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I was in love with the strength and power he possessed. I didn’t know anymore, and I didn’t waste too much mental energy trying to figure it out. So while he wasn’t all bad, Colm was rich and spoiled and had a bad fucking temper, not to mention little self-control.
But in my early honeymoon days, I woke up early to get dressed and do my hair and makeup. I’d make Colm breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day, before he hopped in his yellow and black muscle car to handle business.
I knew Colm didn’t have an office job that required him to punch a clock. I knew he and Cillian operated in the gray area of the law, but that was all I knew.
Ironically, I spent much of those days in the same way my mother had, cooking and cleaning and making sure Colm had a nice, clean home and a hot meal when he came home from work.
I had, inadvertently, become Suzie fucking Homemaker in the flesh. The worse part? I didn’t hate it—or myself.
Colm appreciated the way I kept the home nice and neat, the way I was always dressed nicely and wore makeup when he arrived home.
“Hey babe, you look hot today,” he’d always say, greeting me with a kiss that I felt down to my toes. It wasn’t the absent peck my dad offered up to my mom. No, this was the kiss of a man in love. A man who couldn’t get enough of touching his wife.
Sometimes the kiss would lead to a pre-dinner fuck right there in the kitchen. Or the laundry room. Or the small room he used as a home office. He was insatiable for me and knew just how to get me off, which I loved. Every fuck, every orgasm helped erase the memories of my summer with Owen.
“My cock would live in you if he could,” he growled and kissed me one last time before tucking himself away.
I would blush prettily afterward, still not used to accepting compliments without ulterior motives. “Thanks.”
“Come and let me get a good look at you.” He would flash that wide grin, looking me up and down as he took my hand and made me do a little twirl while he whistled at my appearance. “I must’ve done something right to get the prettiest wife in all of Nevada.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re sweet, Colm.” I sincerely believed that with every fiber of my being. No man had ever spoken to me that way, and my dad sure as hell never said things like that to my mom. To me, Colm was everything.
Until he wasn’t.
Not even a year into our marriage, the real Colm emerged.
I was in the kitchen pulling bread I’d just made from the oven when I heard the front door slam.
“Hey, babe,” I called out, “I’m in the kitchen!”
I smiled, excited for him to see me in the new pink dress I bought because he loved the color on me. I turned with a welcoming smile for my husband and gasped at the sight of him.
“Colm, what happened?” My fingertips brushed the edges of a quickly-forming black eye.
He pushed me away. Hard. “Fucking Marsden cheated me. He fucking cheated me.”
I could smell the alcohol on his breath, as strong as if it had come straight from the bottle.
“That motherfucker thinks he can cheat me and get away with it. Well, he can’t.”
I knew that look well; it was the same look he wore whenever he was about to do something stupid. Something that would require Cillian to step in to clean up after him.
Again.
I sighed and pushed him into a kitchen chair, hoping a little TLC would soothe his wounded ego. “Let me get you some ice to take down the swelling.”
“I don’t need no fucking ice, Sadie. I need that ten grand.”
I turned in surprise. “Ten thousand dollars?” Who on earth played cards for so much money? I knew people at the casinos did serious gambling, but who risked that kind of cash just for fun?
Colm scoffed. “It’s nothing, and the amount isn’t the fucking point. That money is mine, and he stole it from me.”
He’d lost it; even I knew that much. Colm had no sense when it came to cards. He was superstitious and discounted the importance of being able to read your opponents, two skills I’d learned from too many hours spent with Uncle Seamus.
“I’m sure you’ll win double that tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure at all, but that was what a good wife did, right? She lifted her husband up when he was low and boosted him so he would do better the next day.
For my efforts, I was rewarded with the hardest backhand I’d ever felt.
