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Diarmuid

 

 

 

What the fuck had I done?

Even after I’d fled Saoirse’s place, I had to take three goddamn cold showers to calm myself down.

Still, like the savage I was, I hardened to stone every time her face flashed in my mind, her mouth open, the sound of her coming against my thigh, her fingers making wet sounds as she pumped them inside her, watching her experience such an intimate, adult act.

She’d never looked so much a woman as in that moment.

It was wrong.

But it felt right.

And now I hated myself for it.

Technically, I hadn’t touched her. But in my words, in both our minds, I’d committed such depraved acts on her innocent body.

I could not be trusted around her.

I strode up the hallway to Coilin’s office, my footsteps not as sure as they usually were.

How the fuck was I supposed to explain myself? I couldn’t very well tell him that I lusted—lusted, dear God, what the fuck was wrong with me?—after a seventeen year old who I’d kissed. Who sent me dirty text messages that made my blood burn and my body ache.

She doesn’t look seventeen. She doesn’t act seventeen.

I shoved that voice of justification away. There was no justification for it. It was wrong. And I had to put some distance between us.

Getting her reassigned to another JLO was the first step.

First, I just had to get Coilin, my supervisor, to agree to it.

“Why?” he demanded when I asked him.

I couldn’t give the real reason without exposing myself. And Saoirse.

I shifted in my seat. “I just think maybe she’d be better off with…” with someone who wasn’t falling for her, “with a female JLO.”

Saoirse would hate me. She’d take it personally. She’d see it as another rejection. But if I spent any more time with her, it was only a matter of time before I did something stupid. Something irreparable. I had to get her reassigned.

Coilin let out a snort, looking a little too amused for my liking. “Why? She giving you, the infallible Diarmuid Brennan, trouble?”

“No,” I said, just a little too quickly. Ah, shit, I fucking put my foot in it using the gender card, I just knew it. “I just think maybe she’d loosen up with a female officer.”

Coilin folded his fingers together, his gaze going past my head. The asshole wasn’t even taking me seriously. “You and she just need time together. Maybe you should spend more time with her?”

Fuck, that’s what we should not be doing.

“Will you just do it, Coilin?” I let out.

He raised an eyebrow.

I regretted all those times I told him to fuck off when I was late with my paperwork. He was getting me back. He wasn’t going to pull any strings for me because I’d always been an asshole to him. Served me fucking right.

“I’ll get all my paperwork in on time from now on, I swear it,” I promised. Begged.

“Jesus, you really must be desperate to get rid of the girl if you’re offering me that.”

Shit on a stick.

“She’s not bad. It’s not like I can’t handle her.” Lies, the lot of them. I didn’t know how to handle myself around her. “It’s more for her that I think she should be reassigned.”

Coilin studied me for the longest time. “You know Kate’s on mat leave. She’s my only female JLO.”

I felt my hope sinking. “I thought Livvy was stepping up into a JLO role.”

He shook his head. “She decided to move into burglary.”

I let out a grunt, frustration building in me. “So what you’re saying is…?”

“I’m not going to reassign her.”

Fuck.

Despite my disappointment, I felt a trickle of relief. Then I wanted to slap myself.

“Besides,” Coilin continued, “there’s another reason why I want you on Saoirse Quinn’s case.”

What?

Before I could ask why, the door behind me banged open. In strode someone I’d rather not have seen again.

Niall fucking Lynch.

A royal pain in my backside.

A thick-set man with a stern forehead who waved his arms too much when he spoke. He was also the most persistent fucker I’d ever met when he got an idea in his head, like a bulldog with a bone.

Niall Lynch also just happened to be the top dog on the Limerick “drug squad”. He’d been on my case for the last twelve months about joining his team. I don’t know how many times I could say “fuck off” to this guy without punching him in the face to make sure the message was clear.

He’d been going around my back to my supervisor and our captain as well, trying to manoeuvre a transfer for me without my knowing. If there was one thing I hated, it was manipulative little bitches like this dickwad who always had their own agenda to push.

What was worse was that no one seemed to want to call him out on his game-playing bullshit. I guess that was why I’d always be a soldier in the trenches instead of calling the shots. I was no good at politics.

Niall grinned at me, then nodded at Coilin. “Boys.”

That, I fucking hated. He called us all his “boys”. As if we were his little minions, little kids instead of grown-ass men.

I growled under my breath. If I had fangs I would have bared them. “Can’t you see we’re in a meeting here?”

I didn’t like the fucking twinkle in Niall’s eye. “Then I’m just in time.”

Ah shite.

I suddenly realised what this was.

An ambush.

“What the fuck is going on?” I shot a glare at Coilin. He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty.

Niall pulled out the chair beside me and sat down with a flourish. It took everything in me not to kick out his chair legs. He placed his ankle over one knee, his leather shoes spit-shined and his dress pants perfectly pressed, then leaned back, arm slung over the back of the chair, the arrogant asshole, sitting as casually as if this office was his.

“You may or may not know,” Niall started, as if he was the one leading the meeting, “but Liam Byrne, one of west Ireland’s most notorious drug kingpins, was just released.”

I grunted but didn’t say anything. I knew this and I had a feeling I knew where Niall was going with this. I didn’t like it one fucking bit.

Niall leaned forward as if he was about to reveal some great big secret. “Saoirse Quinn is his daughter.”

“What a revelation,” I spat out.

Niall’s eyes narrowed just a touch. “I know you were previously assigned to her when she was thirteen. You have a relationship with her. She trusts you.”

What relationship we had was complicated. And her trust in me, shaky. All these things I did not say.

“We’ve been trying to get something on Liam. So far we have next to nothing. I want him back behind bars before the year is out. Saoirse is our way in.”

Fuck.

No way.

“I am not using to get to her father,” I snarled. “She doesn’t have anything to do with his business. She’s just a girl!”

Niall snorted. “Apples don’t fall far from the tree, Brennan.”

I bristled. “Your father must have been a right prick.”

“Brennan,” Coilin barked out in a warning tone. I knew I was toeing the line.

Niall just threw back his head and laughed, long and loud. He wiped under his eyes and wagged a finger at me. “You’re a riot, Brennan.”

“Glad to have entertained you.” I pushed up to my feet. “But I’ve gotta go. Got shit to do.”

I strode out of Coilin’s office, fuming. I’d come in here hoping to get Saoirse reassigned. Instead I had been ambushed and asked to get even closer to Saoirse in order to pin something on her father. All the while my supervisor, who was supposed to have my fucking back, watched on silently.

I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t hear him coming up behind me until he grabbed my arm.

I spun to face Niall once more.

The politician’s mask he’d had on in Coilin’s office was gone. In its place was the real, ruthless Niall, who only cared about his own goals, even at the expense of a child.

“You’ll help me, Brennan,” he said, his voice too low for anyone else to hear.

I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “Not a fucking chance.”

“You will. Every man has his weak spot.” A smile crawled over his face, terrifying me more than his scowl. “I will find yours.”