by one, she throws away her protests. Eyeing me steadily, she says, “Yes, Daddy.”

Only a hint of breathlessness gives her away. That, and the heat rising off her, carrying the scent of lemon and clove. I’ve smelled that soap in her shower. I’m suddenly throttled by the desire to lather up my hands, to run them over every feckin’ inch of her.

I’m still holding one wrist as she moves her free hand to the scalloped edge of her top. Catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she traces the lace design with her fingertips. This close, I can make out the twin darts of her nipples, straining at their black silk cups. I brush against one with the back of my fingers.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” she says, closing her eyes and throwing back her head.

I want to suck on the pulse point just beneath her jaw. I want to scrape her throat with my teeth. I want to bury my face between her magnificent tits.

But more than that, I want to make more rules for my little girl.

Because this is different for me, even though I’ve spent thirty years learning every way it’s possible to fuck a woman.

As a kid, I paid attention in Health class. It didn’t take long to realize the importance of all those line drawings, the location of a woman’s clit, what it’s actually good for.

As a man, I learned how to listen to a woman’s body. Every one is different, each one can tell me what she needs, what feels good, when she’s about to come.

As a Dom, I explored being in control, setting limits for my subs, pushing each beyond her expectations for herself. I know the line where pleasure turns to agony, where anticipation collapses into mindless terror. I’ve mastered power, every single way I can wield it.

Sex cages the brain squirrels. Sex silences the Bell. Sex heals all the broken bits inside my brain—rough sex, hard sex, sex that leaves my women bruised and aching. That’s why I haven’t fucked a woman without laying down cold, hard cash since Jenn wrapped our Ford Escort around that goddamn tree.

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