Was that what Neal wanted? To expand? Kieran loved South Side MMA as it was. Intimate. Small. Easily protected. If the gym changed, he’d be expected to change with it. He swatted Sebastián’s phone away and stepped back from the island.
“What’s your actual problem with her, man? Did she turn you down or something?”
Quite the opposite. She’d risen to every challenge he’d set. Always turning on her dainty little heel to smack him in the chest with that damn hair of hers. There was no denying his attraction to her. Who wouldn’t be attracted? It was so damn satisfying, watching the color rise from her neckline to her cheeks and light up her crystal-blue eyes and knowing it was him, not Sebastián, who made it happen. But one thing always stopped him when he wanted to lean his head down and growl what he wanted in her ear, and it was currently yelling at a game upstairs.
Danny burst out of his room, stomped down the stairs andshouldered past Kieran into the kitchen. He yanked open the refrigerator door and grabbed the filtered water pitcher. “Stupid fucking kids always—”
“Hey, keep it down. Saoirse’s sleeping in my room.” Kieran caught the door before it could slam shut and send Saoirse’s coloring pages flying from their magnets.
Danny grunted. “Yeah, whatever. Aren’t you supposed to be hosting your stupid party?”
A smart-ass answer burned on Kieran’s tongue, but he held it back. Fighting fire with fire only ended in scorched earth. “Language,” he said instead to Danny’s retreating back.
“Never mind your problem.” Sebastián crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s his?”
“Maeve says he’s challenging me as a way to establish dominance.”
“And what do you say?”
Kieran refilled their cups with two fingers of whiskey. “He’s being a punk, but he’ll grow out of it like I did. No need to lose sleep over it.” He didn’t have any extra sleep to lose, not when Lily invaded his mind at every turn. He couldn’t escape her.
That was the silent truth of the matter—and the success she’d had in her first week proved it. He’d been wrong. South Side MMA did need her, or at least someone like her. He’d been the center of the gym for years, and he’d never caused as much of a stir as she had with a single self-defense lesson. How could he hope to control his career when he couldn’t even keep a handle on his brother or keep up with a pretty face?
And to top it off, he couldn’t relieve his stress and fuck her seven ways to Sunday because of that same cock-blocking brother. The kid needed stability. Having women in and out of the house would only disrupt and complicate the Sullivan brothers’ lives.
“I don’t know how you do it.” Sebastián opened the screen door and waited for Kieran to step through.
As they strolled back to the fire ring, his gaze landed on Lily who was sandwiched between Maeve and Rachel, caught up in a lively discussion. He drained his cup without a grimace. The whiskey burned its way down and settled warm in his gut. The firelight played off Lily’s smile and a different sort of warmth spread through his body. “A lot of patience, Seb. Patience and knowing, in the end, there’s nothing he can do to make me leave.”
* * *
Though he’d agreed to the barbecue, Kieran’s social battery was all but drained when Neal and Patricia said their goodbyes and gathered their sleepy-eyed grandchildren. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased when Melanie, Becks and the others trickled out as well. Sebastián, Maeve, Rachel and Lily remained. Sebastián changed the music to something with a little more flavor than the top hits. Rachel and Maeve danced, falling into fits of laughter at the other’s tipsy attempts at dance moves through the decades. Sebastián joined in when he wasn’t chatting up Lily, his hips moving as fast as his mouth.
Through it all, Lily remained seated in her Adirondack chair, her attention focused on the trio. She watched as if there was a plexiglass barrier between herself and them. She could observe them. She could laugh at their antics. But she couldn’t join them.
Why?
Kieran had found a few more of her videos. Maybe more than a few. In them, she got dressed up and partied with her best friend. She threw herself off rocky outcroppings and into lakes. She put herself out there. What stopped her from having the same familiarity with her coworkers beyond polite conversation?
As if sensing his scrutiny, Lily shifted in her chair and pinned him with a look.Caught you staring, it said.
He answered with one of his own:I’m glad I have your attention. Then his gaze dropped without his permission and caught on the pale side of her thigh where her dress had ridden up. The muscle there was toned enough to leave a shadow, one he very much wouldn’t mind sinking his teeth into.
“Something you want to say, Kieran?” she asked.
He lifted his gaze. Her eyebrows raised over a cool expression despite her fire-warmed cheeks. He leaned back in his chair and let his knees spread wider. Her attention flickered.Good girl.“When were you going to tell me I’m That Gym Guy?”
Her gaze snapped back to his face from the cozy home it had made between his thighs. Well, at least she was interested, even if she didn’t admit it. But some gear shifted into place in her brilliant mind. In a calculating sweep, she looked him up and down. “I thought you didn’t care about my silly videos. Now you want me to admit you have fans?”
He’d be lying if he said her slow perusal didn’t do something for him. All the same, now they were talking business.Hisbusiness. “Idon’tcare about your silly videos. But Idocare about the clientele we’re bringing into the gym. I can’t have my self-defense classes filled with thirsty fans crowding out my regulars. You know, the people who actually want to learn self-defense?” He’d started the class for people like his mother. People like Maeve. People who needed an extra second to escape before any more lasting damage could be done. He didn’t have the time or the energy to open his schedule for more classes. He had a family to take care of.
“Well, then,” Lily said with an innocent shrug, “stop doing hot guy shit.”
His thoughts ground to a halt like the cogs of an old clock.Hot guy shit?Kieran tilted his head, amusement and pleasuremixing like a deadly cocktail in his chest. “So, you think I’m hot?”
She played it off like she hadn’t just admitted she found him attractive by softening her brow and staring with bored eyes. “You’re objectively attractive to people who are into the whole domineering thing.” She flicked her styled waves over her shoulder with an air of superiority. “I like nice guys.” The words might as well have been delivered in a scented envelope sealed with a poison kiss.
Kieran couldn’t resist a little venom tucked in a pretty smile.
