She dipped her chin, hiding her beautiful face in a cloud of dark brown hair. "Thanks, Savannah. I really appreciate that." She peeped at me from under her lashes, making me wonder how, even though she was definitely an acquired taste, a guy hadn’t snapped her up yet. She was gorgeous. A twelve out of ten. "I might..." Jen sighed. "I’ll give you the details for my landlord, so you can know the money goes right to him."
I frowned. "Jen, I trust you, honey."
"I don’t," she said grimly, turning to face the mirror. "I’m turning into a magpie."
"You need a rich boyfriend," I teased her.
"I need an O’Donnelly." She sighed. "Conor’s the only one left. He’s hot. What do you think? Would we go well together?"
"He says he’s taken."
Her nose crinkled. "Damn. Oh, well, I’m not as brave as you are." She leaned into me, and her perfume, sweet but not cloying, filled my nose as she whispered, "You know Aidan’s going to take over the Five Points, don’t you?"
"I managed to work that out," I joked.
"I know you’re weird about them," she replied, "but you’ve never been up close and personal with them like I have. It’s a scary world, Savannah. Aoife got really hurt on her wedding day. I was there."
At her shiver, I asked, "You were?"
She nodded, but clearly didn’t want to talk about it.
I patted her arm. "I promise, I think I know what I’m doing."
"Is that supposed to reassure me?"
I grinned. "It’s about as much reassurance as I’m capable of."
"Good to know."
After we both used the bathroom and washed up, we returned to the restaurant and found ourselves at the center of the diners’ attention once more.
"I could get used to this. I’ll just stick with you and I’ll find me a sugar daddy in no time," Jen teased as she tucked her arm through mine.
"I’m sure Aidan would love that."
"Possessive, is he?" She snorted. "Don’t answer. If he comes from the same school as Finn, then he times you when you go for a piss."
I blinked. "Huh?"
"She says it’s endearing."
"Endearing?" I repeated, laughing a little. "You’re going to have to give me some backstory."
She wafted a hand. "I guess I can now. It was always weird not being able to talk about them, but Finn is mega intense where Aoife’s concerned.
"Anyway, when she was pregnant with Jake, she went to the bathroom and didn’t come back for a while. He just thought, ya know, baby stuff. There’s lots of gross crap that comes out of you when you’re pregnant." She shuddered in disgust. "Anyway, Aoife puked, somehow managed to crack her head on the toilet, then passed out on the floor. Ever since, Finn monitors her."
"Is she pregnant again?"
"Nah. He’s just obsessed. It’s like if he takes his eyes off her, she might disappear." She pulled a face. "It’s creepy, but she digs it."
My lips curved. "Well, as long as she’s okay with it, that’s all that matters, right?"
"I guess." She hummed. "Who’s that?"
"Who’s who?" I asked, following her line of sight. "I have no idea," I replied, seeing exactly who she meant. "Jesus, he’s hot."
"You’re taken now."
"We’ve been together for less than a day!" I retorted, but I was teasing and she knew it. She also did this thing with her arms that plumped up her tits. Rolling my eyes at her, I muttered, "You’re incorrigible."
The stranger wasn’t someone I recognized, and neither did Aidan if his scowl was anything to go by. However, the way Aidan was holding his glass told me he wasn’t angry. He was also curved slightly toward the stranger who’d taken Jen’s seat, his shoulder cutting off the rest of the room while he listened to whatever the guy had to say.
I wasn’t lying when I said he was hot, either. His hair wasn’t long, but it curled about his ears, long enough to flop onto his forehead in a carelessly artless way that probably took him five minutes in the morning to sort out, but would take a woman four hours in front of the mirror. He had pitch dark eyes, a Roman nose, a jaw that if you bounced a ball off, said ball would crack, and he looked good in what I could tell was custom tailoring.
Every instinct in my body told me he was Italian.
Every instinct I possessed told me that he was mafia. Just not high up enough in the ranks to be newsworthy.
The bulge in his jacket that told me he was packing helped confirm that belief, but it was in the way he glanced around the room. My guards made similar moves—
Speaking of which, where the hell were my guards?
A quick scan of the room revealed three of them.
Seated in various places around the room, they were all watching me, and each had bruises on their faces.
Bad ones.
Jesus, Aidan had been at it again.
Before I could do much more than grimace with apology, Jen whispered in my ear, "Oh, my God, I think I just came."
I almost chuckled, but I realized why—he was looking directly at her.
And when I said directly, I meant it. It was like the twenty feet between us and the table were mere inches. Like the columns that had to diminish his view of her were non-existent. Whenever a waiter switched into her path, he didn’t appear to notice.
Shooting a look at Jen, I saw, unusually enough, that she’d blushed. There was no coquettish pouting, no smizing, no teasing smiles or hot glances. Nope, she was bright pink.
"Do you recognize him?" I muttered, trying to figure out what was going on with her.
Jen’s initial reaction to plump up her tits when in the vicinity of a hot, rich guy was her standard MO. Blushing and falling silent? Not so much.
"No," she whispered, her hand tightening on my arm.
"Are you okay?" I whispered back, concerned now.
"I’m fine," she replied, her voice thick.
About to bully her into telling me what the hell was going on, I saw that Aidan had realized the stranger’s attention was elsewhere, and that led to him seeing that I was there.
His nostrils flared at the sight of me walking toward him, and I wasn’t about to lie—I strutted the hell out of that short walk. With every passing second, his tension increased, his jaw hardened, and I just knew his boner grew more and more painful.
I almost sighed with delight.
This sweet agony of need was mutual.
Thank God for small mercies.
With their attention on us, we were a silent group as, finally, we made it back to the table. The Italian got to his feet while Aidan made an effort to stand but I pressed my hand to his shoulder and murmured, "Just scoot over."
His nostrils flared as he reached up and tangled our fingers together.
I blinked at him, almost forgetting that we weren’t alone, that the table had other people sitting at it, and that we were in a very busy bar. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be back in the elevator, me on my knees, his cock in my mouth.
Almost drooling at the thought, I slipped into the booth when he finally shifted along, and as I did, I saw that the stranger’s intense stare hadn’t died a death at all. Proximity be damned.