Irish Sex Fairy

Chapter Twenty-One

They had a big argument about what to do with Scott. Shane insisted she had to call the police. She didn’t want to. Well, part of her did. The stupid idiot could have killed her by driving her off the road that day. She wavered between spurts of anger and empathetic sorrow. She felt for him, she really did. But what he’d done wasn’t right. And perhaps he needed some kind of help.

So in the end she gave in and let Shane call the police. They came and took statements and took Scott away but she told them she didn’t want to press charges—she just wanted to make sure he got the help he needed.

It was nearly midnight by the time that was all done and she and Shane were alone. She eyed her broken door with disgust.

“You didn’t have to break the door down,” she said. “I had him calmed down and I knew there were no bullets in the gun.”

“Keara. Dammit. Don’t ever assume a gun isn’t loaded.” He walked toward her. “If you have some tools I’ll fix the door. For tonight.”

They found what he needed although he looked askance at her pink-handled hammer and screwdrivers. “They’re tools for women,” she said.

He just shook his head and went to work, and soon the door was fixed enough to be secure for the night. She’d likely still have to get someone to replace the whole thing tomorrow.

Shane set her tools on the kitchen counter and turned to face her. They shared a long, questioning look.

“What are you doing here, Shane?” she whispered, arms wrapped around herself, shoulders hunched.

He took a step toward her. “I…Jesus, Keara.” His eyes closed briefly and he stuck his hand into his hair, held the back of his head for a moment. “I can’t believe I got here just when that guy…”

“It was okay,” she said softly. She took a step toward him now. “I was dealing with it.”

He burned her with his gaze, eyes blazing blue. “Yeah. I guess you were.”

She shivered. “You still haven’t answered my question. And I don’t think it’s because you have ESP and knew that I was in danger, so you rushed here to rescue me.”

He smiled faintly. “Actually…”

Her lips parted. “No!”

He huffed. “Okay, I guess it’s not ESP, but it’s weird. Once I’d decided I was coming, it felt like it was an emergency. Like I had to get here as fast as possible. I broke the speed limit on the freeway.”

“Not you! An officer of the law?” Her teasing coaxed a small laugh from him.

“Yup.”

They stared at each other again. She tipped her head to the side and lifted an eyebrow.

He sighed. “I came to see you. To talk to you.”

“About…?”

His mouth tightened and his throat moved as he swallowed. Her body quivered in anticipation.

“I love you, Keara.”

Everything inside her went soft and shivery and her breath got stuck in her throat. Her eyes burned. Her mouth pouted.

He watched her with eyes full of hope and fear. She unwrapped her arms from around herself and stepped into Shane’s. He pulled her hard against him and the welcoming warmth and strength of him sent a flood of emotion through her so intense he had to hold her up. She threw her own arms around him and squeezed tight.

“I love you too,” she told his chest, her words muffled by his shirt. “I love you so much. I missed you so much.”

“Me too. That’s why I’m here. I want to be with you, Keara.” He tugged her hair so she had to lift her head and look at him. A wet spot spread on his shirt from her tears.

She nodded eagerly. “Oh, me too.” She gazed up at him. She’d been so lonely this week. Before going to Kilkenny she would never in a million years have thought of quitting her job. But she was thinking of it now. And it didn’t even bother her. “I want to come back. To Kilkenny.”

“You do?” His eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“But I came here to tell you I’ll move to LA. Because your career is so important to you.”

She put a hand up to his face, cupping his lean, rough cheek, her thumb tracing over the square strength of his chin. She studied his mouth, his eyes, close enough to see each individual eyelash, the tiny dots of black whiskers, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. She traced over one thick eyebrow with a fingertip, then brushed her fingers across his beautiful mouth.

“You are so much more important to me than my career,” she told him and the light that flamed in his eyes filled her with intense joy. He crushed her to him, buried his face in her hair, and if she didn’t know better because he was a big, tough cop, she would almost have thought he was crying. They stood like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other, holding each other, squeezing the breath out of each other.

“God, I love you,” he whispered. And then their mouths met, in a long, devouring kiss. She slid a hand to the back of his head, kissed him over and over, lush kisses of hunger, gratitude, complete surrender, total abandon.

She felt his heart thudding against her, her ears buzzing, her skin sizzling. She couldn’t get close enough to him and she pressed herself to him, kissed him deeper, open mouthed, her tongue licking into his mouth to find his.

“Keara, God, Keara.” They paused to gasp for breath, staring at each other. “We’ll fight later about who’s going to move where.”

“No, we won’t. I’m moving to Kilkenny. Maeve is there. Your parents are there. They need you.”

“Apparently not.” His wry smile made her pull back and look inquiringly at him. “They told me to get lost and quit bugging them.”

“Whaaat!”

“I’m kidding. Sort of. I went over there tonight and they told me they’ve been thinking of moving to the new seniors’ complex.”

“Really?”

“Yup. They also gave me a big lecture about sacrificing the woman I love to look after them when they don’t even want me to.”

“Oh.” She touched his face. “Oh Shane. I think they do still need you.”

“Yeah. I guess. It just felt like a smack in the face. Kind of like you do to me all the time.”

She jerked back. “What the hell does that mean?”

He laughed. “It’s a good thing, Keara. I go around thinking I need to protect everyone, look after everyone. Well, the truth is, I can’t. I felt like crap when you left, partly because I was worried about you. I wasn’t there to look after you, after the crazy things that had been happening. And then I get here and come charging in like a freakin’ white knight, and you didn’t even need me. You had the whole thing under control.”

She smiled at him, filled with a swelling tenderness. “I did, didn’t I?” A feeling of pride nudged inside her. “I’m okay, I think. I went back to work without a full-blown panic attack. It was hard, but I did it. I even made some decisions. Nothing like having to fire people. But if I ever have to make that kind of decision again, I know what I have to do.”

“What?”

“If it’s the right business decision, I just have to make sure I’ve looked after the people part of it. I still have to make the decision. But I’ll try to understand the human impact of it, and try to address that too, if I can.”

He smiled down at her, and she could tell he was proud of her too.

“But I do need you,” she continued, holding his face in her palms. “I need you so much. Not to protect me. Well, maybe sometimes. I need you because you make me better. Because you make me feel good about myself. Because I…I love you. I just need you.”

“I need you too.” His eyes shone. “I realized that too. I thought everyone needed me, and they don’t…”

“We do, Shane. We do.”

“Well. I need you. To keep me in line if I try to take over people’s lives. To give me a smack and make me realize I’m not in charge of everyone, all the time.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Okay. I can do that.”

She went onto her tiptoes and kissed him again, a kiss to show him how much she needed him.

“Did you bring any of those toys back with you?” he murmured a long moment later.

“Mmmhmm.”

Their mouths met and clung again.

“You do realize we owe Maeve for this?”

She paused. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “The Irish Sex Fairy. She was only partly right.”

“How so?”

She kissed the other corner of his mouth, licked across his bottom lip. He groaned. She liked it. “It wasn’t just the sex that made me better. It was sex with you. It was love.”

“Mmm. I like that.”

They forgot about the toys. For a while.