Page 25 of His Kidnapped Irish Mafia Virgin

I rested my hands gently against her waist and waited. Nora looked up at me, and something in her expression made my chest tighten. There was still fear there, but it no longer seemed to be fear of me.

“Are you sure?” I whispered.

She nodded. “I am.”

I kissed her again, slower this time. She relaxed against me, her hands moving like she’d finally stopped wondering whether she was allowed to hold on to me.

There was nothing hurried about the way we moved toward the bedroom. We stopped more than once just to look at each other, and every time I saw the same quiet certainty in her eyes.

When we reached the bed, Nora took my hand and pulled me down beside her. For a while, we simply lay there, facing each other.

“I don’t know what happens after tonight,” she whispered.

“Neither do I.”

She smiled faintly. “That’s strangely comforting.”

As I opened my mouth to say something else, she pressed a finger against my lips.

“Shh, you talk too much. Why don’t you shut up and make love to me.”

She kissed me again, and this time I stopped thinking. We undressed each other slowly, pausing whenever our eyes met. There was something deeply intimate about being seen without the defenses either of us normally carried. I held her close and moved without urgency. Her breathing changed against my ear, sometimes quick and uneven, sometimes settling when I whispered her name.

At one point, we shifted positions, and she laughed softly when we ended up tangled in the sheets. I kissed her before she could speak. We changed sides again, never quite managing to stay still. Somehow, that only made the moment feel more real. There was no performance, no pressure, just the warmth of her body against mine and the quiet rhythm of our breathing.

I pulled her against my chest as she rested her head over my heart. For a long while, neither of us spoke.

“You’re staying with me tonight,” I said quietly.

She nodded against my skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nora

I didn’t wake up because of a nightmare. I didn’t wake up because I thought someone was standing outside my bedroom door waiting to drag me back to the life I’d escaped from. I simply opened my eyes because my body had rested enough. For a few moments, I stayed in the same position, almost afraid to move. I knew the feeling inside me was something I hadn’t felt in years, and it took me a while to understand what was different.

Every morning since I’d arrived in Boston had started with the same tired routine. Before my eyes even adjusted to the light, I would listen for danger. I would convince myself that every sound meant someone had found me. My heart would beat fast before I even remembered where I was. It would take minutes before I could breathe normally again. That fear had become so familiar that I no longer questioned it. It was part of waking up. This morning, however, there was no panic.

Instead, there was a strange, unfamiliar calm. It was so unexpected that I almost didn’t recognize the feeling. I became aware of Liam’s steady breathing beside me, and that’s when I finally understood the change.

I turned my head carefully and looked at Liam. He was still asleep. I studied him in a way I never had before. Every time I’d looked at him, he was carrying himself with the awareness of a man who expected trouble to appear at any moment.

Even when he smiled, there was usually something beneath it. It was as though the warmth could disappear without warning if someone gave him a reason. None of that existed now. His face had relaxed completely, and he looked younger than I’d ever seen him. The scar near his temple seemed less severe. The tension around his jaw had disappeared. It occurred to me that few people had seen this version of Liam O’Connor.

Most people knew the man who gave orders without raising his voice. They knew the man who became calm whenever violence was about to happen. I was looking at somebody else entirely. I couldn’t stop wondering whether this was the real Liam, hidden beneath everything life had forced him to become. Did this version of him only appear for a few hours every night?

Yesterday felt like it had happened weeks ago. I’d finally told him everything I’d spent years trying to bury. I’d been certain that once he knew the truth he’d look at me differently. I’d convinced myself that the moment I admitted where the money came from and why I took it, something inside him would change. Instead he’d listened to every word without interrupting me. When I finished speaking, he hadn’t looked disappointed or disgusted.

He’d looked angry, but not at me. The anger was for Victor, for everything I had survived, and for every person who’d made me believe surviving was something I should apologize for. Nobody had ever been so angry for me before.

Nobody had ever looked at those parts of my life and made me feel lighter instead of smaller. I hadn’t realized how heavy those memories had become until I placed them in his hands. Lying beside him now, I understood that the peace I felt had little to do with the house itself. It came from knowing that for the first time in years, I wasn’t carrying everything alone.

Without thinking, I reached out and gently brushed a loose strand of dark hair away from his forehead. The movement was small, but his eyes opened almost immediately. I snatched my hand back like I’d been caught doing something wrong. The slow smile that spread across his face told me he understood exactly what had happened.

“So,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep, “have you finished inspecting me, or are you planning to keep going until you find another scar to stare at?”

“I wasn’t inspecting you,” I replied, trying to sound offended. “You happened to wake up while I was thinking about something. You’ve reached the wrong conclusion.”