Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) (13 page)

“Well, he is a mighty big fella. I sure as hell wouldn’t give him any shite.”

“Oh my God!” Fliss squealed as she grabbed another record, doing a little happy dance. The sway of her hips about had me busting out of mine. “My mother had this record. This song,” she pointed to the back of the jacket, “I loved it. I used to twirl around the living room to it when I was just little.”

“Wow, the Carpenters, huh?
Top of the World
?”

“Yes,” Fliss giggled and turned to the bloke behind the counter. “Could you play this for me?” she asked him with a flirty grin.

The fella looked a bit like he was away with the fairies or something. Fliss tended to have that effect on lads. Her smile was pure hypnotic. She held the record out to him, and he mumbled some halfway incoherent shite about the guy up front kicking his arse if he didn’t help a customer, especially one so lovely. He stepped over to a turntable and began to play the record. The melodic-yet-very-dated voice of Karen Carpenter began to fill the small room, and Fliss bobbed her head from side to side and sang along. If it wasn’t for the sweet, seduction movements of her body, she would have almost appeared childlike, reliving her youth in such a way.

“Okay,” I chuckled, trying to appear stern, yet failing miserably. I couldn’t keep the smile from my lips as she danced a little closer, then spun away from me. “Really, Fliss, quit your messin’ about. You’re acting the eejit.”

“But this song is so awesome,” she giggled back. “You guys should play it at one of your shows.”

“Hmm…” I grunted, “don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.” Holding up a KISS album set, I grinned widely. “Now here’s a treasure. Each record has a different band member on it. Peter Chris’ was amazing. The cat…”

I flipped through a couple more and found another KISS album. “This song,” I said, pointing on the back to
I Love It Loud
, “this song made me want to learn to play guitar. This and
Ace of Spades
by Motörhead. My da was always hollering at me to turn my music down.”

Fliss laughed and sashayed away, stepping into the bookstore section. Some books were old, some relatively new, some rare… but they were everywhere. Her eyes were drawn to the tops of the shelves and the odd displays they held. Some of the weirdest stuff… Barbie pushing a shopping trolley of Guinness, bizarre action figures, a dinosaur. I followed, watching her take it all in.

She languidly began to look through the books stacked on the tables, laid out in some sort of organized disorder, as strange as that sounds.

“This place is… amazing…” she murmured.

“It really is, isn’t it?” I smiled.

With a full-out laugh, she lifted one book and held it out to show me.

“
The Klingon Hamlet
?” she giggled and reached for another book, “right next to an ancient copy of
Wuthering Heights
.”

I reached out for the two books, first flipping through the trekkie one to see an artist’s rendition of an alien William Shakespeare that I showed Fliss with a laugh. A few more pages in, and I felt like it was just a jumble of letters on one side with the traditional version on the other.

“Jaysus, that looks harder to pronounce than any Gaelic words I’ve ever seen,” I snorted as I handed it back to her and looked down at the battered and tattered copy of
Wuthering Heights
. “And this isn’t ancient, really. It’s older than you, but you’re just a young wan. A spring chicken. This book just looks old and, like most of the books in here, smells a little old, but it’s only from 1969.”

Fliss, who was still chortling over
The Klingon Hamlet
, raised her eyebrows at that. “Really, 1969, huh?” she said with a devious smile, and then murmured, “Good year.”

“Jaysus,” I gasped, suddenly picturing her sprawled out over me, her mouth on my cock and mine on her…

Feckin’ hell. No
, I told myself.
I can’t think that way. Not about her.

Must. Stop.

But it was kind of like it had taken root and was sprouting out all over my subconscious. Like the dam had burst, and all that lustful longing rushed forth.

“Cute,” I choked, barely able to squeak out a word with the way my dick had suddenly come to life.

“Okay,” she said, not really paying much attention to me, but still focused on the trekkie book, “once I start looking at this, I think I understand the Klingon better.” She held the book back, posturing in an austere and formal pose before she began to recite from the book. “‘I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines’ is translated to ‘I would prefer my words to be shot from a Federation battleship.’”

I laughed, pure thankful that she didn’t seem to notice my sudden discomfort. I was sure that I’d gone scarlet, and the room felt hotter than feckin’ hell.

In the end, Fliss ended up buying both books for a fiver each, saying the one was simply too funny to pass up and, really, how could she
not
buy one of her favorite books when it was a copy that had been printed in 1969.

She really had to stop saying that number. It was killing me. Once again, I had blood rushing to my junk. Just as I’d gotten myself under control from the last bout.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Fliss sighed as we left the shop and ambled down the street.

“It’s close to Trinity College, too,” I said. “Just a short walk over, so you can stop by right quick when you have time.”

She smiled up at me, a smile that did nothing to ease my aching rock on, but I did my best to appear unaffected.

“It’s definitely not in my travel book,” she mused softly.

“I don’t doubt it,” I replied, turning to walk down the footpath along Exchequer Street, “and it’s not really too easy to find unless ya know what you’re looking for. If a big lorry is parked in front, you’re liable to not even see it.”

“A lorry?”

“Sorry,” I laughed, “a truck.”

She eyed me speculatively with a sideways lift to her lips. “You seem more… Irish here than in Montana.”

“I gather that being back sorta brings it out of me again,” I shrugged.

“I like it…” she murmured.

And I liked that…
feckin’ hell
, I liked that entirely too much.

“What a cool building. It looks like a castle,” Fliss grinned, and for a second she reminded me of a child who dreamed of being a princess.

“It is a castle.”

“What? But it’s right in the middle of town, just like any ordinary building.”

“There are castles and keeps all over Ireland, Fliss, a lot of them in towns.”

“But this is right in the middle of Dublin.”

I nodded and laughed. “Right, it’s Dublin Castle.”

“But it’s just like… here in the middle of the city. There are buildings all around it and I wouldn’t have even guessed it was here a block away. There’s no moat, no drawbridge. It’s just… wait,” she breathed, looking through the slightly ajar iron gate in the wall behind us. She took a few steps and looked up at me. “What is this?”

“Dubhlinn Garden,” I answered.

“Can we go in?” she asked in a dreamy voice, and then stepped through the entrance without waiting for an answer.

The center of the garden had a large Celtic symbol patterned out of brick laid out like snakes curved together in the grass.

“Is this old?”

“The design is your typical Celtic knot, but it’s not been in place for a terribly long time. They used to land helicopters here a while back. Maybe still do, I’m not certain.”

“It’s so peaceful,” she whispered looking around, “I can’t even imagine that.”

She stepped gingerly along the narrow brick path, following the twists and turns. There were a few people sitting around on benches here and there, but not many. Around noon when folks began taking lunch breaks, there would likely be a few more, since the morning rain had cleared some and sun had come out. Reaching the end, where a snake head was formed, she gazed down at it.

“They’re snakes,” she said, more of a statement than a question.

I watched, a bit mesmerized by her fascination with the garden, smiling at her wide-eyed awe. She headed towards one of the more secluded corners, behind the shrubbery, gasping at the blue swirled up snake she saw there. Reflecting the sunlight behind it and majestically coiled up over a small pool, it seemed menacingly beautiful. Magical.

“What’s with all the snakes?” Fliss asked quietly.

“St. Patrick and all that,” I offered.

“Like ‘
St. Patrick’s Day’
St. Patrick?”

“Right,” I chuckled. “He banished all the snakes from Ireland… chased them all into the sea.”

“You don’t have snakes here?”

“Not native, not really.”

“That’s crazy,” she murmured as she stepped around the small statue. She looked over the top of it, and the blue of her eyes seemed to mirror the brilliance of the serpent as she looked up at me. “This is really beautiful.”

“Yeah, gorgeous…” I breathed, my eyes trained on her more than the sculpture she stood behind.

Fliss swallowed hard as I held her gaze for a second longer than I should have. The sound of people walking along the footpath just out of our sight pulled me back to my senses.

“Must be nearing noon already,” I said, giving a slight nod towards the shrubs. “How would you like to eat in the oldest pub in Ireland?”

Fliss dropped her gaze for a minute, as though she was fighting back the same attraction I kept pushing down, then smiled and nodded.

“Sounds awesome.”

“Welcome to the Brazen Head,” I said as I motioned towards the entryway.

“Oh, it’s so cute,” she cooed.

“Cute? It’s not cute. It’s a pub. Dates back to the twelfth century.”

“Twelfth century? Damn, that was five-hundred years before America was even a country.”

I nodded. “Not sure how much of the original structure is still here, but it’s an old one. Are ya up for a pint of Guinness? Or are ya feeling a wee bit rough yet?”

“I should maybe have a Coke,” she replied. “I’ll be here for a bit, so there’s plenty of time for Guinness later, and I’m still not entirely sure I feel all that great yet.”

She didn’t seem to find me terribly amusing, though, when I told the waiter not to put any ice in her Coke. And then I stirred all the bubbles out before I’d let her drink it.

“Nanny’s cure-all,” I smiled as I pushed the glass in her direction.

“I thought it was 7-Up.”

“Coke works, too,” I shrugged.

Initially, she narrowed her eyes at me, but then shook her head and took a sip from her straw as she began to look over the menu. I’d been here a lot before I left Dublin, so, while the menu had likely changed a bit, I didn’t feel the need to study the options like Fliss did.

Instead, I studied Fliss.

I watched her lips close over the straw and draw the Coke up with a gentle suction, and I couldn’t look away for a moment. After taking a taste, she lifted her head just a little, still pondering the choices. Her tongue slipped out to catch a drop of liquid on her lip, and I couldn’t stop the quiet groan that escaped me.