“I’m surprised I fell asleep last night. Usually I have to run five or six miles or it doesn’t happen.”
He snickered. “We wore ye out.”
“You did. But maybe... I just don’t like to tempt fate, you know? I have my routine and like it. Would it be too much to ask you to work out with me?”
He leaned back against me, and we both stilled as I nestled my groin tight to his ass. He went stiff in my arms, so I backed off, but he grabbed my hip to keep me in place. “Well, maybe ye and I could take a walk together and wear ye out the same way later?” He turned to smirk. “Do ye think that would get ye to sleep? I don’t know if I have runnin’ in me, angel mine. That’s a lot to ask of other people.” His eyes twinkled in amusement.
I chewed on the corner of my lip. “I don’t know, but I’d be willing to give it a try.”
Together we finished cleaning up the kitchen, which appealed to me. I liked seeing the surfaces and pots and pans go from destroyed by meal prep to sparkling, and Rowen talked about his mother’s kitchen as we worked, which was nice.
“Yeah, she would have me help her most days. Cillian and Eamon would head for the hills, and I was the good one, ye know, so I’d do as she asked. Learned to cook and clean with her.”
“I get it. I like people telling me what to do, too,” I said absently as I dried the dishes he handed me and stacked them on the counter because I didn’t know where they went. “My mother is a physicist. She doesn’t have time for things like cooking unless it’s a special occasion. We had a housekeeper until I was fourteen, and then Dad and I just microwaved meals.”
“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” he grumped, but his lips kicked up in one corner.
“You seemed to like Cillian telling you to fuck me,” I said quietly. He let out a noise like he was choking, then laughed.
“Well played. Here, let me put these away and we can have our walk. Ye go get yer shoes on, and I’ll be right out.” I didn’t want to leave him alone, not even for a few seconds, but his face was still red from what I’d said about Cillian, and I thought maybe he needed a moment.
“I liked it, you know. What you did to me.” I touched his shoulder and the heat of his body made me wish I was in his arms again.
He paused and turned to me. With a smug smile that reminded me a lot of Cillian, he hugged me, which had me squirming because it was exactly what I wanted. “Good.”
Laughing, I stood there and leaned against the island rather than leaving him to his embarrassment, if that was what was going on.
“Sounds like ye were alone a lot growing up?” he said as he turned and put the clean plates away in a cupboard. I tried to remember which one it was, but it was hopeless. I watched him anyway, though, because I liked to look at how his muscles stretched his shirt.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t lonely. My parents had me in a ton of activities. It was so bad I almost didn’t have time to jerk off when that became my favorite hobby.”
Rowen laughed and shook his head at me. It didn’t take him long to finish up, and together we went to where we’d kicked our shoes off near the door and put them on.
“What exactly do you do?” I asked quietly as I opened the front door and stepped outside. He checked his pockets, then nodded to himself before he joined me. The sky was purpling already, and the stars were out. Black iron poles topped with lights lined the street, and they were a lot nicer than the ones in the neighborhood where I lived. He locked the door, then grabbed my hand. It was nice to lace my fingers together with his. Rowen wasn’t much taller than me, and that was good for something like this because we didn’t have an awkward struggle for power—who would get to set the pace. No one would have to shorten their stride or rush. We could just walk. There was a simple joy in that for me because I was forever stopping to wait for poor Lor.
He let out a sigh. “I can’t tell ye what I do.”
“Like a CIA agent,” I said, a childish delight taking me over. “You can’t let me know because you’d have to kill me.”
“Exactly,” he said.
I stumbled, then righted myself, but he already had his hand on my elbow, eyes glinting with concern.
“Well, that’sdire.”
He clucked his tongue. “Didn’t know ye had that sass in ye. It’s true. Ye’re going to have to understand, I’m never going to outright tell ye what I do, Vail. I’m not going to say it, even if ye’ve guessed. And it might get frustrating, it has been for others. Guys I work with talk about losing their wives and boyfriends to shite like this, the secrecy. I’ll never come home and tell ye about my day. There might be times Cillian and I will tell ye that ye can’t go to certain parts of the city, or feck knows, that we might have to leave for a bit. If it got down to something like that, we’d have a long talk with ye. I know I wouldn’t want to leave ye here if shite got hairy enough that we hightailed it. Fuck that.”
“You’re serious?” My heart raced, and I had a feeling like I was getting in a car at the start of a road trip with no map. I loved it. It was so different from how monotonous my life could be sometimes, waiting for alarms to go off for this or that—losing myself in what I loved, sure, but it was the same thing day in and day out. This was real. This was life. And it was so much better than poring over the excitement other people had in their lives in books. Granted, sometimes those lives had short... sticky... gruesome ends.... I frowned at Rowen.
“Aye.”
I mulled that over, but I was having trouble taking him seriously, especially because as we walked past all the other nice houses on his street, I kept letting my gaze take a trip down to his chest. I licked my lips when I noted where his nipples should be pressed against the fabric, and he laughed. I glanced up at his face and my cheeks heated. I’d been caught again.
“Ye’re not takin’ a word I say to heart.”
I shrugged. “I believe you, it isn’t that.”
“Then what?”
