Page 76 of Irish Daddies
“I’m saying…I’m done pretending any of this is normal. That there’s a right answer. That love looks the way we thought it would.”
He’s saying the right things, but I still feel the edge of a cliff beneath my heels. I’ve been standing on it since the day they took me. Since the moment I realized I wasn’t afraid of them—I was afraid of myself around them. Of the way I could bend and still not break. Of how much I might want what I shouldn’t. “Why do I sense a but?” I whisper.
“Because when I was dumping my father off a bridge…” He smiles thinly, sarcastically, pointedly. “I realized we can’t walk away from this life. It isn’t possible.” He looks at Declan, who nods solemnly. “Kellan was right. It isn’t just over because our father is gone.”
“I don’t want this life. I won’t be queen to a mafia,” I say, shaking. I search the ground for my clothes, but Rian wraps himself around me and pulls me into his lap like he’s done before. He gives me his own body heat like he’d give me his entire body if it meant it would make me happy.
“I know.” He nods, looking me in the eyes so deeply that I feel like I’m staring at the freckles in his eye and not in his eyes themselves.
“So what? It’s over?” I ask sharply, confused.
“That’s up to you. This is me givingyouthe choice. You can walk. Right now. We’ll survive it.” My throat tightens. “Or,” he continues, “you can stay. And rule with us. Not beneath. Not behind.With.”
I freeze, not sure how to answer, and Declan senses it. “Caroline,” he interjects, his voice low and syrupy, “you and I both know you like the violence. You can admit that you want to be a part of this with us.”
I look between the brothers, the heat between my legs blooming.How can they be so right about me? How can they see things about myself that I don’t even see?
“It can’t be the same. We have our sons to think about. You both said you grew up as child soldiers…we can’t do that to them.” Fear starts to crawl up my throat.
These men I thought I knew…was I wrong? Did they only say they’d changed because then I would help? Because then I would fuck them?
“I don’t want to run rackets. I don’t want to live in fear. I don’t want to raise my children in shadows. I won’t kill to keep peace. I won’t rule your father’s empire,” I say.
“Good,” Rian replies, without hesitation. “Then don’t.” He shifts my body so I’m straddling him the way I straddled his brother just minutes ago. His voice is low, but clear. “Take what you want. Burn what you don’t. Start something new. And let us stand beside you while you do.”
I let out a laugh that’s more pain than humor. “You think it’s that easy?”
“No,” he says softly, kissing my neck. “I think it’simpossible.But I’ve watched you do the impossible more than once.”
I wrap my arms around him, trying not to melt against his touch. “I choose my terms.”
He nods. “You lead,” he says. “We follow.”
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. Not yet. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
“I mean it,” he says, repeating, “You lead. We follow. But we can’t totally leave it all. And I think you always knew that deep down.”
My voice is barely a whisper. “And if I decide to leave it all?”
“You have a choice, Caroline. It’s yours to make. It’s not an ultimatum. It’s reality. I will always love you and want you.”
My breath catches. Because that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the thing I’ve been afraid to ask for. Not power. Not freedom. Just this. Love without a cage.
I turn between them. Two men who broke me open and stitched me back together, each in their own brutal, beautiful way. And here they are, asking nothing but for me to choose.
I lift my chin. “I want something else,” I say. “Not this house. Not the throne. Not the bloodlines. I want to build a home where my children can laugh without flinching. Where we don’t have to keep secrets or clean blood from the floor.”
Rian’s voice is steady. “Then that’s what we’ll build.”
His hands slide over my breasts, his touch familiar and reverent. He touches me like he’s been waiting hours, years, to hold me. His palm glides down my torso, between my thighs, and I’m already wet again, aching.
Declan watches, eyes dark with heat. His hand snakes around my waist, pressing into my stomach as if to anchor me while Rian slides two fingers into me, curling them just right.
I gasp. My hips rock into it. Rian kisses me slowly, deeply, while Declan’s mouth finds my neck, my shoulder, my spine. He worships me from behind while his brother opens me in front.
I tilt my head back against Declan’s chest, feeling him harden again as I grind down into Rian’s lap.
“Take her,” Declan growls, breath hot against my ear. “I want to watch you fuck her, brother. I want to see her come again.”
