That’s it. No matter what I once thought of the man, he loves my friend, and I have to love him for that.
The reception’s a magnificent affair, right on the grounds of the mansion. A large tent’s set up, tables laden with delectable food, and music filters through speakers. A fountain bubbles over with bubbly beside a table set with crackers, cheese, and antipasto. My stomach growls with hunger, so I fill my plate. Megan waves me over to a table, and I gratefully take my seat.
“This is delicious, I say with a groan. The crackers are light and buttery, the cheese tangy and creamy, the cured meats and olives some of the best I’ve ever had.
“Oh, aye,” Megan says, taking hearty bites herself. “Nolan knows some people in Spain.”
I stifle a snort. Of course they’d have Spanish food imported for an event like this. “Have you tried the hot hors d'oeuvres yet?”
I shake my head, and Megan waves down one of the waitstaff. My eyes go wide at silver trays of stuffed mushrooms, little squares of spanakopita, and tiny little meatballs with toothpicks in them.
“I won’t have an appetite for much else if I eat this,” I say to Megan, but her gaze is at the entrance to the garden.
“Ah, the couple arrives,” she says, and stands. We cheer and hoot and holler as Mr. and Mrs. Lachlan McCarthy are introduced. Then the couple takes their first dance.
“Go,” Megan says to me.
I look at her, startled. “Excuse me?”
“Go,” she whispers, gesturing toward Tiernan. “He needs a dance partner, and you don’t want that stupid twat Leesa to get him, do you?”
That “stupid twat” was a friend of mine I had lost touch with. I snort.
“What do you have against Leesa?”
Megan rolls her eyes. “She knows everything there is to know, that’s what. Stuck up little thing. I don’t want her near Tiernan.”
My brows rise. “Really?”
“Really,” Megan says. “Now get on over there, and I bet he’ll ask you to dance.”
I frown at her. “And if he doesn’t?”
Megan groans. “I’ll kick his arse.”
Sure she will.
I get up at her prompting and walk over to him tentatively. Some of the other men of the Clan are dancing, but Tiernan watches them all, his eyes sharp and stern.
“Hello, Tiernan.”
He turns and looks at me as if for the first time. He blinks, then drags his gaze down from my eyes to my dress, then quickly back up again.
“Aisling. You look lovely tonight.”
He turns his gaze away. I don’t know if I’m pleased or not.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice wavering a little. “Are you… going to dance?” I ask him, immediately wishing I could take it back. This is not how this was supposed to go.
“I don’t dance…” he begins, then follows it with a shrug, “much.”
I nod. “I don’t either, but Megan said I should come over and ask you.”
I’ll throw her under the bus then.
He looks to me, his expression changing. A corner of his lips quirks up. “Did she?”
He looks over his shoulder at Megan, who’s gesturing madly and making motions for us to go to the dance floor.
“She’s crazy,” I mutter.
“Absolutely mad,” he agrees with a chuckle. Then he sighs. “Suppose it couldn’t hurt.”
I look at him in surprise. “Well, don’t act like you’re doing me a favor,” I snap. The nerve! I turn to walk away, ignoring Megan, when I feel his hand on my arm.
My reaction’s instant. It’s the first time he’s ever touched me. His touch is warm, possessive, and insistent, sending frissons of awareness and a tingle of excitement straight through me. My eyes widen as I look to him.
“Shut it, Aisling, and get out on the dance floor. One dance won’t kill us.”
“Oh, aren’t you the romantic,” I mutter, while the next moment he’s sweeping me onto the floor.
Aisling
The way he touches me, the way he holds me, the sharp pain he delivers from his palm, somehow keeps me in the present, keeps me centered right here, right in this moment. Keeps the demons that have plagued me… quiet.
Silently, he pushes me onto the bed and reaches for the bedside table. He draws out the cuffs, and I freeze, but he only bends and kisses my forehead.
“Trust me.”
I nod. He positions me on the bed on my back, takes my wrists above my head, and fastens the metal cuffs. They clink into place, and his eyes darken. Once my wrists are secured, he bends and kisses me again, a gentle brush of his lips to mine. My body still trembles, my breathing’s hitched, as he lowers my joggers and kisses the uppermost part of my thigh.
His eyes darken as he pushes himself up, lifts my legs, and smacks my bare arse with his palm.
I gasp, but before I’ve recovered from the hard spank, his mouth is at my pussy, his tongue at my folds. I move my hands to push him away, forgetting for a moment that they’re in cuffs.
“Tiernan, no,” I say. It’s too intimate, too private, and I’ve never felt anything quite like that before. That earns me another hard slap to the arse and a raised brow.
“No? Are you allowed to say that to me?”
I’m bloody well not. My mouth goes dry, and I close my eyes as his mouth goes back there, between my legs, where it seems all the heat of my entire body is focused. He drags the tip of his tongue through my sensitive, throbbing parts, and my hips rise of their own accord. He suckles and laves, laps and sucks until I can’t take it anymore. My climax overtakes me, and I scream his name as I come. My body gives way to ecstatic spasms of pleasure.
The pain and torture that wracks my body’s momentarily forgotten in the aftermath of climaxing. I let my sex-sated eyes wander over his body uninhibited.
“You’re the sexiest fucking man I’ve ever seen,” I say in a throaty whisper. A corner of his lips tips up. I reach for the bulge in his trousers, eager to pay him back, and he groans.
I swallow hard. “Let me… suck you off? Please, Tiernan.” God, it’s the least I can do after all he’s done, and I’m literally dying to get a taste of him. “Please.”
He unfastens the cuffs, eying me.
“Are you going to behave yourself?”
“Mmm,” I say, pushing off the bed and falling to my knees in front of him. “I’ll be… I’ll do whatever it is you want me to.”
‘Good girl’ is hard for me. No one’s ever called me that before, and I don’t know how to handle it. It makes me feel dirty and wicked when he calls me that, because it’s a name that doesn’t belong to me.
He swallows hard. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I bloody well have to,” I say, frowning at him. My voice cracks. “Please. I need to. I need to thank you somehow.”
In my mind, I whisper the words I can’t say out loud.
Let me do this before the demons come back.
My heart thunders when he fists my hair, my long blonde curls wrapped around his large, strong fingers.
“Christ,” he grates, all semblance of gentleness gone. “Wanted to do that for fucking ever.”