He’d barely looked me in the eye since we left the cabin, even now as we were pulling up at a private airstrip and being shuttled toward the plane. It was a private jet, and I wondered whose it was.
Bear sat with Hawk and Wolf at the front, while I sat with Sheridan and Ace. They huddled together and she slowly drifted to sleep as the plane took off.
My eyes were glued on Bear, but he didn’t once look in my direction.
Giving up hope, I turned to look out the window at the scene below me, wondering exactly what the hell life was going to throw at me once we got back.
Bear
I got up from my seat, and moved over to where Orla was sitting in the chair at the back. Hawk and Wolf had started to drift off to sleep, and Ace and Sheridan werecurled up together. Orla had fallen asleep looking out the window. I had felt her eyes on me, but I couldn’t lose focus right now.
She needed to be safe.
We’d received word that Matteo hadn’t died from the gunshot wound she’d inflicted and was looking for her. I had to keep her safe, whether she wanted it or not. Soon, she would hate me all over again, but there was no way in hell I was putting her in danger again.
I pulled the blanket from a cabinet behind her and threw it over her to keep her warm. She shifted slightly under the warmth, but didn’t wake. Taking her hand, I placed a kiss on her knuckles, taking in the delicate tattoos on her hands, they were older than the others, and probably her first foray into tattooing. She practised on herself. I don’t know why, but it brought a smile to my face.
I’d kill to have her tattoo me, her soft hands holding my skin taut as she drew over me with the gun. My dick was hardening just thinking about it. I didn’t have much skin left that hadn’t been tatted up, but damn it, I’d find room for her art. Even if she tatted up my dick, because damn, that thing was all hers.
Always had been.
I took the seat behind hers and waited for the plane to land, my fingers still itching from where I held hers.
FOUR
Orla
My brain was still trying to play catchup when I felt Bear help me down the few stairs of the jet. We were at another private airfield in Ireland, I could smell the familiar surroundings to identify where I was.
“You good?” he asked me, gruffly. His face held no emotion, and I was finding it hard to read him.
“I just missed being home,” I told him.
All he did was nod, and I felt myself hurtling back to the time when I stood in the middle of the road, watching him as he rode out of my life. I’d already pushed him away at that time. Our love had been so real, sodevastatingly all consuming that I was scared, and I told him I didn’t want him anymore.
He’d left without a word, just the rumble of his bike down my street. I felt the same heartbreak even now because I knew nothing had changed. He was still that guy whose heart I broke when I inadvertently broke my soul back when we were kids.
“Come on,” he said, pushing me toward the bike.
“How did they get here?”
“We left them here when we flew over to get you guys,” he offered. He jumped on his bike and held out a helmet for me. I put it on and turned to see men in cuts grabbing bags from the plane and putting them in the van. There were more than just the boys’ bags. What the hell did they do in Italy?
I jumped on the bike behind him, wrapping my arms around his body. My own body hummed to life at the contact, and I had to push those thoughts away. He started up the bike and we were following Ace and Hawk out of the airfield. I didn’t see Wolf anywhere, he wasn’t behind Hawk. I wondered where he’d gone. He had been our protector for so long in Italy and throughout France. It hadn’t been his fault that we’d been taken and by the look of him, he had taken quite a few beatings for us. I prayed he would be okay.
The boys rode in formation until we got to Kilkenny, and toward the clubhouse. Only when we got off the bikes did I see the van had arrived and the boys were carefully unloading Wolf from the back. He looked like he was in a tonne of pain.
He’d been such a good guy, always taking us where we wanted, putting up with the girls’ behaviour, playing card games well into the early morning with me.
“Is he okay?” I asked Bear.
“He will be,” he said. “He’s tough. Come on.”
He grabbed my hand, lacing his fingers through mine as he led me down to the clubhouse. When we passed the van, I saw the blocks and blocks of drugs in there. “Have you guys taken over the drug business in Kilkenny already?”
Bear didn’t want to answer, he just dragged me through the clubhouse and down the hall before I could say anything to anyone. Inside his room, he slammed the door shut behind us. The look in his eye was feral, almost animalistic.
I wasn’t scared, I was turned on.
