I know this is a bad idea. I also know that I don’t care. I know absolutely that I’m being driven by my emotions – in this case, irritation with my brother Mickey – but I still don’t care.

Sometimes a girl just needs to have fun.

I’m sitting in a dark corner of the Avery bar that is, itself, located in a far-off corner of the hotel. The only light is thrown by a flickering gas-fire that seems to explode into life from nothingness out of a slab of stone. I cross my legs and settle back into a leather chair that lightly creaks as it accepts my weight. Kieran Byrne’s eyes flicker across my body with the same intensity as the heat from the flame. I can’t tell which I prefer.

“Expensive place to have a wedding,” I remark dryly. I’m not kidding. The Ritz-Carlton is easily Boston’s most expensive hotel. “Seems like the kind of thing that might draw attention from the wrong kind of people.”

“We’re simple people,” Kieran grins, raising a heavy tumbler to his lips. The ice inside the whiskey cocktail clinks as it collides with the glass walls confining it. “And we’re honest workers: We save. Why shouldn’t we throw a nice party?”

I hide a smile. Kieran’s grin is infectious. I’m walking a tightrope here. I need to ask myself: am I doing this to tweak Mickey’s tail; or is it something else; something more? Does it matter?

“It’s not the cops you should be worried about, Kieran,” I say, giving advice to my rival, “not even the feds. But when it comes to the tax man? He’ll get you, as sure as night follows day.”

“I’ll tell me accountant,” Kieran says, brushing my advice away with a wave of his hand.

I stroke my chin. It must be nice to be like Kieran – not weighed down by the worries and cares of the world. It’s not like he approaches life through innocent eyes – I know Kieran Byrne isn’t just the happy-go-lucky joker whose face he presents to the rest of the world. But it’s clear that it isn’t a front – at least, it isn’t all a front.

“What about you, Miss Morello?” Kieran grins. “What’s yer story?”

“Call me Sofia,” I reply as I raise my cocktail – a Vesper, I think the menu called it – to my lips. I’m hit with an intense citrus burst, and then the warmth of alcohol burning its way down my throat. I feel myself relaxing, and I will myself not to give into its charms. I should get up right now, get up and leave –.

“I think I’ll call ye Miss Morello,” Kieran says, ignoring me. He’s got a wicked grin on his face that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing. “You remind me of a Miss…”

A twinge of irritation flashes through me. I bite down on my lip to hide it. My face stays calm, passionless. I’ve heard what people call it, when they think I can’t hear: resting bitch face. I ignore them. At least I usually do. I can’t help that I have to be this person. Someone has to be the grown-up in this family.

“Why is that?” I ask. Even I can hear how hard my tone is. Any of the men under the Morello banner would know better than to challenge me in this mood. But of course, Kieran isn’t a Morello. Thank the Lord for small mercies.

Kieran, though – clearly – doesn’t care. He relaxes back into his own leather chair like he hasn’t a care in the world. His gaze – with those eyes, each a different color – flickers across my body. It rests on my chest for just a second too long, and goose bumps prickle into being. I shift my body in the chair, bringing my cocktail in front of me, and hide from his stare. I like his attention and I hate it all at once.

He takes a sip of his cocktail, and raises it into the air. A nearby waiter plucks it from his grasp.

“Because,” Kieran replies thoughtfully, chewing his lip, “of that…” He gestures at me, “…the way you hide yourself. You come here, with a body like that –.”

I flush, and glance down to hide my cheeks.

“Wearing a dress like that, and yet ye hide from the way ye look, Miss Morello.” There’s a hint of a growl to Kieran’s voice as he finishes the sentence. It’s husky, almost as though he’s unable to conceal his desire any longer. At least, that’s what I think it is. Perhaps I’m overthinking things.

“I –.”

Kieran cuts across me. “Tell me I’m wrong, Miss Morello,” he says, repeating his name for me again.

Every time I hear it, it grates, cutting into my soul. Kieran is irritating me on purpose, we both know it. He’s irritating me more than my brother ever has – and that is a high bar to beat. Kieran’s method is different, though. Mickey is a bumbling fool who annoys with his incompetence. Kieran cuts right to the chase.

“Tell me why the most beautiful woman in the room –,” Kieran pauses, holding a finger in the air, “no, I shouldn’t say that tonight, of all nights – or me brother will kill me. Tell me why the equally most beautiful woman in the room,” his eyes glint with humor, “acts like she doesn’t care what men think of her, when I know that that isn’t the case.”

I hold my tongue as a waiter pads towards Kieran, a cocktail the sole occupant of his silver tray. Kieran smiles his thanks.

I set my own cocktail down on the table next to me. I make a move, as though I’m preparing to stand. “Maybe, Mr. Byrne, this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

Kieran takes a long sip of his cocktail. The whole time, he doesn’t take his eyes off me. The different colored orbs blaze in the firelight. It looks like they are aflame. I want to ask Kieran about them. I want to know their story. While he’s staring at me, I feel locked into my seat. I want to throw my drink into his face, but that would mean I’d have to leave, and I don’t want to do that either.

“Maybe it’s not,” Kieran agrees.

A silence lingers between us. My cheeks are warm, my breath ragged and uneven – if just slightly so. Every ounce of good sense in me is telling me to get out of my seat and leave. But the devil on my shoulder is whispering that perhaps I should go with this.

“You should know better than anyone,” I say, “what it is like to be me.”

“You think so: how?” Kieran asks. He seems genuinely interested. He’s dropped the jester act, and his eyes are locked on mine. I feel like the only person in the room.

“The younger child,” I say, “a heartbeat away from the throne…”

Kieran waves his hand. “Ah, tha’: I never wanted any of it. It’s Declan’s, and good riddance. Power is a heavy weight to have on a man’s shoulders. Or a woman’s of course…” He grins.

“I never wanted it either,” I protest. Even as I’m saying it, I’m not sure how true that is.

“Of course,” Kieran grins softly, “my brother isn’t a raging alcoholic, or a weak-willed narcissist.”

“If anyone but you had said that to me,” I say with a voice as hard as diamonds, “you’d have earned a bullet in the skull. You know that?”

Kieran smiles. He takes a deep, long drink from his tumbler, and stands up. “Lucky it was me tha’ said it, then.”

I glance up at him with a raised eyebrow. He holds out his hand.

“Coming?”

“Where are we going?” I ask. I think I already know the answer. My breath catches in my throat: it’s not from nerves; it’s from a mounting wave of desire. I can give myself this, can’t I; just this once?

“Your room.”

Neither of us speaks a word. Not in the elevator on the way up: not as we walk down the corridor, bodies kissing from time to time, as Kieran brushes into me accidentally-on-purpose; not as we pause in front of the door to my suite. I feel like I’m under a spell; as if to say anything would be to break the moment that’s carrying us along.

My fingers tug uselessly at the clasp holding my small clutch purse closed. Kieran takes it from my hands wordlessly. His fingers brush against mine, and an electric shock passes through my body. I feel rooted to the floor. There’s a heat building inside of me. I try and push it away, but I fail.

“Let me,” he whispers, brushing his lips against my ear. My legs clench together. Nothing has happened yet, and yet everything has. Kieran Byrne is seducing me, and he’s barely lifting a finger to do it. I can’t tell if he’s doing this, or if it’s just my desire overtaking me.

Kieran waves the key card against the reader, and the electric lock whirrs open. He pushes the door open. “After you, miss.”

I take a deep breath as I walk past him. I need to get myself in hand. Kieran seems to have cast a spell over me, but I need to break free from its grasp. Just because he has the most delicious eyes I’ve ever seen, glittering hazel and brown, and a mysterious white streak in his hair: just because Kieran’s shoulders look wide enough to stand in for the foundations of Bunker Hill Bridge; just because his slightest touch makes my legs quiver with need…

I face the bed; and away from Kieran. I’ve got my back to him. I wait for him to press his body against mine. It’ll give me the excuse I need to throw him off; out of my suite.

But Kieran doesn’t do as I expect. It’s becoming a habit of his.

Kieran stands behind me, yes. However he’s a foot, or more, away. Far enough away that it feels like a chasm. “Are you sure you want to do this?” He asks, reaching out and tracing my side with two fingers. His touch feels glorious to my skin even though it is still covered by my silk dress. “I can leave…”

I watch his reflection in the window. The curtains are open wide, Boston Common stretching out behind them, dotted with lamp lights.

I shake my head. It’s the slightest of movements. I barely even make it out in the window. My mind is made up. I’m not going to do this because Kieran has seduced me, although he came close. I’m not doing this to piss off my brother. I’m doing this because I want to, and because I can.

At least … that’s the line I’m feeding myself.

“Untie me,” I whisper. The air-condition-cooled air kisses my skin where my dress lets it – both at the back and at the front. My nipples are hard, and I can’t tell whether it’s from the cool breeze, or because I’m anticipating Kieran’s touch.

Kieran doesn’t ask twice. He takes a pace towards me, caresses my body from the crook of my shoulder, down both sides of my torso, and rests his hands on my hips. He leans in, so close to me that the heat of his breath warms my cheeks. “I thought you’d never ask,” he growls.

I close my eyes.

“You tell anyone this happened,” I say, holding my body tight and tense. “So help me God, I’ll put a bullet in your brain and your body in a ditch. Deal?”

Kieran’s lips nibble my right ear. I can’t help but let out a little moan of satisfaction. His touch feels so good. I open my neck up, inviting him on. “I like it when you talk dirty,” he breathes.

Kieran’s left-hand slides down the front of my body, until it settles just above my pelvis. His right rises, climbing up my naked back until it settles where my dress is tied together. He doesn’t hesitate before undoing the loose knot holding it together, and the paper-thin silk falls with a soft hiss, slickly sliding towards the floor. It catches at my hips, where Kieran’s hand holds it.

I glance out of the window, suddenly conscious of where I am and what I’m doing. “The curtains…” I whisper.

Kieran growls into my ear. The sound is primal, animalistic even: hungry. It fills me with a desire the like of which I’ve never experienced. It’s the last thing I remember with any clarity. “Let them watch.”

He hooks both thumbs underneath the fabric pooled at my waist and pushes it towards the floor. My dress falls in a puddle at my feet. I’m not wearing a bra, not with this dress, so I stand in front of him in nothing but a pair of black, lacy panties. They aren’t my best, nor my worst. Just the kind of underwear you wear to a wedding when you don’t figure you’re going to get laid. I wait for Kieran’s hands to drop down, lower, and lower, until they meet my ass, and then between my legs, but as usual he does none of that.

They climb instead, to my shoulders. He cups them, and spins me around, until we are face-to-face. I’m no more than a couple of inches from him when he kisses me for the first time. It’s not soft – it’s not a loving kiss – it’s a lover’s kiss. It is unbridled passion.

I bite Kieran’s lip and he groans, and the sound drives me wild. He tastes manly: spicy, with hints of whiskey. It’s a taste that I don’t usually like. But if it tasted like this, I would drink it out of Kieran’s mouth every day.

“This,” I say, pulling away and waving my hand up and down his side, “isn’t fair.” I’m panting, ever so slightly. Kieran’s touch is fanning the flames of desire inside me. I need to slow this down. I need to –.

Kieran reaches up with one hand and tugs his bowtie loose. With the other, he frees me from my panties. I’m naked. He’s not.

“How James Bond of you,” I smirk, dragging my tongue across my bottom lip in a slow, seductive way. “But that’s not what I was talking about…”

“Two sets of hands are better than one,” Kieran replies, in that lilting, delicious, almost choral Irish accent of his.

I know what he is saying. I do as I’m told. I’m not used to it, but it feels nice. My hands undo his belt, button and fly, and his dress pants fall like my silk to the floor. He throws his jacket aside, and kicks off his shoes. My fingers unbutton his shirt, which he shrugs off, and then he pushes me back onto the bed and we fall together.

Kieran’s fingers probe my wetness, and I throw my head back and arch my spine. My hips press out, and Kieran drives his fingers inside me. I let out a cry of desire. I’ve needed this for – hell, I don’t know how long. When you’re the princess in a gilded castle, you don’t get to screw the help. It’s not the “done” thing. This has been building for so long: for far too long.

Little stars are already breaking out behind my vision. I shake my head, my fingers freeing Kieran’s cock from his boxer shorts. “No,” I groan. “Don’t play with me. I need to feel you inside me, now.”

Kieran growls – it’s a low, throaty sound. Not words, just desire. He’s gone a moment, then he’s back sans boxer shorts. He presses his cock inside me, and I gasp as it fills me up. It’s bigger than I expected. I barely got to touch it before he pushed it into me, and I certainly had no time to appreciate its perfection. It feels like it fits. It feels perfect.

“Remember,” I whisper, biting my lip to stay in at least a semblance of control. My fingernails dig into Kieran’s back hard enough to leave scars. “You don’t tell a soul about this.”

Kieran dips his head toward mine. He stares into my eyes. “Not a word,” his chest rumbles, and then his lips graze mine.

Not a word.