Page 11 of Naughty Irish Fate
It was the day I told her I wanted to leave our tiny village in Belfast to work on a fishing boat. Just like my father and brother before me. Just seventeen, I made a decision that I thought was best for not just myself, but my family.
My pop died out on a boat after spending most his life at sea. I thought he went exactly the way he wanted to. Until I saw how it devastated my Ma. It was then I realized he had broken her a little more every time he left.
Leaving then was about providing for the family. About not wanting my Ma to waste her life away in the textile factory she slaved away at. Without me and my brother Hyde there though, she faded away fast.
Once she was gone with no reason to go home, I never returned.
Nearing thirty, I had known nothing else most my life. Unlike my brother Hyde, I never considered leaving the sea. A few years after Ma died, he got married and bought himself a boat to captain. Soon as he started having kids, he stopped hitting the waters altogether.
Hyde never went back to Belfast either, both of us settling in the states. Close to the sea, still. Not that I settled anywhere, really. I had a place in Maine but I was never there. Hyde had two kids, a dog, a wife and a mortgage in Maine, too.
Not a life I have ever wanted for myself.
“You will, one day. One day, you will port in some shitty town on some shitty shore. You will meet a woman who will make you stop searching the seas. Because, Rook, that’s all we’re doing. Searching for the same shit Pop was. It ain’t out there, bro.” I shrugged off his sage advice every time he offered it.
Truth is I wonder if he might be right.
Past few years, I stay in port longer and longer. I have a mint saved up to get my own boat if I want it. Hell, I could go in with Hyde and settle down at last. But every time I think I might pull the trigger, I get the itch to be out on the water again.
I do feel a little lost.
A little like I am searching still.
Until tonight as I watched a beautiful ginger in a full-blown panic attack.
Once Bronwyn reached the pier, her breathing changed. Her hand was cold in mine as our fingers wove tightly together. Her little body twisted into me and I had loved it. Until I realized she was absolutely terrified.
I could not leave her like that. Not that I was dick enough to do something as chicken-shit as ditch a girl mid-attack.
Truth is it tore me up deep in my chest to watch her bright eyes lose their light. To watch her claw at her neck and slam herself against that pier post. I couldn’t think about leaving her at all in that moment.
All I wanted to do was sooth her. Make it better. Make her smile with that light in her beautiful blue eyes. I had been lost in them all night. As she peered up at me, demanding I go, I knew I couldn’t.
Like, literally I could not walk away from her.
Instead I kissed her. Good, long, and hard, I kissed the fuck out of that woman.
As she kissed me back I knew I was good and fucked.
Everything that came after had been nearly too much. Touching her silky wet pussy and making her come. Hearing her cry my name and beg for more. It was all exactly what I wanted. But it was all way too fucking much.
As soon as she kissed me with her pleasure and my name on her lips, I knew it was a mistake.
Doesn’t mean I like how I handled that.
Doesn’t mean I would give a second of it back, either.
I stare into the distance where she walks, now. Watch her walk slowly down the cobbled street towards the pub. A part of me still wants to chase after her. Wants to push against that door and refuse to let her go back in without me.
Shore Ridge will be home to me for a short time. It’s her home, that’s her pub, and none of it is my place to ruin for her. Although I want to ruin her completely. Want to wreck her for other men the way I feel wrecked right now.
Thinking better of it, thinking of what my Ma would suggest I do, I walk away.
Away from the Pub, away from Wyn, away from a mistake I can’t undo.
