Ringer: A New Year's Romance: The Doyles, a Boston Irish Mafia Romance Read online

  I hope it’s enough.

  I never want this woman to fear me. But I want her to hear me, so I punctuate every word with a snap.

  She doesn’t flinch, but her eyes narrow and long seconds pass.

  When she speaks, her voice is quiet and cold.

  “So, it’s fear, then?”

  It’s like she slapped me.

  After everything we said, everything we shared.

  The sting of it to my ego is more potent than the imagined slap of an open palm on my face.

  How long has it been since I’ve felt something, felt anything, when someone talked to me like this?

  My ex and I fought, sure.

  It ended with her screaming her accusations, and me shutting down and eventually apologizing without ever really hearing anything. There was nothing I could fix because I couldn’t be a different man.

  She’d made it very clear that’s what she wanted, from day one.

  I wait for my defensive walls to crash down, sealing off my emotions from Alix.

  Protect me.

  Give me the emotional space to take back control, I silently demand.

  But the walls aren’t coming down.

  The comfort of a familiar, icy retreat, vindication and rejection seeping through my veins eludes me. There’s something in my gut, something hot and uncomfortable, that feels like anger.

  The walls seem to be MIA. It feels like I’ve been seen and called to account and stand naked and vulnerable.

  And I have been found wanting.

  “Fear?”

  There’s an incredulous note in my voice.

  I take a step toward her, and she holds her ground.

  Her nostrils flare.

  “I don’t do things out of fear, Alexandra,” I say, my voice low, tight and odd. I feel nervous, suddenly, as my control’s slipping away.

  “Bullshit.”

  This woman: she knows me.

  Knows where I came from.

  Knows what I had to do to get out of there.

  Knows what I’ve stepped up to and some of the darker things I’ve done.

  She knows enough of the broad contours to draw the right conclusions.

  I’ve fought for every inch of the life I have and given everything I’ve got for other people.

  I stare at her, dumbfounded by her simple phrase.

  She thinks I’m afraid?

  Fury coils tightly in my gut.

  Of everyone, I thought she’d understand. Clearly, I’m an idiot.

  Stepping back, I’m very aware of how big I am and how small she is and how close I am to some edge. Some undefinable edge that I do not want to meet.

  She is completely unafraid though.

  That’s straight-up terrifying.

  “I have spent two decades leading men into war,” I bite the words off.

  “I grew up with a father that beat me as often as he looked at me. I’ve killed enemies and watched men die. And I’ve stared down the reality of spending my entire life in situations I didn’t want because it was the right thing to do,” I say, seething, and nearly losing my grip on my anger.

  My next words are even darker.

  “Do I strike you as a man that made those decisions out of fear?”

  She looks me in the eyes. She’s ferocious, and not going to back away.

  “There are different kinds of fear, Jack. You’re not invincible.”

  My head spins.

  “Invincible? I didn’t say anything like that. I have only ever tried to do the right thing. By my family, by my men, and by you,” I say, defensively.

  Involuntarily, I take a step toward her.

  I’m trying not to crowd her space.

  I am trying to resist that almost magnetic pull.

  It’s not working, and that’s only compounding the stress that feels like it could blow any second.

  “Tell me, Alix. Be honest. What the hell does a woman like you need with a piece of shit like me?”

  She might have tried to speak, but I can’t seem to stop.

  I bull onward, my words flowing like a river of lava, trying to burn everything in their path.

  “I’ve killed men. Had men, good men - men you loved -die under my command.”

  I don’t know where it’s coming from, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t will my lips to clamp shut.

  I can’t seem to get it to stop.

  Not just for the first time in recent years; maybe for the first time ever.

  “Determined to be a better father than the man that raised me. Too stupid not to knock up a stranger. Bad enough she couldn’t wait to leave and take my boy 3000 miles away. Fuck. The only thing I’ve ever been good at is fighting. Destruction. And no matter how hard I try, everything I touch turns to shit,” I shout.

  There’s a final, bald truth in that last statement, and I crumple.

  With those words, the fight goes out of me.

  I run a hand over my head, then drag it along my jaw. The scratching sound of my stubble is loud in the still morning air.

  She doesn’t like emotions, outbursts, big displays.

  And I just had a complete meltdown, at least by my standards.

  I start to apologize, but she takes a step toward me and puts a tentative hand on my arm.

  I’m just in a tee-shirt in the icy air and feeling the heat of her hand against my skin is startling. For a long second, she waits while I stare at the ground, counting the edges of leaves poking up through the snow.

  Wishing I could take every word back.

  Wishing I had stayed focused on the mission to keep her safe.

  Wishing she wasn’t patiently biding her time, waiting for me to look up at her.

  Wishing I’d caught that fucker and put every bit of the anger and confusion and emotions I’m feeling into making sure that he never hurts her again.

  Never even scares her.

  Never breathes the same air again.

  What kind of scum even does that shit?

  I think, getting my second wind.

  “Jack,” she says.

  Her voice is so soft that it’s hard to hear, like flower petals falling in the snow. Even in the deathlike stillness of the morning woods, it still seems so loud it echoes inside my head.

  “You’re a good man. An honorable man. I’ve never known you not to do the right thing. But sometimes, doing that? Following the script? People do that out of their own kind of fear,” she explains, as if I’m just a child.

  I do look up then, and chills run down my body.

  I think about what she said back at the beach, about the hospital and the drowning victim and everything else.

  People do that out of their own kind of fear.

  It’s still too hard to hear.

  Defiance shoots through me, though my voice is close to breaking.

  “Would you have me have done something differently? Not taken care of my kid?” I say, my voice raspy with dammed emotion.

  Maybe we’re not talking in generalities anymore.

  I woke up in my buddy’s spare room, remembering the night before with Alexandra and thought hard about a way to make it work. Six more days of leave, and then I was due in the Middle East.

  Not enough time.

  But I was going to find a way to make it work.

  Spend every second I could with her over the next several days and maybe, just maybe, walk out of this week with a commitment to give it a go.

  A start, maybe, towards the only thing I actually ever wanted.

  Alexandra Winthrop.

  My phone rang, and my heart jumps, but when I look at the screen, it isn’t the name I want to see.

  It was a name I’d almost forgotten, just a woman I’d met in a bar during a training months ago.

  Pretty, but abrasive.

  Unhappy in her small-town life.

  Clearly, she wasn’t impressed with me, but she liked big guys, and I’d do in a pinch.

  And I was lonely…

 
Yeah, I was just making excuses.

  Decisions and consequences.

  And the thing I’d never told anyone: even as I’d listened to her voice on the phone and said I’d come meet her to talk, I knew that I’d do the right thing.

  But I hadn’t been thinking of that one-night stand just then.

  Or my future kid.

  Or even myself.

  The only thing I’d thought about was all my hope draining away and of her.

  Of Alexandra.

  She looks appalled and starts to pull her hand away.

  “No, Jack. Of course not.”

  I feel like an asshole.

  She’s a little taken aback. She’s been nothing if not kind.

  Nothing but kind.

  Hard to get through to, but a good woman.

  A stubborn, intensely independent woman fighting her own demons.

  But she’s here for me, even now, in a way that I haven’t experienced before.

  She stops, steeling herself and looking me straight in the eye.

  “I think you need to recognize that doing the right thing doesn’t always mean having to carry all the weight by yourself, Jack. It doesn’t mean spending a lifetime drowning in guilt over the past,” she says.

  I twist away because those words are both a benediction and a blow.

  I’d started to accept, maybe, just maybe, that I had more of an obligation to live.

  But I need more time to really figure out what that means.

  “Spending your life running away from something is very different than going after what you actually want,” she tells me.

  When I turn back, her face is only inches from mine, and she’s looking up at me with an open and soft expression that has my chest aching.

  “I think you’re very familiar with the kind of fear that drives the choices that let you do right by others and prove to you that you’re a good man,” she says, gently. “But I also think you’re afraid of what would happen if you let go enough to go after something you want. And I think that’s why you didn’t call me.”

  My mouth is dry, my face is hot, and my dick is rock hard.

  “As for your other question,” she pauses.

  She looks down at my shorts, which I am beginning to realize are woefully inadequate for this time of year.

  “There’s plenty that a woman like me would want with a guy like you,” she smiles.

  Bold.

  Unapologetic.

  In control of her desires.

  Owning them.

  So damned hot I can’t think straight.

  Alix takes a step toward me to close the distance between us, and all at once, my senses explode with the feel of her body against mine.

  Her soft, inviting breasts, and the swell of hips warm me as I feel her heat radiating through her thin running gear.

  The edge, that control I fight so hard to maintain, is slipping away.

  Her hand comes up to my cheek, running along the line of my jaw.

  She pulls me down, and I follow, my lips on hers.

  Hers are soft, smooth as silk, with a cupid’s bow.

  I’ve imagined kissing that mouth so many times that now that I can feel it against mine it’s almost as if I am in a dream.

  There’s something tentative, testing, about that kiss.

  Some part of me keeps expecting for her to pull away. The dream feeling intensifies, but as she leans in, I can feel her heart hammering against her chest.

  This is no dream.

  I feel her.

  Her body.

  I can smell the fresh scent of her hair, feel it on my face.

  Feel the way she shifts, so our bodies are closer, every inch of my exposed skin touching her.

  Feel the heady sensation of her moaning gently against my mouth as her hand slides down the back of my neck.

  The last threads of my restraint break.

  10

  Alix

  One second there’s the electric sensation of his lips on mine, respectful but exciting.

  He expertly positions his mouth on mine, his arms and hands moving on me, and his tongue probing. Full of possibilities.

  And then a shift, as he takes the kiss deeper, exploring me, possessing me.

  It feels amazing.

  I am completely swept up.

  Completely absorbed.

  Jack is a man that’s bound to be a little possessive.

  Here we are, standing in the middle of a running trail, on an icy December morning.

  Without moving his lips from mine, he dips down and hooks a hand under my ass. When his fingers make contact, he growls against my lips and then lifts me up. A firm hand massages my ass, and with his other arm, he encircles my waist.

  Keeping me safe.

  He lifts, picking me up like I’m a feather.

  He’s so damned strong.

  A few long strides, and he turns around, resting his back against the rough bark of a huge old tree, with deep roots and a wide trunk. An expansive canopy of pine boughs sprinkled with snow spreads out above us.

  It’s definitely a tree that’s seen some things, and if Jack has his way with me, it’s about to see some more.

  Part of me knows this is a bad idea.

  Jack’s not a man to trifle with, not someone that’s going to take sex – or even something approaching sex, which might be the best we get here – lightly.

  He’s told me as much.

  I don’t need more complications in my life, between Jack and me.

  And, to top it off, there’s the whole thing that brought us out here this morning – another run-in with the fucking stalker determined to terrify me.

  For now, though?

  I’m done being scared.

  And not just of stalkers.

  I’m done being scared of my attraction to Jack.

  The fact that after all these years, that it might be something more.

  And of the idea that if I open up, I might lose him.

  I might.

  In fact, I probably will.

  But the rational part of my mind recedes, as Jack focuses on other parts of my body. They are in control, now.

  A runner could go by here at any time, and for some reason, the possibility of our being accidentally discovered has me even more turned on.

  My nipples harden at the thought.

  I can feel Jack’s cock growing hard and straining through the thin material separating us, molding itself to my belly. That straightforward desire, and the way his tongue slides into my mouth, promises a realm of pleasure that is simply too much to resist.

  Today’s not going to be a day for good decisions.

  Rolling my hips, I grind against him, and his eyes, which are closed, flare open.

  Time seems to slow. The heat and vulnerability in his eyes contrast with a touch of something else, something darker.

  Something he’s been holding under tight control, for so long.

  Its intensity gives a moment’s pause.

  Not exactly fear, but respect.

  At the immense, high-power passions he’s kept bottled up for so long.

  That’s a lot to unleash.

  I give him a small knowing smile and lean down to nip at a spot between his neck and shoulder. He shudders as my lips touch his skin, and a private part of me vibrates with the possibility of having that kind of power over a man like him.

  I think of a thousand possibilities, of things I’d like to do to bring him to his knees, and smile as I let these fantasies run through my mind.

  Teasingly, I nibble, but when he leans his head against me with a guttural groan, he says, harder.

  I sink my teeth into his flesh. I’m not gentle. I’m leaving a mark.

  This happened, it will say.

  For one moment, at least, this giant warrior’s exterior melted, and he lost enough control for me to give him a hickey.

  His hand catches my hair, tangled up in the end of my ponytail.

  He yanks, hard, so
that my chin comes up, and I let out a little cry. For a second, he looks unsure, afraid that he hurt me, but I rock my hips against him, grinding harder and practically beg.

  “Pull.”

  The ridge of his cock is so hard, so defined and so insistent that I slide myself along its length. It’s a precarious balance, him holding all of our weight and the tree doing its fair share, but his eyes take on a smoky look.

  He’s not rough, but when his wraps my hair in his fist and moves his fingers around in it, my scalp comes alive with sensation. I want it. I crave the edge between pain and pleasure, between ice and heat.

  The same raw, primal need rises up in him, and I move back to his neck, sinking my teeth in again, harder this time.

  I want to feel alive.

  Want him to feel alive.

  Rubbing myself against his cock feels so good, there’s a building heat in my core. He matches me, rolling his hips in rhythm with mine.

  He grinds against me. I can’t stop the cry of pleasure, and he pulls back.

  “Fuck, Alix,” he gasps, his voice deep, ragged. “Not like this.”

  My legs wrap around him, his hard cock pressed tightly against my soaking pussy, his fist grabbing me by my hair.

  The desire is so urgent that icy trails and freezing air and common decency be damned.

  Oh, fuck, yes.

  Exactly like this.

  “You don’t like it?” I say, in between gasps, and licks of his salty sweat, and the nip of my teeth on his bare skin.

  I do a wicked thing and slide the tip of my tongue up along the side of his neck while I wait for his answer.

  I rock my hips even faster, pushing hard against his cock.

  His full-bodied shudder and the bestial sound that he makes give me his answer, and he struggles to form a sentence.

  “It’s not that I, fucking Christ! I love it. It’s just…”

  My tongue reverses, sliding down that neck – god, his neck is thick – toward the sensitive spot near his shoulder.

  I hit the place where I bit him and his entire body bucks.

  “Just say the word, and I’ll stop, Jack,” I whisper into his ear, then groan as he pounds against me.

  I pull back then and I do stop.

  Pretty soon, we’re going to cross that line where all bets are off.

  We need to be clear with each other now.

  “A bed?” He sounds a bit strangled. “You deserve….”