“That was delicious, Mrs. Gallagher,” said Zach, leaning back in his chair beside Abby, who seemed equally contented.
“Oh, please call me Mary-Ann,” she insisted in a faint Irish accent for what had to be the third time since Zach and Abby had arrived at the quaint, Brooklyn house earlier that evening.
Mary-Ann was seated at one end of the modest dining room table, her husband, Colin at the other. They were everything Zach had expected when Abby had explained her parents were Irish immigrants, hard-working, and highly religious. There were more crosses and paintings of Jesus on these four walls than there were at the Vatican. He’d know. The entire cast of #Blessed had traveled there last fall to meet the Pope and take pictures…
Zach could see where Abby had gotten her bright red hair and sweet nature. Mary-Ann had both, and though her husband, Colin seemed like a stern man of few words, there was unmistakable warmth in his eyes every time he looked at his daughter.
Abby’s older brother, Ian, who was seated directly across from Zach and scowling, did not have the same warmth. At all. If Abby had been accurate in her description of her parents and their humble home on Ocean Parkway, she’d been equally accurate about her firefighter brother who was built like a tank and highly protective of her. He’d been sizing Zach up from across the table all night, not that Zach blamed him for being protective. He wouldn’t want anyone hurting Abby either, least of all himself. But the guy was laying it on a little thick. The saving grace, however, was the fact that Ian’s fiancée, Melinda, a poised blonde who worked at one of Brooklyn’s finest art galleries, kept stealing his otherwise scrutinizing attention by whispering sweet-nothings in his ear, stroke his arm, or display subtle hints of her unwavering affection.
It made Zach want to wrap his arm around Abby or hold her hand under the table, but he wouldn’t dare be so bold in this crowd, not with Ian Gallagher and the many likenesses of Jesus Christ staring him down from all angles.
“Colin and I just love your show,” said Mary-Ann as she helped her after-dinner tea steep by dunking the bag a few times before setting it on the saucer beneath her cup.
Zach was about to thank her for the compliment, but didn’t get the chance when Ian began asking, “You two met how?”
“I told you,” Abby answered for Zach a bit hotly. “At a coffee shop near work.” When he didn’t seem satisfied with that, she reminded him, “Famous people drink coffee too, you know.”
“We had an instant connection,” Zach supplied, his eyes and his grin on Abby as he finally took hold of her hand.
“A connection, huh?” Ian grunted.
“Can’t you be happy for me?” she demanded, though she did a soldierly job of keeping her tone cordial. “I’ve literally never brought a boyfriend home.”
“And that’s what he is?” her older brother shot back, not easing up one bit.
Zach knew exactly what he was thinking. Zach had a certain image, one that no man would want his innocent younger sister getting involved in. He was just glad Ian wasn’t saying it out loud. Mary-Ann and Colin didn’t strike him as entertainment news junkies and if they watched #Blessed religiously, they probably thought Zach was similar to his character, living life under the same moral and ethical codes.
Abby pushed her chair away from the table and announced, “I think the interrogation segment of this evening is officially over.”
“Hey, I just want to get to know the guy,” Ian defended, a mischievous grin appearing on his good-looking face.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Abby shot back, not unlovingly.
They definitely had a fun, bantering dynamic that could shift and twist on a dime from playful to downright cut-throat before they bounced back into best friends again.
“I want to show Zach my childhood bedroom,” she told them all as she took Zach’s hand now that he’d risen to his feet and pushed in his chair.
“Ma is going to need help with all these dishes!” Ian called after them as Abby led Zach down a short hallway, leading deeper into the one-story house.
Melinda offered, “I can help Mary-Ann with all that.”
“That’s not the point,” her fiancé grumbled.
As they rounded into a girly, teenager’s bedroom replete with boy-band posters on the walls, trophies and ribbons for field hockey and swim team on the bookshelves next to mystery and romance novels, and the most adorable little quilted bed, Abby let out a huff and eased the door closed.
“Keep it open six inches!” Ian shouted.
“I’m not in high school anymore!” she shouted right back through the door before rolling her eyes at Zach.
It was cute.
And no, she wasn’t in high school, but something about the entire experience of the evening had felt like it, like they were two horny teenagers trying to sneak around, and Zach had to admit it was a serious turn on.
Now that he was finally inside Abby’s bedroom…
Ideas were forming…
“He’s not usually like that,” she promised, inviting him deeper into her bedroom. She plopped down on the foot of the bed and added with a kittenish grin, “He thinks I’m much more innocent than I am.”
Nearing her, gazing down at the lines and curves of her petite figure, the way her pretty face was tilted demurely as she looked up at him, he drank in the sexy sight of her and softly asked, “You’re not as innocent as you look?”
“Do I look so innocent?” she challenged on a breath, her voice feathery, arousing.
“I bet if I lifted that skirt of yours,” he whispered in a deep tone, stepping so close to the edge of the bed that Abby had to spread her shapely legs to make room, “I’d find white, cotton panties.”
She mouthed the response, And you think that makes me innocent? as she lifted the hem of her skirt so slowly it was an actual tease—one he loved—and revealed his guess had been spot-on.
He groaned at the sight of her virgin-white underwear, their low, conservative cut that only seemed to cause Zach to stiffen even harder under his jeans.
“You’re tempting me,” he warned and her eyebrows drifted up to her hairline as if to invite clarification.
“Tempting you to do what?” she said in a luring tone, a kittenish grin tugging at the corners of her sexy little mouth.
She was rocking her knee now, presenting her cotton-covered promise, and searching his eyes as he continued to stare down at her, feeling his length harden and mouth water at the thought of penetrating her while her protective older brother and the rest of her family went about their lives in the other room, unaware.
God, this was turning him on.
But the last thing he needed was to get decked in the face for fucking his soon-to-be wife.
Zach wondered what he might be able to get away with. He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door, hoping to find a lock.
You’ve got to be shitting me.
As if reading his mind, she apologized, “No locks, no privacy, that’s how I was raised.”
Damn.
“I’m certainly getting to know you, aren’t I?” he said quietly while thinking, drunk mother, bastard father, beaten almost every day, that’s how I was raised.
He had no plans of telling her that, though. Last night had been enough of a close call. He’d opened up only a fraction about what he safely referred to as his parents’ ‘lack of support’ and that had been scary enough. In the public eye, he’d always told himself it was better to be Zach Canning the drug-addled actor than Zach Canning the guy whose parents abused him terribly, the guy who had a white-trash upbringing, the guy who had actually tried living in his car throughout high school because it was better than being at home, the guy who had never fooled around with a girl like Abby in high school and never had a night like tonight because back then he’d been too busy trying to figure out how in the hell he’d escape his shitty life and live his dream that at the time seemed way too big to ever come true.
No, he wouldn’t tell her. Because like in the public eye, he’d rather Abby see him as the disaster he had created for himself, than the disaster he had escaped.
Of course, with Abby in his life, he hoped to no longer be either.
“Would you like to know me better?” she teased, her voice a mere breath, one which Zach would’ve liked brushing warmly against his ear while he penetrated her.
He would. But instead of saying as much, he lowered to his knees in front of her and began grazing his large hands up and down her silky-smooth calves.
The dreamy gleam in her green eyes flared brightly as it dawned on her where he was going with this.
“You’re going to have to keep very quiet for me like a good girl,” he informed her as he brought his hot mouth to the cotton-covered apex between her legs. Her eyes were wide as saucers looking down at him and the grin on her face had straightened into something that looked like stunned arousal. “Can you be a good girl for me?”
“Yes,” she told him on a breath.
“Good,” he groaned, bringing his mouth to her warm core again.
As he set his hot, watering tongue against the length of her vagina, he could smell her distinct scent through the fabric, taste her body through cotton, and it was enough to harden his erection to throbbing levels.
She smelled like a fucking dream.
He helped her thighs apart, sensing that a bit of nervous tension in her legs had caused her to tighten up a bit. He was all for tight and had a feeling she would be as gorgeously tight as they came, but he wasn’t planning on penetrating the sweet sheath of her body. Not now. Not when giving her oral until she climaxed all over his hungry mouth, if he succeeded, would be as close to getting away with murder in this house as he was willing to go.
With her legs spread nice and wide for him, her soft thighs felt like putty in his hands and it turned him on to no end feeling how limp and relaxed she could go in his hands—he’d love to toss and turn her in all positions and really get in deep, get her nice and creamy, and make her scream… another night—he began caressing the length of her vagina with his index finger as he experimented with peeling the thin, cotton barrier of her panties aside.
Abby let out a breathy, little moan that was music to his ears the second his finger met with the hot, slick shape of her pussy.
“If you’re not going to be a good girl, for me—” he warned.
“I am, I will,” she whispered, flustered to get his finger moving again. “I’ll be quiet.”
He felt his mouth tug into a sideways grin, as he met her dopey, sexed-up gaze. She was leaning back on her elbows now, her head tilted and resting on her shoulder, so she could watch him suck and lick and fondle her.
It was seriously fucking hot.
As he brought his lips to her slippery vagina again, her eyelids grew heavy and soon she closed her eyes, brows knitting together as if the pleasure he was delivering, licking the length of her slit only to momentarily suckle her sensitive clit before tasting the length of her all over again, was also giving her the slightest ache of pain.
Her breaths were coming shallow now, fluttering in rhythm with his every tongue stroke. He growled each exhale against her thighs, pussy, clit, his passion growing. He couldn’t get enough of her.
Her white, cotton panties were getting in his way and he had half a mind to tear them off of her, but she’d probably shriek in surprise and get the whole family’s attention, so instead he made quick work of yanking them down her thighs, Abby bouncing on the edge of the bed from his thrusting momentum. He tossed them aside and her nude legs spread in front of him.
God, she was gorgeous, the shape of her glistening vagina and light dusting of auburn hair.
Again, he wrapped his mouth around her swollen clitoris, this time slipping his index finger gently inside the hot, slippery folds of her core. After tracing her shape, Abby moaning as breathily and soundlessly as she could, he penetrated his finger deeper, finding the spongy mound of her G-spot on the frontal wall, and began delivering a firm, stimulating massage. Suckling her clit. Massaging deep inside. At times exhaling his cool breath across her hot, slippery vagina to send a wave of tingles dancing across her skin.
He could tell it was building inside of her—her quickening breaths, her shuddering thighs, the way her hips bucked and convulsed at times, feeding more of his finger inside of her.
“Good girl,” he groaned between suckling licks.
She responded with a breathy moan that made his already throbbing erection nearly explode.
“Come for me,” he ordered, knowing she was soaring on the brink. “Be a good girl and come for me.”
She made the sweetest sound then her body began clenching—hard—around his finger. He kept his tongue swirling around her swollen, highly sensitive clit, and didn’t let up one bit massaging deep inside, as she writhed in orgasmic pleasure for him, thighs squeezing the sides of his head only to break wide and spread in fits and starts before squeezing again.
When the tremors subsided and her entire body slumped into a calm and glowing heap, Zach helped her lie on the bed, folding her heavily relaxed shape into his arms.
Footfall came towards the closed door followed by the gentle sound of knuckles rapping against wood and Melinda’s kind voice said, “Dessert you two.”
“Coming!” Abby called out.
“We are so lucky,” he growled in her ear, pulling her up into a tight hug so their mouths were aligned.
“We are,” she agreed before kissing him.
He held their kiss, inhaling her sweet scent as deeply as he could.
He couldn’t believe that in a week, she would be his.
‘Lucky’ didn’t even begin to capture it. There might not be a word for how Zach felt.
High came to mind.
It was like Abby was his new drug of choice.
But she was pure.
There would be no way to overdose.
“We better go before they wonder why we’ve been so quiet in here,” she told him, reluctantly lifting up.
They gave each other the quick once over, checking that they didn’t look mussed or show any signs of post-coital bliss. Abby slid her panties back on and after giving him a quick peck on the mouth—one he wished didn’t have to be so quick—they emerged from her childhood bedroom and joined the Gallaghers around the dinner table once again for brioche bread and butter pudding served with whiskey of course, a classic Irish dessert.
Ian was staring daggers at him, but Zach didn’t care. He knew he wasn’t a passing phase of Abby’s. This wouldn’t be a fleeting relationship. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Zach was here to stay. Looking around the table from Mary-Ann’s caring face as she doled out gooey helpings of pudding to Colin’s adoring expression watching her to Melinda again whispering something soothing in Ian’s ear, Zach felt overwhelmingly that this would be his family now.
The family he’d always wanted, but never had.
He wanted to do this right.
After dessert, when Ian had to rush off to tend to an out-of-control fire and Abby was strong-armed into helping her mother and Melinda clean up in the kitchen, which she promised wouldn’t take long, Zach decided to seize the opportunity to talk one-on-one and man-to-man with Colin.
“Sir?” he said, joining Colin at the wooden mini-bar in the den where the older man was pouring himself a glass of whiskey.
“Lagavulin,” he mentioned in a thick Irish brogue, indicating the bottle. “Takes sixteen years to age, like any relationship worth having.”
It took Zach longer than he cared to admit to realize the older man had made a joke. He let out a relieved laugh and asked, “How long did you know Mary-Ann before you guys tied the knot?”
He hadn’t meant to be so revealing and didn’t even realize he had until Colin’s bushy, white eyebrows shot up to his forehead and his gaze cut to Zach’s, holding him in an intense stare.
“Is there something you want to ask me, son?”
“Ah,” he let out a nervous chuckle. There was something he wanted to ask Colin, but he’d meant to ease into the topic much more tactfully.
“Here,” he said, pouring and handing Zach a stout tumbler of whiskey after which he invited him to have a seat on the homey plaid couch, while he took up in the adjacent armchair. “I know you mean something to her. If you didn’t, she wouldn’t have brought you here. Would you like to tell me what she means to you?”
The world was his resounding response, but it came only in his mind.
He cleared his throat, watched the cool amber whiskey swirl in his glass, and took a nervous gulp, all the while feeling Colin’s questioning eyes on him though the older man didn’t rush him to speak before he was ready.
“It might seem extremely fast to you,” he began, “since I only met Abby, God…” he trailed off, thinking about the few days they’d spent together. Had it been three? Four tops? He regained his footing and finished his sentence with, “not long ago. But…” he trailed off again, knowing how crazy this was going to sound.
Or maybe not.
Colin seemed to recognize his dilemma—the need to say what’s on his mind and the hesitation of actually doing so—and graciously supplied, “She’s the one for you.”
Zach’s eyes snapped up to Colin and they stared at one another for a moment of knowing silence.
“You’re not concerned?” he finally dared to ask the older man.
“You want to marry my daughter?”
Zach was dying to tell him that he wanted to do this right from start to finish, he wanted to give Abby a big wedding, one which her entire family could attend; he wanted to apologize profusely that this kind man would not be there when Abby said ‘I do’, that they were going to elope, and that he meant no disrespect by it.
But he couldn’t say any of that.
“Yes,” he told him, saying the one thing he could. “I want to marry her.”
“And you want my blessing,” he concluded, swirling his whiskey thoughtfully. “The star of Hashtag Blessed wants my blessing…”
Zach had to smile but it didn’t smooth out his ragged nerves.
“I do,” he said, “if you’ll give it.”
“I’ll tell you, Zach, I am concerned,” he spoke honestly. “But the day I first saw Mary-Ann, I’ll never forget it mind you, I knew. I just knew. Those were simpler times and I had to pursue her. Oh, she didn’t want to let me take her out at first. But once I did, once I gave her a taste of the kind of man I was and what I had to offer, I had her. We wasted no time.”
“You didn’t?” he asked, intrigued.
Colin shook his head, a grin forming at the corners of his mouth as a fond memory took hold. “I made her my wife inside of two weeks after meeting her.”
Impressed, Zach just stared at him then eventually mumbled, “No kidding…”
“Look, Zach,” he said, returning from fond memories to look Zach square in the eye. “If you have to have Abby like I had to have Mary-Ann, and I mean if every fiber of your being, of your soul, must have her, like she is the very air you breathe, and if you love her, truly love her, then yes. You have my blessing.”
Zach absorbed the magnitude of all the older man had said.
It was then that Colin asked him with a glint of hope in his aged eyes, “Do you love my daughter that deeply?”