May had assumed custody of her nieces after her brother and his wife were killed in a car accident. Since then, she and Lochlan had officially adopted both of the girls.
Everyone said their goodbyes and he left.
“Want to see the progress Justin and Killian have made on the apartment, Finn?” Oliver asked. “Don’t think you’ve seen it since the fire.”
“I’d love to.” Finn and Oliver rose as well, heading for the staircase at the back of the pub that led to the Collins Dorm. Oliver, Erin, and Gavin hoped to be able to move back into the apartment soon, planning to make it their forever home, raising their family there just as Pop Pop and Sunday had before them.
“How was the doctor?” Padraig asked Emmy when they were alone.
She shrugged. “Fine.”
“Just fine?”
“I don’t think any woman is going to rave about how much fun she had getting a pap smear.”
Padraig feigned a horrified face at her use of the words pap smear. “Glass of wine?”
“Well, I have been sitting here all of three minutes…” she teased, reaching into her bag to retrieve her laptop case.
“How’s the book coming along?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Need to do any more research?”
Emmy laughed. “I think it’s safe to say you and I have done enough research for the next twenty books.”
“Is that all? Damn. We better get busy.” Padraig poured her wine and slid it across the counter to her. “I should warn you. Aunt Riley has been on the lookout for you. She and Bubbles have decided they want to have a book club meeting or party or something, with you as their featured guest author.”
“Oh my God. Did you have to tell every single member of your family my pen name?” Her grin let him know she wasn’t as annoyed as she pretended.
“Couldn’t exactly claim the betting pool money without the proof. And it was a big pot. Kelli is trying to say I had an unfair advantage, but that’s just because she’s a sore loser.”
“Guess I know what book Bubbles and Riley want to talk about at their book club meeting.”
Padraig chuckled. “The Vegas one.”
Emmy glanced toward Sunday’s Side and the kitchen. “I hope your aunt wasn’t too upset by that book. I mean…that one was a little too true to life. The story of how Riley and Aaron met Bubbles, and how they eloped in Vegas, was just too good not to write down.”
“Bubbles swears it’s like you were there with them. And Riley absolutely loves it. She’s told every single customer who’s walked into the restaurant this week that they should read it. If you had a fan club, Riley would already be the president.”
“Maybe I should hire your aunt to be my publicist,” Emmy joked.
“The family texts this week have been nothing but book talk, everyone pointing out parts that sound just like them or their romances. They’re having a ball.”
“I’m glad no one is upset,” she admitted.
“Upset? Hell no. Emmy, you create the best characters, people you can really root for. And the sex scenes…Jesus, woman. If I’d known you’d been sitting right across this counter the past two years writing that?! Damn. I don’t know what I would have done.”
“Will it overinflate your ego if I say you inspired a lot of those scenes?”
“I think my ego is okay,” Padraig teased, leaning over the counter to get closer to her and lowering his voice. “But something else is definitely overinflated at the moment. Think I could entice you into joining me for a quickie in the storage closet?”
Emmy shook her head. “Nope. No lock, remember?”
“Heartless woman,” Padraig said, winking, then walking away when someone at the other end of the bar asked for a refill.
Emmy finished setting up her laptop and started tapping away at the keys, something Padraig had watched her do a million times before. Now that he’d had a chance to read her books, he was even more in awe of her. He’d always been curious how she was able to write in a crowded, noisy pub, but it was apparent that it was the people and this place that fed her imagination.
He’d already worked his way through several of her books, which was saying something, considering he hadn’t read a book in his life that hadn’t been assigned in school. And even for half of those, he’d found CliffsNotes to avoid actually cracking open the book.
A few nights ago, they’d taken on roles from the BDSM book she was currently writing, with him assuming the part of the hero, a billionaire Dom. Emmy was a natural submissive—something he couldn’t think about without getting a hard-on.
By the time they’d fallen asleep, physically exhausted, they’d had sex on the floor of her living room with her on her hands and knees in front of him as he’d spanked her and fucked her at the same time, then again in the bedroom, where he’d bound her spread eagle and withheld her orgasm for nearly an hour—then once more in the bathtub, with her straddling his hips, riding him. All three times they’d remained in character, the night so sexually charged and exciting, he couldn’t wait to do it all over again.
“What’s the plan for tonight?” he asked after he’d made his rounds of the patrons, refilling drinks.
“I thought I’d write here until dinnertime and eat with you. Then I need to do some laundry, so do you mind if we stay at my place tonight? I can swing by your apartment to get Seamus so you can come straight over after work.”
He nodded, recalling his conversation with his cousins. They’d told him to take his time, not to rush to the next part, but he couldn’t make himself follow that advice. “You know, I’ve been thinking about our apartment situation.”
Emmy glanced up from her computer. “We have a situation?”
He grinned. “We have two. What if we only had one?”
“You want to move in together?”
Padraig tried to read the tone in her voice, but he was struggling. “We’ve spent every night together since the soft opening of the pub, and I don’t see that changing in the near future. No, strike the word near. I don’t see it changing period.”
Emmy gave him a sweet smile. “I like the sound of that. But, Paddy, we’ve only been dating for a couple of weeks. Doesn’t it seem sort of soon to start talking about moving in? You haven’t had time to discover all my bad habits,” she joked.
“Like?” he prompted.
“I never reuse towels, so I always have a pile of them in the corner of the bathroom. It’s a problem.”
Padraig laughed. “I think I can deal with that, if you can handle the fact that I tend to leave big globs of toothpaste in the bathroom sink.”
Emmy crinkled her nose. “Ew. Gross. That might actually be a deal breaker.” Then she continued, “There will always be at least five empty glasses or water bottles on my nightstand. At least,” she stressed. “Usually it’s way more.”
Padraig was getting into the spirit of the game and hoping he was convincing Emmy that moving in together would be okay. “I’m the messiest coffee maker in the world. Always leave grounds around the pot on the kitchen counter.”
“Luna gets a ridiculous amount of hairballs, so it’s not unusual to wake up to cat puke somewhere in the apartment. And believe me, you’ll step in it barefoot before you’ll ever see it. It’s disgusting.”