“Ta tu go h-aileann,” he finally whispered, his voice reverent and deep. You look beautiful.

  “Is maith an scathan suil charad,” she said. Your eyes are a good mirror. “Thank you.” She reached for the badge hanging around his neck that hadn’t been there when he left. She tugged on it, pulling him closer. “What’s this, now?”

  “I’m official again,” he said distractedly, letting her lead him, still caressing her face with his eyes, his breath ragged and shallow. “You smell like heaven.”

  “Does heaven smell like honey butter?” she asked softly.

  “I’m pretty sure it does,” he murmured, his gaze lingering on her lips. “If I kiss you, will I wreck your lipstick?”

  She shook her head just slightly. “No. It’s waterproof.”

  His arms were around her instantly, his lips ravenous as they fell across hers. He groaned into her mouth, backing her up against the wall. She wrapped her arms around his neck, arching against him, the tips of her breasts instantly hard, her sex throbbing and hot.

  Panting by her ear, he moved his hands from her hips to the wall, flattening them on either side of her head, his breath choppy, falling in rough puffs near her cheek. He rested his forehead against hers.

  “We have…to go…to Suzy’s,” he said, grinding out the words like they hurt.

  She loosened her hands, skimming them down his arms until they hung by her sides. “The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.”

  His eyes were intense when he leaned back to look at her. “I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you, Tierney. I’m sorry if that frightens you, but it’s the truth. I’ll try to go slow tonight, but I haven’t been with anyone in a long, long time. I’ll try to be—”

  “Tonight isn’t just about me,” she said, reaching for his face. She held it tenderly, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him gently. “I want you to—to enjoy yourself too.”

  “Aisling,” he said, clasping her wrists and lowering her hands to the fly of his jeans, “there’s no chance I won’t ‘enjoy’ myself.”

  She pressed against his erection experimentally, and his hips bucked forward, filling her hands. How on earth am I meant to take all of him? she wondered, her breath catching, her breasts heaving with her panted breath.

  “It might hurt a little,” he murmured as though reading her mind, “but I swear I’ll make it good for you, love. I promise.”

  Her heart fluttered at the endearment, and she drew back her hands, flattening them over his heart. “I know you will. I trust you.”

  “Arrrr!” he grunted, pushing away from the wall and surging past her. “Give me a minute, yeah?”

  She listened as the bathroom door closed. She knew exactly what he was doing in there, and part of her was so intensely turned-on imagining him touching himself, she almost followed. But if they started making out again, they’d never leave the room. And the only way to get what she really wanted was to get out of here so they could return.

  She heard the toilet flush and the sink run. A moment later, Burr exited the bathroom, his eyes still dark, though his jaw wasn’t quite as taut as before. “That’ll only hold me for a little while, Tierney.”

  “Then let’s bloody well get going,” she said, beelining for the door with Burr at her heels.

  ***

  Damnú, but she looked a fucking picture when she opened the hotel room door.

  And after that sexy-dirty talk she’d laid on him earlier? I’d prefer it if you fucked me instead. Christ. He didn’t know how the fuck he was going to last through a conversation with his family, but the promise of Tierney’s sweet body naked next to his was surely the carrot leading him forward right now.

  Throughout his meeting with Donnelley, his thoughts had kept returning to her—to his feelings for her, which seemed almost impossible but wouldn’t be denied. In love with her? Hell, he didn’t know for sure. He’d never been in love with anyone before. But he’d never felt like this before either. Never felt anything close to it.

  “Tell me about your meeting with Captain Donnelley,” she said, crossing her legs toward him as Burr negotiated the thick traffic from central Boston to Dorchester. Although Suzanne only lived six miles away from the hotel, it would take over twenty minutes to get to her so close to rush hour.

  “Hmm. Well, I got my badge back.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “I wanted it back so I could show it to my dad,” he confessed without looking at her, feeling a little sheepish about the admission.

  “It’s going to be okay, Burr. I just know it.”

  He was grateful beyond measure to have her sitting beside him. It was like he could draw from her strength, and damn, but he needed it now. He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. His sister didn’t know he was coming. His parents didn’t know he was coming. Connor might well punch his lights out before letting Burr in his house. And he’d take it. Like Jesus on the way to Golgotha, he’d take it all.

  “Did you see Ray?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Nah. He’s under house arrest right now, wearing an ankle monitor and waiting to testify at the arraignment.”

  “Will he be arrested? For what he did to you?”

  And there was that Irish steel in Tierney’s voice that he fucking loved.

  “Why do I get the feeling you want to kick his ass?” he asked her.

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked, giving him side-eye.

  He had a brief flashback to Tierney with a spatula and chuckled. “I’ll need to keep you away from spatulas.”

  “When?”

  “When…I don’t know. When we barbecue, I guess,” he said, though he had no house at the moment at which to BBQ.

  All he had was a storage unit, which he’d visited today so he could grab some clean underwear and a few clothes before racing back to Tierney. It’s not like it was a home. He didn’t have a home, although the word made him think of the cozy cottage at Moonstone Manor, with beautiful walking trails, a BBQ grill, a fire pit, and a queen-sized bed that smelled like Tierney.

  “What else?” she prompted.

  “Donnelley said Ray cried like a baby when he confessed. When Sean couldn’t get answers out of Ray, he went to Suzy and shot her. When Suzy turned out to be a dead end, Sean went back to Ray and threatened his wife and kids. If he’d shoot Suzy, Ray knew he’d shoot them too. So Ray gave me up. Until then, he swore he was only doctoring reports and giving Sean a heads-up now and then about busts.”

  “It’s still not okay,” said Tierney, her tone ice cold.

  Burr reached for her hand. “No, it’s not. None of it. If Ray hadn’t been doctoring reports and informing for Sean, he never would have felt entitled to lean on Ray. You can’t be a ‘little bit’ of a bad cop. Either you’re good or you’re bad. Corrupt or honest. Ray learned that the hard way.”

  “I don’t feel bad for him.”

  The strange thing was, Burr did. Just a little. He didn’t want to see Ray or go hug him or offer any conciliatory bullshit like that. But at least he had a reason for why Ray did what he did, and it softened the blow for Burr just a little.

  “To answer your question, love, I don’t know if he’ll be arrested. But I know he’ll never be a cop again. He’ll never be able to hold up his head in Boston. He’s disgraced himself, and there’s no way back.”

  “Unlike you,” she said firmly. “You have a way back.”

  He turned down Suzy’s street, his chest filling with creepy-crawlies, unwelcome harbingers of anticipation. “Almost there.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Burr, listen to me. No matter what happens, I’m on your side. I know who you are, and I think you’re amazing. And if it all goes tits-up? Well, we’ll leave. But we’ll leave together.”

  I love you.

  The words rushed through his brain, ratified instantly by his heart without exception, without doubts, without retraction or warning.

  I love you. I don’t know how, but I do. I love you, Tierney Haven. Absolutely. Completely. For all time.

  He pulled into Suzanne’s driveway and parked, turning to Tierney. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  She leaned across the bolster, met his eyes, then kissed him, quick and hard.

  “Likewise. Now, let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Burr opened her door, and Tierney climbed into the passenger seat, sitting down with a huff and buckling her seat belt with an angry click.

  That did not go well, she thought. But she wouldn’t apologize for what she’d said. She’d never apologize.

  She watched as Burr walked back up the driveway to the stoop, speaking to his mother for a few minutes. His mother reached out and hugged him hard before he turned around and headed back to the car.

  As he turned, Sheila O’Leary looked for Tierney, searching for her eyes through the windshield and waving to her. Tierney mustered a polite smile and waved back. It wasn’t her fault. Burr’s father, Frank O’Leary, was the horse’s ass.

  Burr opened the driver’s-side door and sat down, resting his hands on the steering wheel for a moment before turning to her.

  “Wow, Tierney. Just…wow.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, taking his surprise for censure. “I should have stayed quiet, but I couldn’t—”

  Burr reached for her face, his hand landing on her jaw as he pulled her close and kissed her with a wellspring of deep and intense emotion. His tongue tangled with hers, his lips demanding and giving at once, his breath tasting faintly of Killian’s beer.

  When he drew back, his chest heaved, and his eyes were almost black. “You were…God, you were amazing!”

  “I couldn’t let your Dad talk to you like that,” she whispered.

  “For the record,” he said, leaning away to turn the key and back out of his sister’s driveway, “my mother said I should marry you.”

  Tierney grinned at him, the outlandish suggestion making her smile for the first time in the past thirty minutes.

  When they’d arrived, Burr had knocked on the door, and when his mother, Sheila, had answered, she’d enveloped Burr into a massive hug, clutching at her son, crying and laughing at the same time, and saying Burr’s name over and over again.

  He’d dropped Tierney’s hand to hug his mother back, and watching at his side, Tierney had been on the verge of tears, deeply moved by the mother-son reunion and encouraged that the rest of Burr’s family would be just as happy to see him.

  Well…that’s where she’d been wrong.

  Though his sister, Suzanne, still convalescing on the couch in the living room, had burst into tears, reaching for Burr and hugging him with the devotion Tierney felt he was due, Frank O’Leary and Connor Riley had looked on, stoic and uncompromising, from the corner of the room.

  “So you’re back,” spat Burr’s father, tossing a rude look at Tierney. “And who’s this piece?”

  “Be civil,” warned Burr.

  His father had nodded curtly at Tierney.

  “This is Tierney Haven,” said Burr. “Tierney, this is my father, Frank O’Leary.”

  “Hello,” said Tierney.

  “And my brother-in-law, Connor.”

  “Hi Connor,” she’d said.

  Neither offered a hand to shake, and both looked at her with some measure of disdain.

  “What’re you doing with him?” asked Connor, crossing his arms over his chest. “You should call an Uber and get away from here before you get shot or worse.”

  “Con, come on,” said Suzanne from the couch.

  Mrs. O’Leary had returned from the kitchen with a tray of open beers and a bowl of peanuts. “We weren’t expecting company, but why don’t you sit down, Tierney? Tierney. That’s Irish.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, taking the beer offered and sitting in the chair Mrs. O’Leary had indicated, with Burr standing beside her. “My mother’s from Killarney.”

  “Ah. Is she, now? Frank and I are both from Limerick.”

  “That’s what Burr said,” Tierney answered, taking a small sip of the cold beer.

  “So you’ve come back,” said Frank, staring at Burr with disgust. “Got a pound of flesh from your sister. What else can we do for you?”

  “Pop, I was hoping that I could explain—”

  “Oh!” said Frank, turning to his son-in-law, his cheeks red with anger. “He has an explanation, Connor. You see, there? He has a reason his sister was shot in her front doorway by that pig, Sean Shanahan.”

  Sheila sighed. “Frank, let’s listen to what Burr has to—”

  “I don’t give a shite what he has to say. He was arrested for dealing, Sheila. I know it breaks yer bloody heart, but the boy’s garbage.”

  “Pop, listen. I was undercover with the New Kil—”

  “Ha! Liar!” yelled Frank. “If you was undercover, boyo, my friend, Liam Donnelley, would’ve bloody well let me know.”

  “It was Captain Donnelley swore me to secrecy,” said Burr, his voice even and low, though his fingers were fisting at his sides.

  “Ná bí ag iarraidh cluain an chacamais a chur orm!” Frank bellowed. Don’t bullshit me! His eyes slid to Tierney as he pointed at Burr with one stubby finger. “Yer man, here, is right puir trash.” He turned back to Burr. “Ní mórán thú.” You’re worthless.

  Burr inhaled sharply beside Tierney, looking down at her. “We should go.”

  “No, son,” said Sheila, wringing her hands. “Your father’s just…just…”

  Suzanne spoke up. “Pop, please! Can we just listen to what he has to—”

  “To say?” demanded Connor. “You got shot by Sean Shanahan in front of our daughter, Suze. And the only reason Sean was here is because he was looking for your fucking brother. Now here he comes, three years after disappearing, talking about being undercover? You’re not buying this shite, are you?”

  “Sean Shanahan was arrested two days ago,” said Suzanne, her blue eyes furious. “Did you know that, Con?”

  “Everyone in Dorchester knows it,” he muttered.

  “So you don’t think it’s a little bit of a coincidence that we don’t see Burr for three years, and now Sean’s been arrested and he’s back? Just listen to him! What’ll it hurt you?”

  “Me? Nothing. But you, darlin’? You’re my wife, and God knows why after what he’s done, but you still love him. And if I let him in here to feed you pretty lies, it’ll—”

  “They’re not lies,” growled Burr. “I was undercover with the New Killeens for three years. The original drug bust was arranged to discredit me.”

  “Everyone and their brother knows you been runnin’ with the Shanahans for years!” said Frank. “Seen you strong-armin’ good men down on their luck, and God only knows what other foul deeds. Go mbeire an diabhal leis thú! There’s no room in this family for you!”

  “Bí ‘do thost!” Tierney yelled, jumping to her feet as she told Frank O’Leary to shut up. “Burr is a good man! He was undercover. He gave up three years of his life to put those bastards away, and he’s only back here in bloody, godforsaken Boston to testify at the arraignment tomorrow and make sure they don’t get bail. If you don’t believe me, show up tomorrow at the courthouse and you’ll see. And if not…if not…then go hifreann leat, you old bastard!”

  And that was the moment Burr had stepped between Tierney and his father, putting his arm around her shoulders and escorting out of the house and back to the car.

  Perhaps telling Frank O’Leary to go to hell was a bit harsh, but she couldn’t bear the way he’d spoken to Burr, calling his own son garbage, and trash, and worthless.

  “He was calling you names,” she said softly.

  “He doesn’t know the full story yet. He’s confused.”

  “No one has a right to call you names.”

  “Tierney,” he said, reaching for her hand, “my avenging angel.”

  “At least your mom and sister seemed glad to see you.”

  He nodded. “It did me good to see them too.”

  “I’m sorry I called your father a bastard. I’m sure he’s…not. In better circumstances.”

  He chuckled softly, squeezing her hand before releasing it. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, his face. He was so shocked.”

  “By the Irish or what I said?”

  “You walked in looking like an angel and left yelling like a banshee.”

  She took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

  “Aisling,” he said, braking at a red light and looking over at her. “You were magnificent. The most amazing woman I’ve ever known. You didn’t embarrass me. I couldn’t have been more proud of you.”

  “Truly?”

  He nodded. “I promise.”

  “But your father—”

  “Probably respects the hell out of you. Probably likes you more than me,” he said, but the pain of his father’s rejection slipped into his tone. After a few minutes of driving in silence, he added, “At least that’s over now. There’s a relief in that.”

  “And next time will be better,” she said.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Anyway, thanks for being there, Tierney.”

  “I’m glad I was there.”

  The bright lights of Boston illuminated the twilight sky ahead, and suddenly Tierney realized that if one part of the night was over, the other was just about to begin. She glanced over at Burr who seemed to be having the same realization.

  “Do you, um…want to get dinner somewhere?” he asked. “We could stop on the way back to the hotel.”

  No. She didn’t. There was only one thing she wanted.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  “Me neither,” he said, then added, “not for food.”

  Unexpected butterflies filled her tummy as her heart started thumping, and she took a deep breath.

  He reached across the center bolster, taking her hand and drawing it to her lips. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  “I don’t want to change my mind,” she said. “I want to be with you.”

  He kissed her hand again, then dropped them both to the bolster, his fingers winding through hers. “You remember earlier today, before I left to see Donnelley, when you said I was acting weird?”