The Mighty Quinns: Riley (12 page)

Nan felt a nervous twist in her stomach. She shouldn't have said that to him. He must have misunderstood. It wasn't that she loved
him.
She loved the person he was on stage, singing to her. “What's wrong?” she asked, ready to hear the typical excuses. She shouldn't get too attached. She'd be going home soon. They were moving too fast. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“Said what?” he asked.

“Th-that I…loved you. It came out wrong.”

He chuckled. “That's not it. I like that you said that.”

“Then why do you look so serious?”

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Today, at the pub, I asked the Unholy Trinity if they remembered Carey Findley. And Johnnie O'Malley knew a little more about Tiernan.”

“What about Tiernan?”

Riley paused. “As Johnnie remembers, Tiernan died shortly after your mother left Ireland.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her expression stunned. “How?”

“He drowned in the bay a few months after your mom went home. He was trying to save a friend. And I called Carey Findley again this afternoon and he'd like to see you. He remembers your mom. And from what he told me, she and Tiernan had a thing.”

Nan suddenly felt as if the world was closing in on her, all the oxygen suddenly sucked out of the atmosphere. Though she tried to draw a deep breath, she couldn't. “Were they in love?”

“I'm not sure. But considering she named you after him, I think it might be possible.”

“No, no. I don't want to hear this,” Nan said, covering her ears. “I don't want to hear that she fell in love and then had to leave him. Or that she fell in love and then he died. I don't want this to be a sad story. Her life was sad enough.”

“You don't have to go see him,” Riley said. “You don't have to do anything if you don't want to.”

“Yes, I do. Now that I know where he is, I have to go. I need to find out about the letters he wrote to my mother. I need to know more about her. And about Tiernan.”

Riley shook his head. “Not if it's going to make you unhappy.”

“Well, sometimes life isn't all butterflies and daisies. Sometimes life just sucks. Don't you think I know that? We can pretend that everything is fine between us, but we both know I'm going to have to leave and we'll never see each other again.”

“You don't have to leave. I told you that you could stay.”

“That's not the point!” Nan said. “I came all this way to find out more about my mother and I can't just let it go.”

“I'm sorry,” Riley said, a trace of frustration creeping into his voice. “Are we talking about us or your mother?”

Nan paced back and forth in front of him. Everything was all jumbled in her head. Was this really about her mother or was it about her feelings for Riley? Nan didn't want to believe her mother had walked away from the boy she loved, or that she'd be forced to do the same. “I'm not sure.” She plopped down beside him. “Maybe she loved him. And maybe she decided that wasn't enough, that she had to go home. Maybe she made the wrong decision.”

“She married your father. They must have been in love,” Riley said.

“He was so much older than her,” Nan said. “Almost fifteen years.”

“He was a man, Tiernan was a boy. Your father was at home and Tiernan was here, far away from everything
your mother knew. It's not hard to understand her choice.”

She turned back to him. “I'm going home,” she said.

“To the cottage?”

She ran her hands through her hair, her cheeks rosy from the chilly night. “I need some time to think.”

“Come on, Nan. Come back to the pub. You'll listen to some music and have a drink and—”

“I'll see you later,” she said, starting down the street. As she passed the pub, Nan picked up her pace, running toward the road that led to the cottage. Before long, she was breathless, gasping, a stitch cramping her side. But she didn't stop moving, her retreat the only thing she could focus on.

Why had she even come to Ireland? What kind of naive fool had she been, thinking there'd be some fairy-tale story waiting for her here? Life wasn't a fantasy, it was real and it was full of pain and disappointment.

And now, she was making the same mistake her mother had made, falling for a handsome Irish man, letting desire rule her heart instead of common sense ruling her head. How easy it was to fall under the spell of this place and to believe in the magic.

After climbing the hill to the cottage, she ran up the garden path and threw open the cottage door, then stood in the middle of the dark room, drawing in deep gulps of air. With a groan, her legs buckled beneath her and she sat down on the floor and buried her face in her hands.

Could she bear to leave him? Riley was the only man she'd ever truly wanted. He'd changed the way
she thought about herself and about her future. And without him, she'd go back to being just an ordinary woman. Nan angrily brushed away the tears, refusing to feel sorry for herself.

She got to her feet and strode into the bathroom, then splashed cold water on her face. “Stop it!” she scolded. As she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she barely recognized the woman staring back at her.

This place had changed her, in less than a week she'd become a different person. She was falling in love with Riley Quinn and all the commonsense warnings she gave herself didn't mean anything. He'd found a place in her heart and she was willing to turn her life upside down just to believe in the fantasy.

She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose, then wandered out to the sofa. Curling up on one end, Nan pulled a pillow tightly to her body. But then the front door slammed against the wall and she jumped to her feet at the sound.

Riley stood in the opening, his wild gaze fixed on her, his body tense. Then, in a few short steps he'd crossed the room and pulled her into his arms.

She didn't have time to resist. In truth, she didn't want to. When his mouth came down on hers, Nan felt her anger melt away and her heart surrender to his touch. His hands skimmed over her body, as if he were reassuring himself that she was still his, that he still had the capacity to make her moan.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured, cupping her face in his hands and murmuring his apology against her lips. “I
never meant to hurt you and I should never have stuck my nose into this. It wasn't my place.”

“No, I'm sorry. You were just trying to help and I was ungrateful.”

“Tell me we're all right,” he said, an edge of desperation in his voice.

Nan nodded. Her feelings for him had grown so powerful that she was willing to ignore her doubts and insecurities. Her mother might have made a mistake leaving Ireland all those years ago. But nothing about her relationship with Riley felt like a mistake. She was in love with him and she didn't want to deny feelings that felt so right.

He tore at her clothes, exposing bare skin to his lips and his hands. But it wasn't enough, his need to possess her nearly overwhelming them both. They stumbled into the bedroom and he pulled his shirt off over his head.

Pressing her against the wall, Riley drew her thigh up along his leg, their hips creating a delicious friction that promised more pleasure to come. Nan reached for the buttons on the front of his jeans and undid them one by one, and Riley groaned softly with every movement of her hand.

When she finally freed him to her touch, he sighed softly, leaning into her as she stroked. As he whispered his need, his breath warm on her temple, Riley drew her skirt up around her waist and, pushing aside her thong, found the moist folds of her desire.

For Nan, there was nothing more pleasurable than his touch, and nothing that gave her more exquisite tor
ment. They were still clothed, but that only seemed to make their need more frantic as they searched for places to explore.

“I want to be inside you,” Riley murmured breathlessly.

“Yes” was all Nan needed to say.

He wrapped her legs around his waist and carried her to the bed, then found a condom where they'd left them the night before, on the bedside table. In a heartbeat, he was sheathed and ready, and then slowly thrusting himself into her wet heat.

Nan was so close that it took only a few strokes before she dissolved into shudders and spasms. Riley was with her, his orgasm coming right on top of hers until they were both gasping and groaning together.

It had taken all of four or five minutes from the moment he'd thrown open the door to the instant they both lost control, but it was still one of the most powerful sexual experiences that Nan had ever had.

“I don't want to go back to the pub,” he murmured.

Nan pushed up on her elbow. “What?”

“Yeah, I left the lads to fend for themselves. But they're going to run out of songs in another five or ten minutes.” He drew her into a long, delicious kiss. “Do you want to come with me?”

She curled her body into his. “I think I'll stay here. But you'll come back?”

“You'd have to drag me out to sea to keep me away,” he said. Riley ran his fingers through her short-cropped hair. “Don't ever doubt my feelings for you, Nan. They're as real as they can be.”

“Go then,” she said with a playful pout, “but come back as soon as you can.”

He restored order to his clothes, then gave her a quick kiss. “I'll be back,” he said.

“And I'll be naked,” she replied with a playful smile.

Riley groaned as he walked out of the bedroom. “How am I supposed to concentrate on my songs now?”

 

R
ILEY ROLLED OVER
in the bed, sliding his hand out to search for Nan's naked body. Rubbing at his sleepy eyes, he pushed up to find her side of the bed empty. “Nan?”

The cottage was silent. The scent of freshly brewed coffee permeated the air. He crawled out of bed and made his way to the kitchen, not bothering with clothes. But to his surprise, he found his brother Kellan rummaging through a cabinet next to the hearth.

“Jaysus, Kellan, what are you doing here? Where is Nan?”

“She's outside,” Kellan said. “Having her coffee in the garden.” He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled. “Put some clothes on, ya lazy git. I don't need to be staring at all your bits and pieces.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm looking for one of my sketchbooks. I think I left it the last time I stayed.”

Riley shook his head, then walked back to the bedroom to retrieve his jeans. He tugged them on, leaving the buttons open. “There's a blue notebook in the bottom drawer of the bedside table,” he said, standing in the doorway.

Kellan levered to his feet and strode into the bed
room, brushing past his brother. A few moments later, he joined him at the bedroom door, a smile on his face. “Found it.” He stared at Riley for a long moment, the shook his head. “Look at you. Aren't you a sight?”

Frowning, Riley ran his hand through his messy hair. “I just got up. I worked late last night.”

“That's not what I meant. Take a look in the mirror, little brother. You're upside down over this girl and you don't even know it. And she's going to walk out of your life in a few days.”

“So?” Riley shot back. “At least I'm out there looking. You haven't had a serious relationship since Fiona and that was what—three years ago? That torch you're dragging around is getting a wee bit heavy, isn't it?”

Kellan's jaw twitched and Riley waited for the inevitable sarcastic reply. But then his older brother drew a deep breath and shrugged. “You're right. You'd be a bleedin' eedjit not to see where this was all going. Who the hell knows? Maybe she'll stay.”

“Maybe,” Riley murmured.

Kellan patted his hand on Riley's shoulder. “I hope she does.” He turned and walked to the door. “I'm headed back to Dublin. I'll see you next week.”

“Next week,” he said as he watched Kellan walk out the door. Then Riley leaned up against the door-jamb. Next week. Everything would go right back to normal next week. He'd actually liked his life before Nan had stumbled into it. But now, he knew there would be something missing once she left.

So he'd put more effort into convincing her to stay. And if she refused, he'd put more effort into dating.
He'd find a girl who was geographically available and he'd go after her. And if he were lucky, he'd find a girl he liked as much as Nan and they'd start a life together. This wasn't complicated. There were plenty of available women in Ireland.

Riley grabbed a mug of coffee and stepped out the front door. Kellan was chatting with Nan and they seemed to be on friendly terms for two relative strangers. “Sorry to barge in on your mornin',” Kellan said.

“I'm glad you found your notebook,” Nan replied with a warm smile.

Kellan walked to the gate, then turned around and gave her a wave and a smile. Riley frowned at him, wondering at his brother's sudden change of personality. Kellan rarely smiled these days. “Get out of here,” Riley shouted. “And don't be charming my girl.”

“Feck off,” Kellan said, chuckling to himself. “Nan, if you get weary of hanging around with this culchie, you ring me up. I'll show you a grand time.”

Kellan hopped in his car and roared off down the road toward the village. Riley cursed him beneath his breath. He sat down on the garden bench next to Nan. “You'd best watch out for him. He's got the manners of a horny goat.”

“He was very nice,” Nan said. She reached out and ran her hand through Riley's hair, smoothing it out of his eyes. “You're awake.”

“I had a very long night last night.”

She leaned over and brushed a kiss over his lips. “I liked waking up to a naked man crawling into my bed,” she said. “What time did you get back?”

“It was past two. I had my way with you and you fell right back to sleep.”