Page 29 of Intimately Faithful

For all intents and purposes she was just as reckless and stupid as she’d always been.

No wonder he wasn’t throwing street parties to show her off, she’d be ashamed of her too.

He deserved answers and the truth.

The truth most of all.

He’d help her because he was Danny. The most caring protector she’d ever had. The only protector. But that didn’t mean he trusted her.

His wary brows and hooded eyelids said about as much as Aoife suspected and though she caught flashes of desire in those same eyes, it would amount to nothing if she kept things hidden from him.

It was depressing realizing that running from a known mafia underboss was less scary to her than the prospect that this was her last chance to see Danny.

Silence went on between them and as Danny made his way across the kitchen floor, she popped up from her seat and grabbed his forearm.

Electricity licked all the way down her fingers to the very tips.

He was the only man to ever bring her alive, making the fine hairs stand on end across her body.

“I missed you, Danny. I know you won’t believe me. God, if I could do things differently…”

“And what?What, Aoife? You would still marryanother manbecause he was rich, and I was dirt poor.” The burst of angry words through his clenched teeth caught her by surprise.

Not because it scared her or the speed in which his bumbled anger came rushing to the surface.

It was hot how fast it turned her on and made her sway in her new pink and white Vans.

“That’s not…”

“Not what? That’s exactly how it went. I had nothing, and some other guy offered you everything and you took it. You took it without a second thought, Aoife. You missed me so much that you married another man.”

There was no mistaking the anger and the pain laced through his voice, and in turn, hearing it killed her. It sliced her down the middle until all she could hear was her own babbling brook of agony.

God, she’d hurt him more than she imagined.

She squeezed his arm. Watched his head drop and his gaze go to the fingers gripping him.

He was breathing heavily just as she was.

Air thick as tar.

She owed him so much and didn’t know where to start.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t,” he warned darkly just as quiet. “That’s over with. I’ll help you but that’s it.”

“Danny… please, you have to let me—” she felt the rush of tears at the back of her eyes. Tears she hadn’t allowed to fall in years because she didn’t deserve the self-pity. She wanted to fall into his arms and bawl her eyes out and beg him to listen and to see she’d had no choices.

“Enough,” he hissed. Not loud enough he would wake the baby or alert the neighbors to a disturbance, but it was enough to rattle her rib cage as he grabbed her suddenly and pushed her into the wall not three feet away from where they stood.

It was like seeing a snapshot of the big, beautiful Danny she’d once been privileged to adore. There he was shining back at her through stormy, angry eyes, with his brown floppy hair falling over his forehead and his teeth bared, breathing through them like a caged animal. “Enough, Aoife. I don’t want to hear any of that.”

The feel of him plastered to her body was enough friction to have her panting all out of sorts. The man always knew the quickest way to send her do-lally, so he did.

“Then what do you want, Danny?” Chin angled to a position where his eyes blazed like two banked fires, and the heat was felt through every inch of skin. He was the one holding her to the wall with just the sheer size of his body, he’d have to be the one to back up.

If he thought Aoife would have a logical thought in her head when she could feel his muscles and his heat, he had rocks for his own brains, sure of it. “Danny…” she whispered.

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