“Niamh,” I said, totally at a loss. “The bloody hell are you doing here?”It was Mari who had the sense to usher my soaking-wet sister into the apartment. When had it started raining? When you were licking your wife’s pussy, that’s when.“What’s your name again?” said Mari to my sister.“Niamh,” said Niamh slowly, her teeth still chattering. “Like ‘weave’ except it starts with an ‘n.’”“It’s nice to meet you, Niamh. Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”“I can do it myself,” groused Niamh. “I know where the bathroom is. I don’t even know who you are, though.”Niamh headed to the bathroom and shut the door hard enough that I winced.What the hell was my teenage sister doing here? Did Uncle Henry and Aunt Siobhan know? It was a two-hour drive from Olympia, and it was a school night. There was no way they would’ve let her come here.I checked my phone, only to realize the battery had died. Plugging it in, the screen filled with missed calls and texts from my aunt and uncle.Do
Running after a teenager wasn’t exactly in my plans this morning, but here I was, on the streets of downtown Seattle, trying to catch up to Niamh.Liam hadn’t told me much about his sister beyond her aspirations to get into an Ivy League. He’d said she wanted to study political science and to start a non-profit.“Why am I the one doing this?” I said to myself, startling a man walking past me. Liam should be the one here, not me.I could see Niamh and her blue hair up ahead, about a block away. I walked faster, almost running when I saw the WALK sign turn on.“Niamh! Wait!”Niamh glanced over her shoulder, scowled, and walked faster.I was considerably taller than Liam’s sister, my legs longer, and luck was on my side when Niamh got caught in a crowd of fanny-pack wearing tourists most likely walking to Pike Market.Why anyone would come to Seattle in January, I had no idea. Maybe they were actual masochists. Based on their shorts and sandals, they were either insane or robots wh
I paced the length of my flat while Mari and Niamh were gone. I reconsidered at least twenty times if I should go after them. Niamh was my sister. She’d been my responsibility since the moment she’d been born.Yet Mari hadn’t minced words in her texts. Stay home; you’ll make things worse.It pissed me off. I wanted to go straight to that cafe and prove Mari wrong. Pull up a chair, plant my arse in it, and force Niamh to talk to me.Right as I debated leaving, my phone rang. Thinking it might be Mari, I answered it without looking at the caller ID.The voice on the other line, though? Definitely not a woman’s voice. It was a voice I’d only heard a half dozen times in my life, but I’d never forget it.“Liam,” said old man Gallagher in that Irish brogue that instantly took me back to my days in Dublin. “How are you?”My grandda had called me once before here in the States to tell me I was getting a tiny percentage for my inheritance while Niamh was getting the rest.“Did you really
Niamh left the next day, but not before Liam had made her promise to behave herself.“You’re giving me gray hairs already,” he’d said when she’d hugged him.“You’ll look dashing with a salt and pepper look.” Niamh had turned to me, and to my surprise, had hugged me tightly. She’d whispered in my ear, “Take care of him? He’s stupid but I love him anyway.”I’d just nodded. That moment last night, when Liam and I had sat in silence, had changed something between us. It had been a silence loaded with intimacy, with emotions, with things that were dangerous but heady at the same time.Returning to his apartment, we lapsed into silence again. We hadn’t been truly alone in three days—not since the night he’d given me the greatest orgasm I’d ever had.Sleeping next to him without really sleeping with him? That had been pure torture. His smell, his heat, the way he looked while he slept. His hair tousled in the morning, or how he stretched and showed off every muscle without even realizing
Who would have known my prissy little wife was insatiable in bed? After we’d slept for a few hours, I awoke at the same time that she’d turned back toward me, palmed my cock, and had got me hard again like I was some teenager with his first girl.The fact that Mari’s piece of shite ex hadn’t so much as eaten her out made me want to prove to her that she was better off with me.Okay, fine—I didn’t want to examine too closely why it mattered. This was just a fling. Hot sex never lasted. It wore off; the luster turned dull. I had no expectations that this was anything more than what I always did with women.But I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want it to last longer than these six months. That after Mari had fallen asleep, her hair strewn across her pillow, I’d imagined what it’d be like for us to be truly man and wife.That night, Mari turned to me after I’d parked the car to say, “Are you nervous?”I shot her an ironic glance. “Should I be?”“If you’re not, I am. My family is…a lo
The car ride home from my family’s house was silent. I tried to get Liam to tell me what he and my mom had talked about, but he just said she’d only read his cards. “A bunch of bollocks,” he’d muttered more than once.Tonight hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped. Despite telling my dad to lay off Liam, he’d been like a dog with a smelly, disgusting bone. While Liam had been with my mom, I’d told my dad to cool it. He’d countered that he’d “cool it” when he’d seen evidence that I hadn’t married a hooligan.“Dad, a hooligan? Seriously? What year is this, 1955?” I’d said in exasperation.“That was the nicest term I could come up with.”Lucky for me and unluckily for Dani, our dad had decided that he’d wanted to discuss something with Jacob. Apparently both Dani and I had struck out in the dad approval department. It was up to Kate to win that award—God help us all.By eleven o’clock, I got dressed in my prettiest new lingerie—a ruby red babydoll that I’d bought for my honeymoon, believe
“You look beautiful,” I said. I came to stand behind her, both of us gazing at her reflection in the mirror.She did look beautiful, more beautiful than I could’ve ever imagined. When I stroked a finger down her spine, she shivered. I kissed the side of her neck.“I can just see you, a trembling, virgin bride on her wedding night,” I whispered in her ear. “I start unbuttoning your dress, one by one, revealing your body to me inch by inch.”“Liam—”“You’d be shivering, blushing, afraid but also curious. Aroused.” I bit a cord in her neck, which made her moan. “You’d be wet for me by the time I’d stripped you naked.”Seeing Mari in this wedding dress made me half mad with wanting her. After last night, I’d told myself I should let her go. I’d only break her heart. I didn’t need some bloody card reading to remind me of that. Even if a hundred psychics came to tell me that one thing, I wouldn’t need to hear it because I already knew it was the truth.But Jesus Christ, I wanted to pro
There are many things in my life that I never expected to happen. Including my almost-husband and my current husband battling it out in the middle of a park like two of the biggest idiots in existence.My morning had started peaceful enough. I’d bought coffee and sat down to wait for David to show up. I’d considered bailing at least five times, though, but the lure of getting my favorite eyeshadow palette back was too much to give up.Besides, if David wanted to grovel and apologize some more, who was I to stop him? It wasn’t like he’d convince me to get back together with him.David showed up ten minutes late. “Were you waiting long?” he said.I sipped my coffee. “Long enough.”He grimaced. “Sorry. Got up late. I’m glad you agreed to meet me, though.” He took in my appearance—old jeans, no makeup, my hair in a messy bun—and said, “You look beautiful.”I glared at him. “I’m not here for compliments.”“I know. But I’m here to give them to you. Or at least tell you why I fucked up