Page 6 of The Celtic Resolution
“Fuck. Me.”
A demand I simply can’t turn down. I fuck hard and fast, releasing a decade of pent-up sexual desire and frustration. It’s a miracle I don’t come immediately, but this woman, whoever she is, is giving me this and I’m determined to make her time as good as mine. Each kiss is a battle to stay connected as my thrusts jolt her up and down the wall. She clings to me as hard as she can, moaning deeply and chantingyeseach time my thrusts make her feel particularly good. When the kisses break, her head tosses back and forth, and at one point, her touch lingers at the base of my mask but she doesn’t remove it.
The temptation is there, but the mystery is part of the allure.
Harder and harder I fuck her while my head falls to the crook of her shoulder and I lay what kisses I can to her bare shoulder and collar bone. With her legs keeping her against me, I caress from her thigh to her pelvis and slide my thumb down to cover the small bundle of nerves tucked between her lips. Contact to her clit makes her whimper a new sound that drives me to fuck her harder while stroking and caressing her clit as gently as I can.
She comes with a muted scream and nearly tears my hair out with how hard her body tenses and ripples against mine. As soon as her pussy clamps down around my cock, I’m weak to my own pleasure and I come with a gasp, slamming my hips as deep into her as I can reach.
It’s bliss, a rush of pleasure and endorphins like I haven’t felt in years. I want more. I crave the bite of her nails and the pull of her fingers, the sweetness of her lips and the softness of her skin.But as soon as we come together and share that tidal wave of ecstasy, the moment is over and she’s climbing out of my arms.
She sorts herself in record time, adjusting her dress and her mask from what I can make out in the low light. I’m slower, but she helps me find my belt from a nest of mops and then affectionately pats my cheek with her hand.
“Nice meeting you,” she says with a final kiss to the edge of my jaw. I get one last glimpse of her as she opens the closet door and light from the party makes her glow. Under her mask, her cheeks are rosy and her lipstick is smudged. She’s fixing it as she looks back at me and winks.
Then she’s gone.
What awoman.
I wait a little longer after redressing myself and ensuring my mask is back in place, then I step out of the closet and return to the party. It’s still as vibrant and as lively as it was when I arrived, and despite the lingering good feelings from my closet tryst, this place quickly gives me a headache. Too many people and too much noise. From my pants pocket, I pull a crumpled up note and skim the details of the mask I’m looking for.
A black and white checkered mask with three black feathers and one silver.
That’s my target.
Moving through the party, I find myself looking for the peach and blue mask of my mystery woman, but it never reappears. Maybe she was just a dream. Like all the rest.
Finally, after three loops of the ballroom, I find the mask I’m looking for. It rests on the face of a tall, broad-shouldered man with combed silver hair and an equally well-kept silver beard that shines out against his golden skin. He’s a few shades darker than I remember, but it has been years.
Fourteen years, to be exact.
I approach him slowly, and the crowd parts as he excuses himself from a discussion, waving his empty glass. He’s about to step around me when I reach for his arm, and the moment I make contact, it all comes flooding back.
The years of pain and hurt, anger and loss. All because of him. All because I tried to be the best and it was never good enough.
He grunts and regards me with a sharp frown visible even through his mask and jerks his arm away. “Excuse me?”
I take a deep breath and slide my mask from my face. Recognition bleeds across his face, followed by shock and the unmistakable angry tic of his jaw.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I say as calmly as I can. “Hello, Father.”
4
SAOIRSE
“So, tell me. What have you found so far?” In between dragging the muck fork around the stall, Cormac quizzes me on the results of my investigation into the Italians.
When searching Domenico Del Prete’s office last month at the masquerade ball turned up nothing but a tracking number, I threw myself into chasing that number down to the ends of the earth. Too little info and no results.
“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” I heave a forkful of dung into the waiting wheelbarrow then set my fork down and lean against it. “Promise you won’t be pissed?”
“I trust you, Saoirse. Of course I won’t be pissed. But I need to know, are we facing trouble with the Italians?”
“Well, drugs are still going missing. Each time I chase it up, I’m met with the same excuse from a different person, which would imply it’s common and everyone is just following the rules, but the whole thing sits wrong with me. And the gun shipment that went missing last week? My driver’s body was pulled out of the Potomac on Friday. Sure, it could have been an unlucky thief who made off with a shit ton of assault rifles, but Idon’t know. And there’s…” It’s almost not worth mentioning, but Cormac needs the truth no matter how pathetic it sounds.
“And?” Cormac prompts, abandoning his mucking and leaning against the door of his stall. He looks at me like no time has passed and we’re still scrubby teenagers being forced to muck out the stables because Mom thinks it builds character. The family ranch has alwaysbuilt character, but not in the way she thinks. It softens people, being here. It’s nice.
It’s home.
