Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) (3 page)

“I’m sorry, Denny,” she finally whispered.

I took a few steps towards her, touching my fingertips under her tense chin. She resisted the pull for a few seconds, but eventually allowed her face to be drawn up towards me. Her sapphire blue eyes retained their unfocused gaze across the western Montana landscape, watching the last glimmers of sunlight quickly fade away.

I traced my fingertips along the sweet curve of her jaw, wiping away the trail of wetness down her cheek. This brought her luminous eyes up to mine.

“Don’t be nice to me,” she breathed in a broken voice. “Not now.”

I touched my forehead to hers.

“Fliss…” I murmured, cupping her face in my hands. We stood there, quiet and hurting, for what seemed like forever. The sky darkened slowly, and a faint glimmer of stars began to appear. She gently began to settle into my body and we found a silent refuge for a time in just being close.

Until I fucked it all up.

I heard her inhale a broken breath, a faint shudder, and turned my face ever so slightly into hers. My lips brushed along her high cheekbone, feathering over the damp path of her tears. I pressed a tender kiss on her skin, and a faint salty taste lit on my tongue. My hands had slowly moved from her shoulders up to her slender neck, into the thick, dark silk of her hair, coaxing her face up until my kiss touched the corner of her mouth.

Then everything suddenly changed. Her lips parted, and a faint startled gasp seemed to echo in my mind. For a split second, we stood frozen. Knowing I shouldn’t, but wanting to so badly, I softly touched my lips to hers.

It was so light that I’m not sure I could have even called it a kiss. Barely contact. An ethereal dusting that echoed with a tender longing.

But it was tremendous… electric and powerful. Fierce and mighty. Overwhelming.

The almost-kiss erupted into an irresistible plunder of her lips. A fiery wave of longing and urgency rushed through my veins and seeped through my body. I slanted my mouth over hers, exploring the taste of her with a moan of pure, sensual emotion.

Fliss’ arms slid up my biceps, sliding over my shoulders as her petite form melted into mine. One of my hands held her face steady, keeping her captive for my kiss, while the other stroked down her torso to wrap around her waist.

She felt so fragile, small and delicate in my arms, yet I crushed her to me in desperation. That gnawing hunger for her, that eternal longing, flowed through my veins as I deepened our kiss.

And for a moment, I forgot.

I forgot who we were, who she was. I forgot Trent. I lost myself in the sweet intoxication of her lips, spurred on by the vicious ache that had consumed me for so long.

It was her voice, soft and breathless, that brought me back.

“Denny…” she gasped as I lifted scarcely away to catch a breath.

It all came raging back to me.

“Feckin’ hell,” I groaned as I pushed her harshly, shoving her back against the wall. Away from me. She stumbled with the abrupt movement. Her hand, those fingers that had just been tangled in my hair, lifted to cover her mouth in horror at what we’d just done. Fierce anger at my own actions ripped through me, at the realization that my envy had finally taken control.

I’d finally given in.

I’d just kissed the girlfriend of one of my best friends.

And I’d done it at his funeral.

Present day

“Oh, yes, fuck me, Denny!” Ruth cried as she slammed down on me again and again. “I’m a dirty little slut. Fuck me harder!”

Best going away present ever.

Ruth always seemed to be a bit of a wallflower during parties, even though she was quite stunning with her long, mahogany hair and mysterious dark eyes. She’d caught my attention more than once, but was never alone for long, and I’d never really gotten to her fast enough… until tonight.

I’d heard from a couple of the fellas that she lit up like the bleedin’ Fourth of July once ya got in her knickers. Granted, all the blokes I hung out with could get up on a stiff breeze, especially Justin. He’d shag a crack in a plate.

That said, though, Ruth really had turned into quite the firecracker, cursing with words I’ve never even heard before as I gave her the business.

“Oh, yes, right there. Fuck!” she squealed as I shifted my hips to hit her just right with my Jacob’s ladder piercings. “I’m going to come. Shit! Fuck! Oh yes, fuck my pussy!”

Then she sorta went off in some kind of garbled speech that practically sounded like some kind of pagan tongue. I heard the occasional ‘
pussy’
and ‘
cock’
and even let out a ‘
goddammitshitfuckhell’
at one point right before she gushed all over me.

Oh, yeah.
She was great craic.

She lay there straddling me on the couch in the music room with her skirt up around her waist, her bared knockers heaving against my chest. The calamity of my farewell party continued raging in the other room, a pulsing beat almost shaking the windows. They’d probably still heard Ruth swearing over the music, though. She could make a porn star blush.

“A-one, Ruth,” I murmured, patting her lightly on the arse as she breathed into my neck when we had finished.

“I don’t know if you’re complimenting me or not with that Irish accent of yours,” she giggled into my shoulder, “but thanks, I think?”

“It’s a compliment,” I chuckled. “That hit the spot.”

“Mmm…” she murmured in response, “those piercings of yours hit the spot.”

She really had been pretty damn good. I wasn’t sure why I had never tried her out before.

“It’s too bad you have to go,” she said, rising upright to look at me, combing the hair from my eyes. “I’d be interested in doing this again sometime.”

She was nearing that danger zone, where these fine bits of stuff started getting a little wistful after a good hard shagging. It was like walking a tightrope, requiring the delicate balance of flattery and reality to keep from hurtling to the ground.

“I’m not sure how long I will be gone, so don’t hold your breath,” I said lightly, imparting the reality to be sure there was no misunderstanding. “Who knows though? I might be up for another round when I get back.”

She gave me a shy smile, then lifted up off of me to straighten her skirt, cover her breasts, and find her knickers. I stood as well, slipping off the condom and tossing it before I tucked myself back into my jeans.

“Well,” Ruth said, once she had gotten herself sorted, “give me a call when you do get back. I’d be willing to go another round with you, too.”

As she slipped out of the room, my mind turned back to Dublin. This time tomorrow I’d be about halfway there, and I really didn’t know when I would be able to come back. If I’d be able to come back, really. My student visa was hardly valid anymore. I just hoped things with my grandmother, my ‘nanny,’ would get better quickly, although there wasn’t much chance for that. My da had said it didn’t look good.

I was likely going back for a funeral.

I sat back down on the couch and scrubbed my hands down over my face. My nanny was the person I missed the most in all of Ireland. There was just something special about her. How ironic that going back to see her one last time would likely keep me there without her around.

I dropped my hands down to my lap and caught sight of the tattooed lyrics on my forearm.

Always hungry,

Craving,

Desperate and fading,

A twisted, tortured memory

Of you

At least if I got stuck in Dublin, it would solve one problem. I could maybe, just maybe, finally put that ghost to rest. Put the past behind me, release that guilt and regret, and forget about that one girl who had haunted me for years. The one girl I could never have.

I wondered for a moment if her hair was still that deep crimson red it had been the last time I saw her.

It was naturally a rich, dark chestnut that lit like a flame in the sun, and it had been that shade when I had kissed her.

She’d started dying it not long after Trent’s funeral. As much as the color was startling, it fit her. It fit the personality I remembered as much as it fit the wild streak that took hold of her after Trent died. The steampunk, pinup style of clothing she wore. It all at once screamed
‘look at me’
yet also seemed to shield her true persona from the world outside. An artifice that protected her frail soul within.

I’d seen her in passing a time or two. Not often. She lived in Butte and went to Tech, but she still came to Ophir sometimes with friends. She’d even been to a couple parties at my house.

Parties I had always left.

I couldn’t seem to eradicate her from my mind, though. I couldn’t ease the hollow ache that permeated my soul.

Maybe I could finally move on if there was an ocean between us.

As luck would have it, though, there were only a few people between us. Five, actually. Five people between her and me as I waited in the line to board the plane for the first leg of my trip.

I had barely seen her face, but it was her. I knew it.

And her hair was still that scarlet red.

“Final call for United flight 2384 to Denver, boarding group three.”

I watched, all the while trying not to, as all the passengers filtered into the plane. I swore I could catch a faint sweet freshness in her wake, a scent I had always associated with her since that very first day. She reached her row and sat by the window, shoving her carry-on beneath the seat in front of her. I turned my head as I passed her row, heading towards my own seat towards the back of the plane. Last minute booking meant shite seats.

As I sat there, eight rows behind her, knowing it was eight because I’d counted them again and again (and again), I tried to forget she was there. It was a lost cause. I’d not been able to push her from my mind a single day in the last four years. She was too firmly planted in my thoughts, in my memories.

Even the bad ones.

Like at the hospital when Trent had overdosed. The shock of his passing left her white and shaking, sitting in the room across from his cold body. I noted the bruise on her cheek as I looked at her sidelong, trying to focus on Trent. My friend.
Had he done that to her?
Justin had said something about a horrific fight between them when they were leaving the party. I’d never known Trent to be violent, but I wasn’t sure I knew him at all anymore with some of the substances he’d started experimenting with. He had gotten kind of edgy. Unhinged.

Thinking about him brought all that guilt back. I’d abandoned him. Not wanting to see Fliss and him together, I’d grown cold and vitriolic whenever she showed up, and she always seemed to. Because I couldn’t take the way she smiled up at him. The way he would tuck her sweet little body up against him, and she would give a little contented sigh that nobody seemed to hear but me. So I would leave… every single time.