Turns out, I was right.
If she couldn’t remember, it didn’t take me off the hook, it dug it deeper.
8
BREE
I stretched an arm over my head, searching the back of the shelf for another bottle.
Finn had brought out my curiosity when he gave me Nana’s empty whiskey bottle, and I’d spent all morning looking for more.
My nails scraped along the wood where the shelf met the wall, and I lifted onto my tiptoes.
The ladder wobbled, and I let out a short shriek before a warm hand wrapped around my calf.
“Easy.” Declan spoke from below me, his voice warm and rich as my morning coffee. “I’ve got you.”
Hell yeah he did. I did not need to think about his hand on my leg. Or how his palm burned through my jeans. Or how I immediately wanted to shift my weight to feel his grip tighten.
Oh hell no.
“Almost got it.” I stretched toward the ceiling beam. “While I’m up here, I might as well hang that shamrock garland. Hand it to me?”
Declan grunted and stretched beneath the ladder, managing to hold my leg and hook the garland without letting go.
The move exposed a stretch of bare skin along his ribs and the ladder wobbled again when I shifted to get a better look.
“Stop that or I’m making the executive decision to hang the garland myself.” His Irish brogue deepened when he was annoyed.
Which meant I’d made it my ultimate pleasure to annoy the piss out of him just so I could hear it.
I gave him a grin that dimpled my cheeks and fluttered my lashes. “Then Nana will haunt you because an O’Sullivanalwayshangs the garland.”
Declan muttered under his breath but passed me the garland.
Once I took it from him, he gripped my calves with both hands.
My breath caught. It made more sense for him to hold the ladder, but shit if I’d complain.
This was fine. Totally normal. Totally not freaking me out that I loved feeling Declan’s hands on me.
He was keeping me from cracking my skull open on the hardwood floor. That was all.
Any decent human being would do the same.
It didn’t mean anything that I felt every single finger through my denim jeans.
“I’m sure Maeve would not have minded.”
I couldhearhis glare, and my shoulders shook with my attempts to hide my laughter. “Right. I’m sure she let you hang decorations last year. I bet her favorite mugs she didn’t climb this very ladder and cuss a blue streak every time the ladder dared move.” I jammed the thumbtack into the wall and hung the garland. “I’m perfectly capable of hanging decorations.”
“Bree.” He squeezed my calves. “Please come down.”
What was it about the “please” that got me every damned time? I descended the ladder one rung at a time, hyper-aware of how his hands traveled with me. From calf to thigh to waist, he steadied me until my feet hit solid ground.
He didn’t let go.
We stood there, his hands bracketing my hips and my back against his chest, while my heart fluttered and I forgot how to breathe.
