“He said what you were doing was important work,” she goes on when I don’t say anything. “I thought it was ridiculous at the time, that he was just misguided, looking up to the biggest bad guy he knows like some kind of father figure. Like something to aspire to be. The worst of the worst. King of criminals.
“But then on the walk back here I remembered how you said you erased my FBI file. That you erased it, not someone else. Which means you have access to the FBI’s database. Which—taken with your ability to manipulate government satellites, and find people like they’re needles in a haystack, and run the kind of background checks that can tell you how I like my fucking eggs, is very, very interesting, to say the least.”
She walks closer and closer until she stops in front of me and stares up into my face. Her voice drops. Her eyes burn like she’s on fire.
“And then you said you were helping people, too. ‘Me fucking, too,’ you said, all angry and proud, like I’d insulted you. Which, of course, makes no sense. How can the head of the Irish mafia possibly be helping people when it’s in the job description to lie, cheat, and kill?”
She waits for an answer. I have to curl my hands to fists at my side not to reach for her. Not to crush my mouth to hers and rip off her dress and bury myself inside her.
Not to force her to be mine.
She has to offer that willingly.
“And then there’s the matter of your name,” she whispers, staring into my eyes. “Killian. A name, as far as I can tell, that no one else knows you by but me. To the whole world, you’re Liam Black, ruthless gangster extraordinaire, but you asked me to call you Killian. You said it was your real name. Strangely enough, I believe you.”
She’s so close I can smell her skin. Feel her body heat. See the pulse pounding in the hollow of her throat.
We stare at each other in superheated silence, only inches apart, until she demands, “Tell me what the big mystery is, gangster.”
I fire back, “Tell me you’re in love with me.”
Her cheeks turn scarlet. She grinds her back teeth together. “Tell me how you found out who my father is. Who I am.”
“Tell me you’re mine and mean it.”
She’s looking at me like she wants so badly to smash in my skull with a blunt object. “Tell me what you meant by there are too many lives at stake for you to trust me first.”
“Tell me that lie I made you tell in the supply closet wasn’t a lie at all, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
She examines my face in tense silence. Then she exhales, throwing her hands in the air. “You know what? Just go. I’m done playing this game with you.”
She turns away. I grab her arm, spin her around, and pull her against my chest. I clasp her jaw in my hand, forcing her to look at me.
“I’m not a boy,” I say gruffly. “I’m a man. I don’t play games. I know who I am, what I want, and what I’m willing to do to get it. And I’m willing to do anything to have you.”
Breathing hard, she stares at me with thinned lips and distrustful eyes.
I lower my voice. “But you have to make the same level of commitment, lass. You have to be mine. In every way. In all ways. You have to take a leap of faith—”
“Faith! Ha!”
“—and let this thing between us be what it is. Stop fighting it. Let it be.”
She blinks. Her lips part. The distrustful look in her eyes vanishes and is replaced by one of deep confusion. Maybe even fear.
She glances away, swallowing. When she looks back at me, she seems lost.
She says quietly, “I’m afraid.”
“I know.”
“I do want you. I do…” She looks away again. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I do have feelings for you.”
Christ. My fucking heart.
I almost groan out loud. I almost crush my mouth to hers. Instead, I stay still and silent, waiting. Giving her time.
It’s probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
When she looks back at me, she’s chewing her lip. “But I just have, like, zero frame of reference for how to deal with this. I want to trust you, but I don’t even trust myself. I can’t figure any of this out. It’s so wrong that you’re you, and I’m me, and we’re even standing here, having this conversation.”
Stroking my thumb over her satin cheek, I murmur, “I know.”
“And you know what would happen if my father found out we were together, right? You know that would start a war. You know people would die. A lot of people, on both sides. It would be a bloodbath.”
“Aye.”
Her voice rises. She’s starting to look panicked. “And maybe innocent people, too. I can’t be responsible for that. I don’t want blood on my hands. I don’t want—”
I say firmly, “Listen to me.”
She falls silent, staring wide-eyed up into my face.
“I’ll handle your father.”
Her brows lift. “Is ‘handle’ code for kill?”
“No.”
“So, what? You’ll go talk to him? You’ll work it all out?” Her laugh sounds slightly hysterical.
“Aye,” I say softly, gazing into her eyes. “I’ll go talk to him. I’ll ask him permission to marry you, and we’ll work it all out.”
She gapes at me in blank astonishment for a long moment. Then she pushes me away with both hands flat on my chest and shouts, “Are you crazy?”
All things considered, that’s not a bad reaction. I expected to be bleeding by now.
I say calmly, “No.”
“Are you—are you joking? Are you toying with me?”
“No.”
She starts to pace back and forth, wild-eyed and shaking, her arms clasped around her chest. “You’re a mental patient. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the mystery. You’re an escapee from a psychiatric ward who’s impersonating an infamous criminal. Or no—wait!” She throws her head back, laughing. “I’m starring in a new reality show where the main character doesn’t know she’s being filmed. Like what was that movie where the guy’s whole life was televised but he didn’t know it?”
“The Truman Show.”
“Yes! That one! I’m Truman!”
“You’re not Truman.”
She spins around and paces the other direction. “Or maybe this is all a hallucination. Maybe I was involved in a serious car accident, and I’m in a hospital somewhere right now, dreaming this all up. Maybe—”
I grab her by both arms and pull her against my chest again, because this is getting out of hand. I growl, “Does this feel like a dream to you?”
Then I fit my mouth over hers and give her the kiss she doesn’t think she needs, but absolutely does.
She instantly melts against me the way she always melts when I kiss her. The way she’d deny to the death that she melts. She winds her arms around my waist and falls against me, moaning a little, giving me her weight. I sink my hands into her hair, cradle her head, and kiss her until we’re both breathless.
I break away and demand, “Tell me you’re in love with me.”
Her lids drift open. Her eyes look like she’s drugged. She says slowly, “I’m in deep, conflicted, weirdly, ambivalently something with you. That’s for damn sure.”