Chapter Eleven

I was dozing on my couch when there was a knock. I flew to the door to open it to him. 

“Look before you unlock,” he said.

“I knew it was you,” I argued.

“You never know it’s me. Like how all guns are loaded, you always look before you unlock,” he said. 

I sighed but nodded, taking him in.

I was already dressed down to leggings and a tee shirt. He was still in his suit. I pulled him to my couch and we fell on it. Lay for a few long moments– holding each other. Because it had been a while since we’d done so. 

“I have something to tell you,” I said, feeling and no doubt sounding nervous.

“Go ahead, Puppy,” he said. 

I liked that he didn’t promise to not be angry or that ‘anything I had to say was going to be okay.’ It was a lie my grandmother had told me often enough. She did it for the right reasons. She wanted me to feel safe to tell her things. But she’d say ‘you can tell me anything, I won’t get mad’ and inevitably she’d be mad or upset or disappointed. And I’d feel worse still

Until I just clammed up. I never lied to her but I eventually stopped telling her anything at all. 

“I love you,” I said.

He chuckled, holding me closer, sort of juggling me in his arms. 

“I know,” he said. “And it doesn’t change whatever you’re going to tell me. So stop stalling.” 

I sighed. “But that’s why. I love you and I want… This right now, what we have at this moment. Not just sneaking and a few minutes. I want to… I picture getting sick of you.”

I laughed weakly, because of how dumb that sounded but I didn’t know how else to put what I felt.

“I want you to become… My everyday. I want to see your face more often than I see my own. I want to become accustomed to your habits and be assured of your body near me. To steam your shirts and buy your favorite foods and pair your socks together. In short, I want to roll my eyes over your bad habits and having to pick up our shoes when they’re left in the doorway and–”

“Yes, I understand,” he laughed. “You want me to be your utterly useless husband. How flattering.” 

I laughed too, and buried my face into his chest for a second.

“I wanted us to be able to have that and so I was going to do… Something dumb,” I finally said. I didn’t even feel him tense up beneath me. I would have, if our places had been reversed. 

“I was going to go talk to your Uncle,” I finally said.

His arms clamped on me harder for a moment and then instantly relaxed. I heard him do three deep breaths in and out through his nose. Slow, measured. 

“Very dumb,” he murmured. 

I settled into him, feeling my full body weight drop into his. 

“Did you get turned away?” he asked.

I put that question aside to think on more later. If he thought I’d even gotten to the gate, maybe it wasn’t as impenetrable as Kieran wanted me to believe. Perhaps Kieran didn’t want to give me the opportunity to plead my case because maybe I actually did have the opportunity and a case to plead. 

“No, I didn’t get that far,” I said instead. “Kieran must have had eyes on me, or someone reporting. He scooped me up and brought me home before I even got past the wall.” 

He nodded, his chin bumping into the crown of my head over and over. 

“What was your plan, dearest?” he asked. Sounding heavy and loving at once.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Not really. I guess I would have said… I guess I would have told him as much. That I want the opportunity to be with you. Be with you in some really real way. And that I wouldn’t cause any trouble. Not a moment of it. And that… That you deserved that. And that everything would remain the same but you’d just be… Maybe you’d just be a little happier… Was all.” 

“Hm,” he sighed. “Do you think it would have worked?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I… I’m not somebody who can just do nothing at all.” 

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry that my talk with Kieran didn’t get him entirely off your trail.” 

“Well, if my talk with him didn’t, why would yours?” I asked.

He clutched me again. Holding on longer this time.

“What talk?” he asked.

“Um,” I said.

I really hadn’t known he was unaware. He seemed surprised to hear about this. I assumed Kieran would have told him. And it wasn’t fun to recount any of our conversations so I hadn’t wanted to– not even with Declan. 

So I told him about the initial threatening conversation. The somewhat less threatening but emotionally wrecking second one. 

“Your father was killed by a Quinn?” he asked. 

Unerringly picking out the thing that I understood to be what anyone else would think was the most important piece of information. But to me, it wasn’t.

“Apparently,” I said, shrugging. “Or so he claims. I didn’t care enough to fact-check him.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded sincere. It sounded more real than any other apology I’d heard from anyone else about all the various deaths in my life. 

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It truly doesn’t matter.” 

“Puppy… Did Kieran tell you… why he looked into you? Or why he was following you?”

I shrugged again. “No. Or… Like you mean… When he was told to, or something? No. He just said he cared about you and–”

“We don’t do that,” he said. “I’ve never been directed to look into his personal affairs– unless they were becoming a problem. His father has been concerned about his drinking in the past. If it ever was a problem, it certainly isn’t now. He had a girlfriend who had a few DUIs and I was told to talk to her about it– she eventually went to a driver’s ed and some kind of therapy weekend. But in general… We don’t get involved at that level. He asks how the other one of us is doing. If work is okay. It’s only when something seems really disruptive that he gets involved. You’ve hardly been disruptive. The only reason I should end this is because I should. Because you’ll get hurt. And the longer we go, the more you’ll be hurt.”

“What are you… Wait, I’m–” I stuttered to a halt. Unsure of how to continue. Feeling so confused, I couldn’t even get words out. 

He sat up a little more upright. Fingers on my chin to turn my face toward him. 

“What did he–?”

“Kieran told me you guys were expected to spy on each other for your Uncle,” I said, questioningly.

“No,” Declan said. “It’s like… any other conversation, right? With people who all know each other. One person asks another ‘are they doing well?’ and you answer honestly or not. He’ll ask me how Kieran is doing– I’m sure he does the same to Kieran about me but we’re not… making reports on each other.”

“Why would he tell me that, then?” I asked. 

All I could think about was what else had Kieran lied about? 

“Puppy…” he said.

“Don’t protect him,” I snarled. “What if he… What if he lied about my parents? Something just to make me feel bad or scared or–”

“He didn’t,” he said. “He wouldn’t lie about that. He doesn’t… He doesn’t know what to do. He’s never known what to do. He wants to be needed. He just wants to be… Someone’s first pick.”

“What’s the point?” I cried, trying to wiggle free of him. 

Wondering what kind of pull Kieran had on him that made Declan be his champion. It made me wonder if that was just who Declan was– consistently wanting to be a knight for whoever was in trouble. Whether that was me or his cousin. 

“Puppy… He sees in you what I saw in you,” he said, trying to hold me still. “Something loving and fun and possible. The difference is you’re an image for him… He… He collects prints.”

I could see he was trying to explain something with that statement but I couldn’t discern what. I held my hands open above our faces to convey both my confusion and my frustration.

“He loves William Bouguereau, Jean Greuze… Those murals of spring and flowers and lambs and you… You encompass all of that for him. Someone he could shelter and keep white and soft.”

“That’s not what I am, though,” I said, feeling prickly.

“No,” he agreed softly. “Or not all that you are. But I’m sure you’ve fallen for the portrait you painted of someone. And you’re easy to fall for. In truth or imagination.”

“He thinks we have things in common,” I said softly. 

“Well, you do,” he said. “We all do.” 

We slid back into silence. I tried to relax. Tried not to be angry any more. But I felt stirred up and fussy. I didn’t want to be that way– not when I was with him. Not when I was being held by him. 

“You should have told me you were getting in the car with him, though,” he said, giving me a little shake. Teasing me with a growl. Trying to knock the bad mood out of me. 

“Oh no,” I teased back. “Am I in trouble? Are you feeling like a shepherd who’s lost his favorite lamb?” “This is about you, puppy. I think you want to get messed up, you get into trouble on purpose… If you wanted that, you could have just asked for it. I could show you what that’s like,” he said.

“A collar and a leash?” I said friskily, wiggling in his arms again. 

I didn’t think this would lead to anything. We hadn’t had the time to be more intimate than rushed and loving conversation. Intense but fast kissing. Leaning forward, he latched his teeth into my shoulder.

I inhaled, moving into the bite. 

“Fuck you,” I breathed.

“That would be a part of it,” he said. 

And I could tell he was grinning again. Eyes dark and flashing. 

I tried to fight him, but he was faster, and expecting me. Wrestling my shirt up around my chest, burying my head and face in cotton, trapping my arms upward. I breathed stale air and then struggled again. He laughed low, knotting me up in the shirt. Clamping an arm around my waist, holding me between his legs, he thrust a hand down the front of my leggings. I made some sort of panicked little noise but also arched into his hand, belying any fear I might have been playing at. 

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered right in my ear. “Tell me to stop, Puppy.”

Just like that first night in the hotel room. It made me moan and fall into him, knees dropping open to his soft hand.

“Keep going,” I panted. 

“There’s the girl I know,” he teased. 

It was odd to be both muffled and blinded inside my shirt. But still definitely a turn on. It released me from feeling like I had to perform or be attractive. So often in the past I’d be so worried about being “pretty” while having sex I didn’t even manage to enjoy myself. More behaving like a living statue at a party than a sexual partner. 

I never felt that with him. Simply because he knocked any ability to think or worry at all directly out of my head. 

He didn’t let me rest after I came. Pulling my tee shirt up further, whipping it and my bra off. Spinning and rat-tailing my shirt, he suddenly wrapped it around my eyes in a blindfold. Stripping my leggings down my legs in a quick zipping movement. Using those to tie my hands in front of me. I shuddered and he paused. 

“Puppy?” he asked. I shivered, twisting my wrists in the spandex. 

“Don’t stop,” I whispered.

“Who’s my brave girl?” he said. 

Tugging me backward by my restrained arms, he settled me back on his hips. Heard him undoing his pants, one hand on my waist. When he finished he gave me a little tap– a get-to-work kind of gesture. I backed up and mounted him, groaning. 

I was about to start moving when he reached around my waist, resting a calming hand over my stomach.

“Good work,” he said. “You’re doing such a good job.”

That got me moving hard and fast. Hands still tied together I rested my palms on one of his thighs. Working. Feeling the tight tie on the back of my head of my makeshift blindfold. 

He sounded almost mournful when he came, holding fast to my waist. Helping me dismount and throwing me on my side to lay next to him. Once again laying panting and sweating together. 

I liked our messily half-undressed sex. I still couldn’t help but think of long, nude, cozy weekends, however. Where we never had to get dressed. When he’d build up that fire he talked about in our fireplace. 

Pulling the shirt gently off my face he kissed me over and over. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he said quietly. 

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. 

I got up, stumbling for a second on weak legs. He laughed, righting me. We went into my bedroom. I watched him get undressed, hanging his jacket and pants over the chair I sat in to do my makeup. So he wouldn’t be leaving in a wrinkled suit. Sliding into bed together. He held me and we listened to summer outside the window. Whispering back and forth about nothing.

“I really enjoy having sex with you,” I told him.

“I really enjoy it with you,” he agreed.

“I like how hard you play with me,” I said. “I’m surprised you’re willing to, but very grateful. It’s so… It’s so cathartic.”

“Oh yes,” he agreed, rolling tighter into me. “It’s… It’s a relief. I don’t know if it’s a good thing but… Being able to be a little rough with you is… It’s oddly healing. To merely play at violence. To pretend you in particular are unsafe. And then to see that you and I are fine afterward. I’ve done no damage. You’ve taken no harm.”

“The same,” I agreed. “Just the same.” 

Chapter Twelve

The next day Becky and I were on speaker as we got ready together. Just talking about work. Gossiping about coworkers, complaining about clients. Joking about not going in, about jetting off someplace. 

“You heard from the Quinns?” she asked softly. 

Perhaps she knew I’d been avoiding the subject.

“Fuck the Quinns,” I said. “Or anyway… fuck Kieran.”

I got her up-to-speed on everything. The aborted attempt on the Quinn stronghold, Kieran swooping in, lying about how much trouble we were all in. 

“We should go talk to him,” she said.

“We?” I asked.

“If you go alone, you’ll hit him,” she said. “And it sounds to me like he can’t take another blow.” 

“Maybe,” I sighed. 

It took me days to gather my guts– even with Becky nagging me about it. Kieran was just so much more capable than me when it came to control. He knew how to steer conversations. He read me easily. I didn’t mind sparring with him, but I worried I wouldn’t be able to come out on top. I also wanted to be assured that Declan wouldn’t be there when I attempted to pounce on Kieran. Because Declan would escort me out, or insert himself between us. 

On a day Declan was having lunch with some kind of athletic association, Becky and I gathered our things, saying we were taking lunch out together. I saw a few of our coworkers raise brows, simply because neither one of us usually left the office. But these were followed by bored shrugs. 

We took Becky’s car. I so infrequently drove– probably the last time I’d used my car was to go to do the disastrous “outreach.” We parked right out front again. No Lucky, but some other lunk was actually manning the desk. I set Becky in one of the seats.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Ms. Jones, here to see Mr. Quinn.”

“Which one?” the lunk grunted.

For half a second or less I pondered which name to use. 

“The Rod,” I said. 

He nodded briefly. Glancing me up and down. Looking over at Becky sitting perkily looking all over from her vantage on a leather seat. 

Getting up from his empty desk he lumbered over to the right-hand office. Without knocking, stepping in and closing the door firmly behind him. I looked back at Becky.

“Be fine waiting here for me?” I asked.

“Oh, uh-huh,” she chirped. “It’s weird as hell in here, though!”

“I told you so,” I said.

The door creaked open suddenly. The lunk jerked his head at me, and I brushed past him on his way back down the hallway. 

“What, in god’s name, are you doing here?” Kieran asked, low and fiercely. 

He was standing behind his desk, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“I’m going to say something to you that you will not like to hear,” I said. 

He raised one eyebrow delicately. I’d never get over how he was good-looking even when making an emotional face. Derision, superciliousness, anger– all oddly lovely.

I’d never been into his office before. Each wall had several oil paintings on them. In keeping with the general dark theme, but all lovely regardless. He had a few more covered canvases leaning against a wall. 

“Well, go ahead,” he said sarcastically, palm waving dismissively. 

“Did you ever consider that the real reason you got your job, and Declan got his job is because of how you react? You’re impulsive and manipulative and deeply controlling,” I said.

I watched a muscle flutter in his jaw, but his mask of imperiousness didn’t slip. 

“You’re aggressive and you get frustrated easily. You knew I didn’t like being followed, you were told as much. You had no cause or reason to and continued doing so, knowing that all it was was a fuck-up. Do you think Declan would just react the way you react? I’m sure you’ve seen him pause. You know him better and for longer than I have. And I can feel it in his hands and arms when he stops. I hear him breathing through a problem. I have never seen you even consider not moving forward,” I said.

“Well, fuck you very much,” he said lightly. “And I believe our meeting is adjourned.”

“No. As you’ve said before, you owe me some time, give me my time Kieran. I wanted to further say there’s a reason why your father gave you one responsibility and him a different one. Maybe it has nothing at all to do with favoritism and everything to do with business. This is just a weakness of yours. Something you can work on. Not an impossible disease.” 

He sucked his teeth briefly. Hands flexing into fists under his arms. 

“And I believe that is your time, sweetheart,” he said. Sliding back into that melted-chocolate MC voice he’d use. Going back to calling me sweetheart. 

We were back to not-friends. We were back to threat and threatened. But I didn’t care.

“Tell me just one thing, Kieran,” I said softly, reaching out to him. He shied away from my hand. “Were you even interested in me before you realized that Declan was?”

He took a deep breath, mask slipping but too fast to mark what was behind it. 

“He gets everything,” he said softly. “He has always gotten all parts of everything. When his eyes fall upon it, it is his in the same instance. Would it have been so bad, if just one time, just the once, I won? If the prize was given to me instead of him? If for once I got the lovely, untrammeled treasure?” 

“Oh, hon,” I said, reaching again. And this time he let me touch him. Just resting my fingers on his forearm. “You know I’m not any of those things, right? Not a prize to be given, or a trophy doled out. Or even as clean or as soft as you think I am.” 

“You would be all those things to me though,” he said. “I could keep you clean, and soft. Treasured and prized.”

“I’m not interested in being put into a box though,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next… But Kieran… We do have a lot in common. I’d like to know you. And Declan couldn’t be without you. So I’m here because I’m angry with you. I’m infuriated with you. I feel played with and damseled and I don’t want to feel those things.” 

“So are you looking for an apology?” he snarled. 

“Yes,” I said.

He stepped back from me. We were both breathing heavily like we’d exchanged blows. 

“I’m sorry, Poppy,” he said.

He said it heavily, but it sounded sincere. 

“Thank you,” I said. 

Pausing and catching our breaths again. 

“Well,” he said, inhaling deeply. “This surely has been a terrible afternoon.” He said it with some measure of ease and sarcasm and I felt relieved. “Can I walk you to your car?”

“Yes, please,” I said. 

I was expecting him to take my arm like he always had. But he didn’t. I was further relieved. It didn’t feel like he wasn’t out of rage or petulance. He just wasn’t trying to steer me.

He was startled when Becky stood up in the foyer, when she saw us coming down the hallway. I felt him trying to stand ahead of me– to get between me and what he assumed was a stranger.

“That’s my friend, Becky,” I said.

She was gathering both of our bags. Fumbling our totes and her keys and the phone she’d been busily tippy-tapping on while waiting for me. 

He bent toward her, taking the bags off her hands while she moved clumsily. 

“Thank you!” she panted.

“Ah, Ms. Tremblay, I assume,” Kieran said, holding out his hand.

Becky finally stopped wiggling and struggling and looked at him. I watched her do that coy little down-up-down she’d give good-looking people. The way she’d let her eyelashes brush her brows and then quickly look away again. As if to say oh, I’m far too shy to look for too long upon your gorgeousness. 

She took his hand and I watched him encircle hers in both of his.

“Were you the one who sent the flowers?” she asked, doing another one of her haunted-doll blinky-eyed moves at him.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m rather a sucker for old-fashioned rituals. Such as thank you letters. Like yours. And flowers. And I simply adore christianas, don’t you?”

“I don’t know shit about flowers,” she giggled, still shaking his hand dumbly. 

“Come on, babydoll,” I prodded her. “Gotta get back to work, right?”

“Oh, uh-huh, ‘spose so,” she said, not breaking eye contact with Kieran. “Although I mean… This is such a nice networking opportunity. With another local businessman.”

I rolled my eyes. Tugged at the purse straps still hanging on Kieran’s arm. He let Becky go and handed me off the bags. 

“It certainly is lovely to put a face to the letter,” he said.

“Even better to put a man to the flowers,” she answered friskily.

I tapped her hip impatiently. She finally got moving, and he strode ahead of us. Opening the door. Escorting us back to her car. Just like he had with me, once we were settled in our seats, he reached through Becky’s open window, handing her one of his business cards. I couldn’t have rolled my eyes harder. Still giggling, she tucked it into the visor over her head. 

“Well?” she asked.

“Well what?” I said snappily.

“Did it work?” she asked.

“I think we’re going to be friends at least. That’s step one complete,” I said with a sigh.

“The boss next,” she said firmly.

“Mhmm,” I said, already lost in thought on that front.

“Also, I mean like… well-ll?” she added after a few minutes.

I sighed even heavier. “If he goes to therapy you could have a ton of fun with him,” I said.

She squealed and drove us too fast back to the office.

After work, I called Declan. Told him what had happened. Listened to his carefully measured breathing for a second. 

“I’m glad,” he finally said. “He’s going to be a monster for a while… And I can’t recall the last time anyone called him on anything… So he’s going to be particularly intractable and stubborn for months… But I’m glad nevertheless.”

“Okay,” I said. “That means next I want you to introduce me to your uncle.”

I said it firmly but was waiting for an immediate ‘no.’ A fearful inhale. A sad exhalation. None of it happened.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll ask. We’ll see.” 

“Thank you,” I said, gulping back tears. “Thank you.”