Fighting for Irish

  More steps back for her. More steps forward for him.

  “You’re right. A relaxing shower does sound great.” Thud. The doorframe of the bathroom wedged between her shoulder blades. He’d caught her between a rock and a… Kat glanced down to the bulge behind his shorts. Very, very hard place. Swallowing thickly, she met his gaze. “But the look in your eyes says you have other things on your mind than a quick lather, rinse, and repeat.”

  “So what if I promise that we’ll only do shower stuff, then will you?”

  Kat studied him, searching for the telltale smirk that meant he was making promises he didn’t intend to keep in order to get his way. But she didn’t see it. The heat left his eyes and was replaced with something else. Something more tender.

  “Kat, I missed you today. I don’t wanna waste any more time being away from you.” He braced one hand on the wall above her head and leaned in close. The fingers of his free hand stroked her cheek lightly. “Lemme take care of you.”

  If she’d thought before that she had the strength to deny this man anything, she’d been a fool. In truth, she hadn’t been able to deny him from the very beginning. Not when he insisted on looking after her in the bar. Not when he demanded he take her to the hospital for her hand. Not even when he insanely wanted to handle her situation with Sicoli’s men.

  And she hadn’t a prayer when he asked her to stay and be with him.

  A part of her said she should be concerned that her will seemed to evaporate around him. She’d spent her entire life bending to the will of others and her conviction to never allow that again was only months old. But another part of her knew Irish was different. He wasn’t like the others. Nothing he wanted her to do benefited him. It was always about her.

  She smiled up at him from under her lashes. “Okay.”

  He thanked her with a gentle kiss, then took her hand and led her into the bathroom. He started the shower, letting the water warm up while they undressed. It was a relief to peel off the stench of the bar. Since she hadn’t planned the trip, she’d have to borrow some of Irish’s clothes again. The thought of wearing his scent on her skin made her nipples pebble. Then she took in the sight of his naked form—all hard and sinewy with his cock rigid and jutting out from his body—and warmth pooled between her legs.

  Holding the curtain back, he offered her his hand. Her gaze moved from his eyes, to his erection, then back up. An amused, lopsided grin appeared on his face. “Getting hard when I’m around you is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean I have to do anything with it.” When she placed her hand in his, he drew her to him and whispered in her ear, “Yet.”

  A fluttering stirred in her belly at his wicked promise. To hide her reaction, she slapped his chest playfully and stepped into the tub. He chuckled and followed her in, drawing the plastic lining across the rod. Eager to feel the warm water, Kat moved under the spray. Her lids slid closed on a sigh as she lifted her face to the ceiling. Using her hands, she pushed her hair back from her face.

  “Jesus.”

  Her eyes snapped open to find him devouring her with his eyes, one hand gripping the curtain rod and the other pressed against the white fiberglass wall.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, you know that?”

  She didn’t. She knew she was average, maybe a little better on a good hair and makeup day, but she was no beauty. Only, when Irish complimented her, it never sounded fake or said for her benefit. It was genuine. Real. Just the way he looked at her made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. And she was never sure what to do with that.

  She sensed the color heating her cheeks and lowered her eyes. Shit! That was a mistake. Seeing his thick erection had only served to make her flush even more. There was no way they were getting through this shower without screwing each other’s brains out. There was probably an old proverb that said lovers couldn’t shower together without having sex. Like the one that said men and women can’t be just friends.

  Stepping back, she gestured for him to take his turn under the water. He rinsed off the grime from his night, being careful to avoid direct contact with the cut over his eye. She picked up the berry-scented shampoo (Xander kept the bathroom stocked with “girl crap” for his frequent house guests) and poured some into her palm.

  “So,” she said, “did you win?”

  “Yep.”

  He scraped the shampoo from her hand into his, then grabbed the bottle from her and squeezed out more before putting it back. Pointing his index finger up, he twirled it in a circle, silently instructing her to face the other direction. With the water now sluicing down her front, Irish gathered the length of her hair and piled it atop her head as he worked the soap into a lather.

  The steam floated around her, caressing her skin where the water didn’t, carrying with it the wafting scent of ripe summer berries. His fingertips massaged her scalp in slow circles, drawing out the tension in her body little by little.

  Keep talking. If you’re making small talk you won’t want to jump his bones every five seconds. Probably…maybe. “So,” she forced herself to say, “isn’t this where you give me a play-by-play of the fight?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it.” When he spoke again, she heard the smile in his voice. “Why, do you want me to give you a play-by-play?”

  She thought about that for a second as he turned her around and rinsed the soap from her hair. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in hearing about something that was—whether he copped to it or not—a huge part of who he was. But she couldn’t even imagine Irish bragging like she’d seen so many guys do when trying to impress a girl or their friends. He’d probably say something like, “I hit him, he hit me, then I hit him harder and I won.”

  Kat almost giggled at her own musings but stopped herself in time. She lost the thread of conversation as he then worked a healthy amount of creamy conditioner into her snarls. Finally she said, “How about telling me how you won. It can be by knockout or submission, right?”

  She was glad she’d paid attention when Xander talked up his fights the other morning when they made breakfast together. Xan was definitely the play-by-play type, but somehow he managed to make his arrogance come off as endearing. A total mystery, considering she found that sort of thing a turn-off.

  “Or by the judges’ decision if neither fighter finishes it, but yeah. It was close, but I ended up submitting him with an arm bar.”

  “Congratulations.” He muttered a thanks, then turned her around so he could rinse her hair one last time. “I’d like to come to your next fight.”

  He paused and glanced down at her before refocusing on his task. “I’m not really on my A game yet, you know? Maybe someday.”

  Kat got it. He wanted to wait until he had his confidence back before she watched him. If she had anything she was good at, she’d probably want the same thing. As it was, though, she’d never had time to explore any interests she did have. That was something she should add to her to-do list. Discover hobbies or possible talents.

  “God, I love your hair,” he said, running his fingers through the now-silky mass.

  “This is nothing. You should see my sist—” Kat cut herself off. She’d let her guard down so much around Irish she forgot to keep up the ruse of having no family. Maybe he didn’t catch it.

  “You never told me you had a sister.”

  She sighed. Of course he caught it. Irish actually listened when a woman talked. Men like him were extremely rare. Actually, in her experience, they were more like unicorns: talked about as though they might exist, but really just a creature of girlish fairy tales.

  It didn’t matter anymore, she supposed. Irish wasn’t a threat to Nessie. She’d always kept her sister a secret so no one could ever use that knowledge against her. On the seedy side of the tracks in life, people didn’t hesitate to threaten your loved ones to get you to do what they wanted.

  She’d even convinced Lenny years ago that she’d received word Vanessa died in a car accident. If there wa
s one thing Kat had been adamant about since she was fourteen, it was that Vanessa’s life would never be tainted by hers. She’d protected Kat when they were growing up. The least she could do was try and protect her older sister now that they were adults.

  “I have an older sister, Vanessa. But we don’t keep in contact.”

  Reaching past her, he grabbed his all-in-one shower gel and filled one of his hands with the electric-blue soap. As he made quick work of scrubbing some of it through his midnight hair and the rest over his body in quick, efficient movements, he asked, “Why not? Don’t you get along?”

  “No, that’s not it. Nessie and I are very close.” Kat crossed her arms over her chest and moved so he could rinse himself from head to toe. “Especially when we were growing up. She always protected me, always took care of me.”

  The clean scent of some scientist’s idea of what the ocean breeze smelled like curled around her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and drew it deep into her lungs. His sheets and pillowcase smelled like that and she was sure it calmed her better than any expensive aromatherapy ever could. She came back to herself when Irish maneuvered her to stand in front of him, her back to his chest.

  “So what happened to make you drift apart?”

  Irish moved the heavy mass of her hair over the front of her left shoulder. Gathering it in her hands, she braided it to keep it out of the way as he began soaping her back. “She graduated and went to college in Nevada. She tried calling me, but I didn’t take her calls very often.”

  His hands slid up and down her back, kneading her sore muscles and lulling her into an almost dreamlike state. She let her head drop forward and closed her eyes.

  “Why was that?” he asked, his voice a low rasp by her right ear.

  “Before she left, our asshole of a stepfather went to jail, so Vanessa thought I’d be okay for the next three years. But then Mom got a new boyfriend who made the stepdad look like Santa Claus.” Kat felt his grip tense briefly as he stroked down the length of her arms, but she forgot his reaction when his hands moved to lather her stomach in lazy circles. Leaning her head back on his chest, she continued. “So I rarely spoke to her because I wanted her to focus on the new chance she’d gotten at having a decent life. She didn’t need to be stressed out about any of my shit back home.”

  “You were pretty selfless for being so young. Strong, too.”

  A stunted, humorless laugh echoed in the small room. “I wasn’t either of those things. But I owed it to Nessie to let her go. She’d had to act like my mother almost my whole life because ours constantly chose her addictions over us.”

  Flashes of memories from deep in her past crept out from the darkness to close in on her. Her throat was thick with old fear and forgotten ghosts. She took some deep breaths through her nose and forced herself to concentrate on Irish’s strong hands now spreading the shower gel over her breasts and up her neck.

  Placing a soft kiss at her temple, he traced the scar in the center of her chest and asked, “Will you tell me how you got this?”

  Kat opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. She shook her head back and forth a few times on his pec. “I know you have some idea of my shitty life, Irish, but trust me, you don’t want to know the fucked-up details.”

  His strong arms wrapped around her waist and he turned them to the side so the shower spray hit them both. With him leaning back against the wall, she let her weight sink into him. Between the water running down her front and his body behind her, she felt wrapped in a cocoon of warmth, and yet her insides were starting to convulse as though she stood naked in a snowstorm.

  “I want to know everything about you, Katherine Terese MacGregor. Even the bad stuff.” When she started to shake her head again, he stopped her by tucking his face down by hers. “Hey,” he said gruffly. “I will fight anything—past, present, or future—that tries to hurt you. But I can’t fight your demons unless you show them to me.”

  “There’s no point. You can’t fight things from the past.”

  “Sure we can. Look at how we fought your problem of slipping away when we make love. We found a way around it and beat it. So maybe there’re other things we can do to help heal the parts you feel are kind of broken, you know?”

  His point was valid. Sort of. He’d been right about keeping her eyes open during sex. As long as she could see that it was him, her brain didn’t slip into survival mode without her consent. She’d even gotten to the point where she could close her eyes for a few seconds at a time and still be okay. That probably was due to the fact that Irish could win awards for Best Sweet Talker Ever. It wasn’t constant during sex, but she suspected he did it as a way to keep her in the moment with him. Whatever the reason, she loved it and hoped he never stopped.

  So, yes, he had fixed one problem she’d had as a result of her past. But even still, she didn’t see how telling him the sordid details of what happened to her for the two years between Nessie moving out and leaving with Lenny would help her. Her life was what it was. She’d learned to bury it and do her best to never let it see the light of day.

  “Please, kitten,” he whispered. “Trust me enough to let me in.”

  Sighing, she rested her arms over his. If it meant that much to him, it was the least she could do. He’d already done so much for her without asking for anything in return and honestly, she cared for him in ways she couldn’t explain. She’d do anything for him. All he needed to do was ask. Even if it meant slicing open ancient wounds.

  “My mom was an alcoholic and a druggie for as long as I can remember. Nessie said there was a time when we were really young that she was amazing, but I never knew that mother. Nessie was the one who made sure I had food, clean clothes, got to school, everything. And when my mom had men over, my sister kept me away from the house or distracted me as best she could.”

  “Like watching The Odd Couple?”

  Kat smiled wanly. “Yeah, like that.”

  “What about your stepdad? What was his deal?”

  The smile fell from her face. “He was super controlling and sometimes abusive. Most of the time he targeted my mom, but whenever he swung his attention our way, Nessie antagonized him so she would get the brunt, if not all, of what he dished out. He almost never laid a hand on me thanks to her.”

  “Sounds like you have an amazing sister,” he said with a slight squeeze of his arms.

  “Yeah, I do,” she said thickly. “That’s why I didn’t want her to know how bad things were after she left. I didn’t want her screwing up her new life to come back and try to save me.” A lump formed in her throat and hot tears pricked the backs of her eyes. “It wasn’t worth it; after the first time, there was nothing left to save.”

  …

  “Tell me.”

  Aiden kissed her cheek in encouragement then rested his forehead against her temple. At this rate they’d both be prunes by the time they got out of the shower, but she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave the steamy sanctuary, so neither was he.

  “My mom’s new boyfriend moved in after only a week of them knowing each other. He gave me the creeps the first time I laid eyes on him. He constantly looked at me like I was a fucking steak or something. After a while the looks were accompanied by touching. A bump here, a graze there. He always feigned innocence, and I was too chicken to call him out on it.”

  Goddamn it. He knew where this was heading. If Vanessa was anything like him—and he expected she was—she definitely would have come back from college to bury that fucker.

  The muscles in his jaw flexed as he tried to contain his anger. “You weren’t chicken, sweetheart. You were a kid up against a full-grown man with no one to help protect you.”

  “Maybe,” she said hoarsely. “But maybe if I’d pitched a fit, or threatened to cut his balls off, it wouldn’t have gone any further than that.”

  Aiden took a deep breath and asked the question he needed answered and yet never wanted to know. “How far did it go?”

  Tears
streamed down her cheeks, but her voice had become monotone. It was eerie, like an automated, unfeeling account of horrifying events. “He’d been drinking and I’m pretty sure he was high, too, although on what I didn’t know. My mom was already passed out and I’d gone into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. I heard him come into the room, but I ignored him, hoping he’d grab a beer or whatever and go away.” She shook her head slowly, shaking loose more tears that got lost in the water cascading down her body. “But he didn’t go away.”

  Kat started trembling in his arms. Reaching over, he shut off the water and grabbed one of the large bath towels from the rack. He wrapped it around her shoulders before fastening a second around his waist, then stepped out of the tub. With little effort, he picked her up and cradled her in his lap as he sat on the floor with his back against the wall. She drew her knees to her chest and pulled the towel around her so all that peeked out was her head and her toes.

  With acid churning in his gut and the thirst for vengeance tickling his throat, Aiden held her in his arms while the details of that horrifying night spilled from her quivering lips.

  She told him how her mom’s boyfriend had stepped between her and the kitchen island where she’d been slicing tomatoes. That he’d pulled her in hard and didn’t waste any time groping and fondling her through her nightshirt and pajama pants. She’d actually tried fighting him that first time, striking out to try and do as much damage as she could. But that’s when he grabbed the chef’s knife from the counter, effectively halting all her struggles.

  Aiden heard the self-contempt in her voice as she recounted how she’d obeyed his every order after that. How she laid on the dirty kitchen floor and let him cut the clothes from her. How she stayed as still as a mannequin for the rest of the time, even when he forced himself inside her virgin body and the pain was almost too much to bear.

  “He held the knife on me the whole time. He didn’t even stop when he accidentally cut me. The blood ran up over my neck and shoulders and dripped into my hair. I remember thinking it smelled like wet pennies.” Aiden watched in agony as more tears streamed from her blue-green eyes, falling silently from the edge of her jaw to the towel below. “I couldn’t get a full breath because of his weight crushing me. The little air I did get was thick with his sweat, stale cigarettes, Jim Beam, and blood. I thought for sure I’d suffocate. Sometimes I wish I would have.”