“Company?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Enjoy the amazing D.”
“You make good choices,” I said, having no idea how close she was to doing the exact opposite of that.
“Who you keeping secrets from?” Perish asked, popping up in the trap door opening.
“Heard that, huh?”
“Wasn’t eavesdropping. Was just coming up here to take a shift. You can’t be keeping shit from the club when we’re in lockdown.”
“I know. I was just kind of hoping lockdown would be open before this party.”
“What party?”
“For Cian.”
“Cian O’Donovan?” he asked with a bark of a laugh.
“I know, I know. But I didn’t know at first, then it was too late. I can’t cancel.”
“No, you can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “But I figure Fallon might actually be more comfortable with that than just a normal party.”
“Because there will be a bunch of armed men there?” I asked.
“Yeah. Things are… shaky with the Irish mob, but not unfriendly. Cian isn’t going to hurt you or let you get hurt if he can help it. It would be war in town. And nobody wants that. But you gotta tell him.”
“I will.”
“He’s on his way in now,” Perish told me, finally coming all the way into the glass room.
It was getting dark quickly.
But neither of us reached to turn on the light.
“You know,” I said as he closed the trap door and moved closer, “I’ve driven past this clubhouse a million times. And when this light is off… you can’t see anything from the street.”
“Gracie…”
“Or the ground,” I added. “Which I know for a fact because I’d been looking right up at it when Billie and Rowe were… occupying it. And I would have been scarred for life if I’d seen that.”
“Baby, it’s too risky.”
“Is it?” I asked.
My desire for him had made me bold. And it had been a couple of days since we’d gotten a chance to be fully alone. We’d spent plenty of time with each other. Talking, watching TV, playing cards, eating.
But nothing to ease the ache clawing at my core.
I reached for some blankets, spreading them out, then lowering myself flat.
My gaze was on him as I lifted up, sliding off my pants and panties.
I knew I almost had him when that little growl I loved so much escaped him.
But his gaze slid to the windows, to the world below. To where my cousins or uncles might be.
