“I won’t tell if you don’t,” she whispered, and I knew then this was all her. She wanted this, wanted me.
I stopped in front of her, waiting to see how brave she was. Would she make the first move? Her body trembled when she removed her dress. She was as terrified of what might happen as I was.
She raised her hands to my shirt. One by one, slipping the buttons through the holes, and then she grazed her hands over my chest, letting my shirt slip to the floor to join the dress she’d already discarded.
I stared into her eyes as she reached for my belt. Once she pulled it from the loops, I removed it from her hands and placed it around the back of her neck. Using the belt as leverage, I pulled her forward and let my lips crash against hers.
She moved in closer. Her hands started at my waist but quickly roamed over my skin. Every touch was a brand. From this moment forward, she owned me. No matter what happened after tonight, Caity O’Malley owned my soul.
“Cian, please.”
“What do you want,banphrionsa?”
“I want more. More of you,” she whispered.
I dropped the belt to the floor and trailed kisses across her jaw and down her throat. My hands slid down her arms, and I felt her body shiver. My hands went to her ass, squeezing each globe as I lifted her off the floor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her sharp voice pulled me back to the present, but my eyes stayed on her lips. God, I wanted her.
“Maddie,” I rasped. “You said you didn’t know she was mine, but you were gonna have a fuckin’ abortion?”
Her hand moved faster than I expected, and the sound of the slap across my cheek echoed around the quiet room.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Cian McCarthy. Get the fuck out of my house.”
She turned to go, and I grabbed her again. Pulling her back against my chest, I held the evidence in front of her face. “Then fuckin’ explain this.”
She took the paper from my hand and stared at it. “Where did you get this?” She looked up at me. “Are you digging into my past?”
“I’m digging into everyone, Caity. Including you and Sal.”
“This is private!”
“Why did you go to that clinic, Caity?”
“None of your business, Cian.” She moved away again, and I’d had enough. I spun her around and walked her back against the wall with my hand on her throat.
“Why did you go to the fuckin’ clinic? Were you gonna kill my fuckin’ child, Caity?”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and it took everything inside me not to let her go. I wanted to hold her in my arms and comfort her, but at the same time I wanted to fucking strangle her.
For months now, since I found out Maddie was my daughter, I had slipped back and forth from wanting to fuck this woman until she admitted how she felt or kill her for keeping the truth from me all these years.
I’d been avoiding her because I never knew which side would win out if I was in the same room with her. Truth be told, I didn’t know which side would win out in this moment.
The moment I saw her name on the paperwork from the clinic, I saw red. Knowing that she went to the clinic to abort my child had me feeling things for her I never thought I would.
She wouldn’t divorce her no-good husband because divorce was a sin. But fucking abortion? How the fuck did she justify that shit?
“Fuckin’ answer me!” I growled, squeezing her throat between my fingers. Her body trembled beneath me, and I wondered if it was fear or arousal.
“I didn’t go there to get an abortion. I went to get tested,” she hissed.
My hand dropped from her throat, and I stepped back. “What?”
“I found a prescription in the bathroom. I didn’t know what it was for, so I looked it up. The son of a bitch had gotten an STD. I went to the clinic to get tested. That was when I found out I was pregnant. I was over two months along. I hadn’t been with Nolan for a few weeks because I hadn’t been feeling well. I thought I had a stomach bug, so he wouldn’t touch me.”
“And were you?”
