High school douchebags are decidedly less tough once they've literally shit their pants when three guys with guns meet them in the dark house they're trying to use to get laid.
I click on the lights and grin.
The place is exactly the same as it always was back then.
In the old days, pre-Dark Saints, pre all of us kids growing up too fast and too hard, this place was our haven. Mike and Colleen Gallagher would take us here when Boston turned into a fucking frying pan in the summer - out here on Cape Cod to the house Colleen's parents had left her.
Just me, Liam, and Gray, and our basically adopted siblings, Damien and Nora.
I glance around at the 50's kitsch decor - the wood walls, the old windowpanes, the old throw blankets over threadbare couches that still look like home. The fireplace to one side, the doorway into the old kitchen where Mrs. Gallagher would make sandwiches and insist on lathering us with more sunscreen before we headed back down to the water.
I barely ever come here anymore, just with life being what it is. I've also never brought anyone here, that's for sure.
Sierra whistles behind me. "Oh my God, this place is amazing."
"That better not be sarcasm."
"It's not! Holy shit I love this."
I grin. "Thanks."
"Your family's?"
"Sort of."
She sighs, giving me a look.
"Drink?"
Sierra smiles. "Now? It's like ten in the morning."
"Yep, right now."
"Family stuff that hard to talk about, huh?"
"Sorry, were you there when those guys were shooting at us and trying to kill us?"
She grins and looks away, and I kneel down and feel under the bottom shelf of the bookcase before I smile.
Yep, still there.
The bottle Mike Gallagher always kept hidden away. I pull the dusty thing out into the light and shake my head. This shit is rotgut bad, but hell, it's aged now, I guess.
I pour us some glasses, but then leave them on the coffee table and head out to grab some wood by the side of the house. I come back with an oversized armload and start to build the logs up in the fireplace.
"My brothers and I - Liam and Gray. Eventually, people figured out our parents weren't around."
She looks down into her glass.
"My mom ran off when we were real young, and my dad," I shrug. "My dad was a piece of shit, and he eventually took off too. Jack- that's Aela's dad-"
"Aela?"
My brother Liam's girlfriend. No, fiancée."
She gives me a look and I shake my head and grin. "This is all complicated, and I'm doing a fucking shit job of explaining it."
"Well, I'm listening."
I pluck my glass off the table and take a swig. "So, back in the day, Jack Reilly ran the Saints."
"The Saints?"
"The Dark Saints."
"Your gang."
I chuckle. "It's not really like that. It's not like we run around holding up banks or wearing the same color bandanas or shit like that. It's more like a family. Jack ran things back in the day, and he took my brothers and me in and made sure we stayed out of foster care. He put us up with the Gallaghers, who had two kids - Damien and Nora. Damien brought us those groceries the other morning at my place."
"I think I was tied to a chair?"
I grin, clinking my glass to hers.
"Anyway, this was their summer place. They weren't rich, they didn't have much, but this place was fuckin' heaven back in the day."
"Well, hey, cheers to being one of five."
I grin and clink her raised glass. "Shit ain't easy."
"I'll drink to that."
She does and I watch her before I turn and start jamming old newspaper under the logs.
"Jack's gone now, and his daughter Aela runs the Saints."
"Go girl power."
"Basically."
"And her and your brother are engaged?"
"Yep."
"There's a joke here about sleeping with the boss, isn't there."
I smile and shake my head. "Trust that I've made all of them. Literally all of them."
She grins as I light the fire, letting it get roaring. I move back and sit with my back against the sofa she's camped out on.
"So, now what?"
"I'm figuring that out. But for now, we wait here while the Saints get shit under control back in Boston."
"You'd rather be there, helping."
Her voice drifts down over me from her perch on the couch behind and above me. And it's not that she's got one of those sultry sex-kitten voices or anything, there's just something so fucking sweet and so damn innocent about her voice.
Something too naive, still.
Whatever it is, it makes me want to yank her off that couch onto my mouth and make her squeal before I fuck her right here on the floor.
I take a solid belt of my whiskey instead, calming that beast.
"And what makes you say that?"
"I can tell."
I shrug. "Yeah, I would. No offense."
"None taken."
"I do better doing, if that makes sense." I half turn to look up at her sitting on the couch with her legs tucked up underneath her.
"It does, actually."
"But, boss's orders. Aela wants me gone and laying low, so here we are."
We drift to silence again, sitting there sipping our drinks as the daytime fire crackles in the fireplace. I glance back at her, watching her eyes flicker over the flames, and I can feel that beast roaring again inside.
And it's not just that I want to ravage her and fuck her until she's moaning my name and coming all over my cock. It's that there's something so fucking sweet about her that it calls out to me. There's something so nakedly beautiful about her that makes me want to shelter her from the world.
But I blink that thought away. That's not what this is. At all.
"What are you in grad school for?"
She turns, pulling her eyes away from the flames and back to me.
"Law, actually. Well, it's this combined business and law program that spits you out after three years with an MBA and credentials to finish up with two years at a law school."
I whistle. "Well, well, well."
She rolls her eyes. "Yeah."
"No, I'm impressed."
"It becomes less impressive when I mention that I'm not exactly going to class much recently."
"Shit happens."
"Well, shit like this gets you kicked out of very prestigious programs."
She sighs and finishes the rest of her whiskey in one tilt of her head. She blinks back the burn, clearing her throat and making a face before she glances back down at me.
"Holy shit, that's … "
"Bad."
She snorts a laugh as I grin.
"Yeah, age has not done much to Mike Gallagher's shitty taste in booze."
I knock the rest of mine back and pour in a fresh splash before topping hers off as well.
"Sláinte."
She smiles back. "Sláinte. So, now what?"
"Bored with small talk and a fire already?"
She smiles shyly, looking away. "No, I just … " She blushes, looking down at her glass.
And my cock throbs, suddenly wondering if she was just suggesting what I think she was.
"I mean, I-"
"You had something else in mind," I say, my voice edged.
I know what she wants. She wants me to make her feel and forget like I did last night. She wants me to take control, and dominate her like I did. And fuck, I want that too, but I know where that leads.
And I'm not that guy.
And this ain't that.
And this cannot happen, not anymore.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
She recoils like I slapped her, and I immediately feel like shit for phrasing it like that.
"No, I mean-"
"That's not what I was implying," she says briskly, sitting up a little straighter as if that's somehow making her more proper and not just pushing her tits out against her thin top. Cause, that's what it's doing.
I drag my eyes up to her face, leveling a look at her. "Really."
"Yes, really, thank you very much."
"So, you weren't about to ask me nicely to bend you over, peel those panties off, slide my big cock inside of you, and fuck you until you're screaming for more?"
Her face goes bright red and she almost sputters on her whiskey.
"I was not!" she says it shrilly, her whole face pulsing red. "Ugh, God, you are-" she shakes her head, looking pissed. "You're a pig."
"Never claimed I wasn't."
"Well, I never claimed I wanted you to touch me again."
I grin. "Didn't have to, sweetheart. It's all over your face."
"Get over yourself, asshole. You think cause you've got this cocky attitude and the whole macho bad boy thing, and the sexy loft, and the big-"
She stumbles, her face going red.
"Oh, please continue."
Her face burns, and she hastily looks away. "You think all that makes you this irresistible gift to-"
"My big what?"
Her eyes dart back, flickering.
"Say it."
She swallows. "You're disgusting."
"I never said I was Prince Charming, sweetheart."
"Good, because you're not."
"And what am I."
I move closer, and she shivers before she suddenly gets up and steps away. "I need to- we're done having this conversation."
"You started it, sweetheart."
"Well I wish I hadn't," she snaps. She steps across the room angrily before she stops and whirls back in a huff.