I nodded as the door closed between us. I didn’t need backup, not when it involved Caity.
I didn’t bother with a cab. The weather, while still brisk, had begun to warm up, but the cool wind might just lower the raging inferno running through my veins.
Eamon’s house wasn’t far from the office building where we ran things. Times had changed over the years. When Eamon was alive, he ran everything out of the house. Men came and went at all hours of the day and night.
There were no guards on the doors anymore, at least not at our homes. We weren’t like the Bratva or the Italians. We weren’t arrogant enough to believe someone was out to get us. The Irish kept to themselves.
We took care of our own shit, and if we had to move outside the family, well, there were people for that and ways to make sure it never came back on us.
Sal might have us dressing like businessmen, but underneath we were just thugs. Always had been, always would be. Lipstick on a pig, Mac called it.
I jogged up the steps of Caity’s brownstone and knocked on the door. When it went unanswered, I knocked harder until I was banging on the front door and yelling her name.
The door whipped open, and there she was. Her dark red hair piled on top of her head. The sports bra she wore under her tank top pushed her breasts up until they were almost spilling out. And the shorts she wore? They were fucking tiny. And tight.
“What the hell are you doing, answering the door dressed like that?”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me. “I was painting and someone was trying to break down the fuckin’ door. I didn’t exactly have time to change.”
That was when I noticed the splatters of paint on her arms and legs. She looked like an artist who’d gotten caught in a moment of creativity, forgetting about the rest of the world.
“Painting what?”
“Why are you here?” Her bark was never worse than her bite, but it was enough to snap me out of my fantasy. A fantasy of laying out a canvas, covering both of our bodies in paint and then fucking. Creating a masterpiece of the love we shared for the world to see.
Too bad I couldn’t get the infernal woman to admit she loved me.
I looked at the crumpled paper in my hand. “What the fuck is this?”
I stormed past her into the house and stopped. Sal had mentioned she’d been redoing the house. The lighter walls anddark accents suited her. What most people didn’t know was that Caity was all light. She put only the dark parts of herself forward to see if people were willing or worthy of finding the lighter side of her.
Not many had been worthy. Her sad excuse for a husband certainly wasn’t. I didn’t think I was either, but I’d seen glimpses of it.
“What is what?” she asked, closing the door behind me and shoving past me into the kitchen. I knew where she was headed. The coffeemaker. It was her go-to shield when she didn’t want to talk about something. She had no way of knowing what I held in my hand, but she knew it was bad.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “You said you didn’t fuckin’ know,” I growled.
Caity stared up at me. It was the most she’d looked at me in years. And we were alone. That didn’t happen often; there was always the risk of someone walking in and finding us staring at each other. But right now, there was no one here to stop me from dipping my head until I met her lips.
Her eyes dropped to my lips, and her tongue darted out to wet them. I watched as her teeth sunk into the corner of her mouth and, all of a sudden, I was back in that hotel room with her.
Twenty-nine years ago...
I watched as her dress dropped to the floor. She stood in the middle of the hotel room and waited to see what I would do. I let my eyes wander over her body, taking in every curve, every inch of silky skin. Knowing this might be my only chance to feel her, taste her, make love to her, I wanted to memorize every bit of the woman in front of me.
“What do you want, Caity?”
“You.”
I licked my lips at the prospect of having her under me. For years I’d been dreaming of this. And now she was here. Was it a coincidence? Was it fate? I was in that bar looking for someone who had betrayed the family. I wasn’t the muscle; I was the brains, but Eamon had sent me anyway.
The man hated me. I didn’t know why, but he couldn’t deny what I brought to the table. But if I were dead? Killed in a bar fight that couldn’t be traced back to him? I didn’t think he’d be shedding any tears.
I rubbed the back of my neck. This could be a setup. Would Eamon use his daughter this way? Did he know how I felt about her?
I took a step forward, removing my jacket and laying in on the back of a chair. If this were a setup, if I were walking into a trap, then at least I would get something out of it. Because Caitlin Marie O’Malley was worth dying for.
As I loosened my tie, I said, “No one can ever know,banphrionsa.”
