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“How come I never heard about this?”
She lifted a finger in her son’s direction. “Because ye ears are always clogged with nonsense and ye never listen, Conny.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I muttered into my bowl as I lifted it to my face and drank down what was left of the broth.
A girl could get used to this. Couldn’t tell ya the last time I had something resembling a home-cooked meal. I pushed up from my chair, walked over, and rinsed out my bowl before setting it in the sink. While Connor continued to watch me the entire time.
“Ya wouldn’t have heard about it. At least ya shouldn’t have. Unless one of the families wants ya to. None of it makes the news. And on the rare occasion that it does, it’s always listed as something else. A house fire, a car accident, maybe a mugging if someone is feeling froggy.” I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug.“But never murder, never homicide. Never the truth about what it really is.”
I hated the way he was looking at me right now. Like I was lost and broken. Like I needed taking care of when I didn’t. Like I needed saving and he was the one to do it.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the countertop, daring the fucker to say something stupid. The fact that his mama was present wouldn’t stop me from dropping his ass to the kitchen floor.
I could only assume my expression told him as much when his gaze left mine and shifted to his mother instead. “Then how’d you hear about it?”
“Not me. Yer da.” She pressed a palm to her chest with the slight raise of a thin brow. “The boys at the factory like to drink. And when they drink, they like ta talk. Then yer da comes home and tells me all about it. Most of it’s nonsense. Some of it’s not. Only takes a wee bit of yer brain to know the difference.”
Connor closed the door to his childhood bedroom, barely waiting for it to click into the frame before he was pivoting in my direction.
I quirked a brow as a slow smirk crept across his face. “Thought your mama told your ass to sleep on the couch?”
He rolled on the balls of his feet, his hands tucked into the pockets of his sweatpants and that boyish charm of his reaching panty-melting levels. “She also told me not to be messin’ around with them unruly Italian girls, yet here I am and there you are.”
He stepped forward, and I stepped back, the underside of my thighs hitting the metal of the tiny bedframe.
“You really need to change those bandages.” I gestured a hand towards his exposed abdomen, my eyes glued to the deep V that defined the muscles there.
“Mmhmm.” Another predatory step, and I had nowhere left to go.
“Your mother’s gonna be pissed as hell if she finds your dumb ass bleeding out on her carpet in the morning.”
“Yup.” His mouth was on the side of my neck. Sucking, licking, biting. And my head tipped back to let him do it, my teeth sinking down into the meat of his shoulder to muffle the sounds of my moans, as his hand reached under the hem of my loose t-shirt in search of my clit.
The streetlamp was shining in through the small breach in the thin curtains, the light dancing across Connor’s face. The cocky bastard even smirked in his sleep. Though a few good orgasms would do that to you.
I should know.
My lips were curling a bit on their own, as I carefully slid off the tiny twin-sized mattress and lowered my bare feet onto the pleasantly plush carpeting. Each step I took felt louder than the last, though I was certain they were soundless, as I tiptoed towards the door. My eyes skimming over the various family photos and childhood knickknacks strewn across the walls and propped up on shelves.
When my left foot brush something soft, I reached down and swiped up Connor’s discarded sweatpants before rooting around his pockets and finding exactly what I was looking for. A little white calling card. That might as well have had “it’s a trap” scrawled across the top.
Pretty boy thought his coming up here would keep me from skipping out on him, when all it really did was offer me an opportunity to put his ass to bed. Sex was just as good as any tranquilizer I was looking to use. Sometimes it was better. More predictable.
The stairs creaked as I shifted my weight from one to the next, holding my breath as I eyed the front door, which felt much farther away than I was certain it measured. Only to choke down a gasp when I saw a figure turn the corner and stare back at me from the lower landing.
“Sure ye don’t wanna put some pants on first?” Mrs. MacCullagh crossed her arms over her chest, the whites of her eyes glowing in the darkness of the entryway liked something out of my nightmares. Not much sent a chill down my spine anymore. But this mousey Irishwoman?
Yeah, she just made the list of things that went bump in the night.
40
It was one thing to wake up and find out that the woman you’d spent the night with had skipped out. It was another altogether to realize your mother had taken her place. And not in the way you’re thinking.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
My ma wasn’tin bedwith me. But shewasin my bed. With me. Her nightcap on and her ankles kicked up and crossed over the footboard, to alleviate the swelling she was prone to have after spending all day on her feet. My gaze flicked to her arms, which were set over her chest as if she were waiting for the Grim Reaper to snatch her up and drop her off at her own wake.
Like I said, us Irish were a weird lot.
