Page 55 of Her Irish Savage

“Go on,Scáthach,” I tell her. “Take a shower. And then we’ll eat some dinner.”

Scáthachis better thanlittle girlright now. The Irish word doesn’t make her worry about what we’ve done. What we’re doing.

I get dressed while the water’s running. She takes longer than she needs to, and I consider going in to complain about the delay. But my little girl deserves some time to herself. A chance to think. Some space to adjust, just as I’ve had for myself.

She finally comes out of the bedroom, her hair toweled dry, her face scrubbed free of makeup. She’s wearing a pair of black yoga pants and some sort of knit top that looks like it belongs underneath legitimate clothes. I think they call those little bits of stringspaghetti straps.All I know for sure is I could snap them with one quick tug.

Her bruises are healing well—better than I ever would have predicted back in Philadelphia. She’s young. She’s healthy.

And she’s ravenous.

Reluctantly, I turn away to open up the fridge. “There’s enough Chinese food?—”

“I want pizza,” she says.

“All right. Pizza.”

She digs in the bowl on the counter and comes up with a menu. The restaurant answers on the first ring. Caesar salad, she orders, and garlic bread and mozzarella sticks. An extra-large pizza with pepperoni and sausage and olives.

“Anchovies?” she asks me, and I feel like it’s a test.

“Whatever you want,” I say.

“Extra anchovies,” she tells the person taking her order. “Two liters of Coke. And some of those cheesecake bites.”

After she’s given her credit card number and hung up, I look around the living room. “Do you have half a dozen friends, coming to join us?”

“Don’t tell me you aren’t starving too.”

She’s right. And I’m tempted to start eating now, beforedinner arrives. I pull her close, easing my hands under that flimsy little top. She leans back, letting me hold most of her weight, sighing as my lips find the pulse point in her throat.

“They work really fast,” she says. “The food will be here in twenty minutes.”

“I work fast too,” I growl.

“Liar,” she says. But she laughs, low and throaty. The only reason I don’t strip her out of her clothes then and there is that she was right, earlier. Iamstarving.

It takes twenty-three minutes for the food to arrive. We’re both still dressed by the time the buzzer sounds from the front door, but we’re breathing like we’ve raced to the top of Bunker Hill.

“I’ll be right down,” Fiona says into the intercom. And then to me, when I reach around her to open the door: “I’ll be back in a sec.”

“You’re not going down there alone.”

Annoyance darkens her face. “What? You think the pizza-delivery guy will kidnap me?”

“I think it’s impossible to be too cautious.”

“Let me guess. You’re going to carry your big long gun downstairs and scare the crap out of some poor schmuck who’s earning minimum wage on his bike.”

“Not a bad idea. Wait here.”

As I shoulder past her to the bedroom, I can see she wants to protest. But she wants to eat more. So she lets me retrieve my Glock and shove it into my waistband, at the small of my back. She lets me follow her down the stairs. I watch her open the door to the street and collect a pizza box and two grocery bags from a kid who looks like he’s five seconds away from leaving it all on the doorstep.

Upstairs, Fiona eats like she hasn’t seen food in a year. She downs two pieces of garlic bread and a mozzarella stick before I have plates on the counter. She pours extra dressing onto her salad, then cleans her bowl with crust from her first piece ofpizza. Two monster slices later, she’s finally starting to slow down, but that doesn’t keep her from making satisfied little mews of contentment as cheesecake melts across her tongue.

Two pieces of pizza are more than enough for me.

To fill the time, I ask her stupid things. Who sings her favorite songs. What’s her favorite movie.

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