I postpone meetings. Instead of visiting business associates in person, I call them from my study. I cancel a golf tournament knowing that I won’t be able to focus.
I feel the way I did when I first met Niamh as a nineteen-year-old youth. Excitable. Impatient. Horny. It was an arranged match, we’d have married with or without the mutual attraction, for the sake of our families. But the instant I saw her, I knew I’d struck gold.
With Amelia, it’s the novelty, I tell myself. There’s always that element of anticipation at the start of a new relationship, even one based purely on sex.
But I’m fifty-seven years old. I know the difference between lust and desire, and Amelia has me wanting a whole lot more than a quick fuck in a different room whenever we cross paths.
I sneak up behind her in the kitchen, where she’s dicing vegetables with her earbuds in, and slide my hands beneath her sweater. She isn’t wearing a bra. I cup her breasts and teaseher swollen nipples, and she half turns to face me, nuzzling my cheek.
“Orla will be back soon,” she says.
“Why do you think I’m here? I couldn’t wait a moment longer to feel you.”
She sets the knife down on the chopping board and maneuvers herself into my arms, rubbing her hard nipples against my chest. My cock is right there, solid, letting her know how badly I want her.
“Tonight?” I kiss her deeply.
My heart practically sings when I see the want in her eyes too. “My room?”
I’m not fooling myself that this will last forever. Amelia is young, she has her whole life ahead of her, a lifetime of experiences waiting for her out there in the big wide world. But while she’s here, and she wants this as much as I do, I’d be a fucking idiot to let it go.
“Be ready for me.”
She gives me that slanted smile that sets my pulse galloping. “Ready how?”
I lift her jumper and suck on her nipple, unzipping her jeans and sliding a finger inside her. “Naked and wet. I want to see that beautiful pussy when I open your door and know that you’ve been waiting for me.”
She chuckles, a low throaty sound. “Is that an order?”
My erection throbs inside my pants as I kiss her and step away. “You’ll be the death of me, you know that?”
She grins. “I hope not.”
Back in my study, I call my eldest son Ruairi.
“How’s it going, son?”
“I’m finally making progress. I went to the matriarch, Moira Murray, and I’ve arranged a meeting with Caleb for tomorrow.”
“Good work. I never doubted you for a moment.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Pa. There’s no guarantee that the Murrays will agree to an alliance.”
“They haven’t met my son yet.” I chuckle, pour myself a slug of brandy.
“You sound cheerful. Everything going to plan with Eoghan?”
“If you mean, is he still sniffing around Emily Murray, then the answer is yes. Haven’t seen him in days.”
Emily is a foot in the door of this alliance with our longstanding rival family. I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d set up a date between my youngest son and the Murray princess myself. But fate played straight into my hands and arranged a meet-cute between them at Dublin Airport, saving me the bother. Eoghan doesn’t know it yet, but his relationship with Emily will be the frosting on the cake when Ruairi shakes on the deal with Caleb Murray in New York City.
“That’s my little brother,” Ruairi says. “I taught him everything I know.”
“I think you’ll find that you both learned from the best. Me.”
That night, Amelia, true to her word, is naked on her bed when I let myself into her room, languishing as though posing for anude portrait. She props herself up on one elbow and watches me intently, smiling. “I thought you’d forgotten me.” .”
I swallow hard, leaning against the door. “Amelia… Fuck… Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
