Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
"Now?" I breathe.
"After your bath," he says firmly, and there's Saint Lorcan again—that command wrapped in care. His thumb brushes my cheek. "Ya need tending first. Then the library."
I want to argue. Want to demand books now, immediately, before this moment evaporates.
But something in his tone—that gentle firmness—makes me nod instead.
"Okay," I whisper. "Bath first."
"Good girl," he murmurs. And then he's standing, hands gripping my ass, lifting me like I weigh nothing.
I gasp and wrap my legs around his waist instinctively—not because I'm trained to, but because I'm desperate to keep him inside me. To stay connected just a little longer.
His cock shifts as he moves, and I bite back a whimper.
"Easy," he says against my hair. "I've got ya."
I expect that we'll leave the chapel now, but we don't. Lorcan carries me over to the bank of red votives along the wall and bends down. Once again, his cock shifts and for a moment, I'm panicking, thinking it will slip out of me.
"Shhh," he soothes. "Don't worry, lass. We're still connected." And we are. "Blow them out, a stór. All your sins are forgiven now."
I am momentarily stunned at the symbology happening here. The candles were lit as an admission of transgressions. Punishment became my penance. Then, fucking was forgiveness.
Now, I get to blow the candles out, erasing the debt forever.
"Emmaleen?"
"Yeah," I breathe. "OK, it's just…" Then a tear falls down my cheek.
"Ya OK, lass?"
I wipe the tear away. Nodding. "I am… it's just. This is so… nice."
Lorcan chuckles. "It's a little over the top, yeah."
"No." I look down at him. His eyes are very gray. And they flicker with gold and amber from the firelight. "No, it's not. It's exactly what I needed."
This makes him smile. And I realize that his smiles come easy. "Blow them out then. Let's put it behind us."
I take a breath, nodding. Then I blow them out. One by one, my sins are erased.
He stands again, shifting me in his grip. Enough thrust to remind me his cock is still impaling me like a sword. Then he carries me out of the chapel, through the crimson curtain, into his great room. I bury my face against his neck, inhaling the scent of him—clean sweat and something woodsy.
My brain catalogs details even as my body melts. The leather furniture I glimpsed earlier, the massive fireplace made of stone, Persian rugs over polished concrete floors.
Everything in this man's space is deliberate. Curated. Like he built himself a castle inside a converted Boston warehouse because growing up in an actual castle wasn't enough.
Of course it wasn't.
Saint Lorcan the Spanker doesn't do things halfway.
He carries me up the stairs and I feel his cock start to slip. I tighten my legs desperately.
"Greedy thing," he murmurs, but there's warmth in his voice.
"Don't want to let go," I admit against his throat.
"You'll have me again, a stór."
Will I though? Or is this just one of those things people say during the afterglow before reality crashes back in?
Because I don't belong to him. I understand that he and Giovanni came to some kind of agreement, but that was just… some kind of pity reaction to my spiral.
Three men in my life.
It's something out of a dream.
Which means it's too good to be true.
I would not trade Giovanni for Lorcan. Just like I wouldn't trade Giovanni for Jino—I go where he goes. Giovanni is mine.
But this is… nice.
Heroic kidnapper, Saint, Irish mobster—doesn't matter. This man is just nice.
Lorcan reaches the top of the stairs and suddenly we're in his bedroom again. But he doesn't stop at the bed—he keeps walking, carrying me through to an adjoining bathroom.
"Holy shit," I breathe. The bathroom is a fucking spa.
The centerpiece—because of course there's a centerpiece—is a massive freestanding copper tub. Not against a wall. Not tucked into a corner. In the middle of the room, like a sculptural throne demanding worship.
It's deep enough to completely submerge in. Wide enough for three people, maybe four if they were friendly. The copper has this gorgeous aged patina—burnished dark metal that looks like it was salvaged from some ancient Irish manor and shipped across the Atlantic just to hold Lorcan's bathwater.
Because why the fuck not.
A skylight sits directly above it. Stars visible through the glass. During the day, natural light would pour down on whoever was bathing, turning the whole thing into some kind of pagan ritual.
He sets me down gently on a velvet bench—velvet, because obviously—and his cock finally slips free. I feel the immediate loss, the emptiness, and resist the urge to whine about it.
Lorcan moves to the tub and starts running water, his naked back to me. I watch the muscles shift under tattooed skin—Celtic wolf, skeletal raven, Gaelic script I haven't a prayer of reading.
My brain kicks back online. Okay. Let's review.
My Heroic-Kidnapper-Who-Got-It-All-Wrong lives in a converted warehouse overlooking Boston Harbor. He has a library. A three-story library back home in Ireland, and apparently an equally impressive one here because of course he does. He reads Declan Cross thrillers and gets heated about historical accuracy in Vatican conspiracy plots.