King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)

I woke up in Bran O’Connor’s apartment for the second time in as many days.

I had the feeling that I’d slept deeply. There had been no nightmares chasing me. My mind had been empty. Peaceful, like I’d laid down something very heavy, for the first time in a long time. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

Bran’s arm was tightly slung across my waist, holding me in the protective cage of his embrace. Outside, the dull daylight had given way to a heavy gray sky, and snow swirled past the windows. A small fire crackled in the grate in the corner.

It was more comforting than I would have expected.

I wriggled around, trying not to dislodge Bran’s arm. After several excruciating minutes of shifting around, I was face-to-face with him. His features were softened by sleep. It was usually quite the intense experience just staring at him. His gaze was always hungry, his expression ferocious, or joking. He flitted from one strong emotion to another.

Now, he was still, his cheeks slack. It really wasn’t fair for someone so big and strong and capable to also be so damn beautiful. His dark-blond eyelashes were long, and this close, I could see his eyebrows were light brown. He had a scar on his cheek, and his beard looked soft. Tattoos dotted his neck and chest. He’d made himself a canvas, and by God, he was art at this point. I leaned up on my elbow to examine the designs. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, only low-slung black pants.

I studied the designs on his chest, drawn to the design over his heart like I always was. It was a strange design, with straight intersecting lines that resembled tallies. There was something precise about those careful vertical lines, slashing through the one long horizonal one.

“It’s an ogham tattoo,” a deep voice rumbled.

I jerked my eyes up to Bran’s face, to find his green-eyed gaze fixed on me. Was this guy ever actually asleep?

“And that is?” I asked, my voice rough like I’d been screaming over loud music for hours. I felt oddly self-conscious under his intent gaze, like I was naked. Emotionally naked, I supposed. He’d seen me, under my sass, polish, and attitude. He’d seen it all.

“Ogham’s an alphabet, so this is a word.” His voice was sinful, a deep, lilting rumble.

“What does it say?” I asked. My cheeks felt hot. Am I blushing?

“Beochaoineadh,” Bran murmured, his voice stroking over the Irish word.

“And? What does it mean?”

He pondered my question. “Beware of the tattoo parlor after a pub crawl.” His lip tilted up in a grin, breaking the tension between us.

“Fine, don’t tell me.” I pushed myself up, getting ready to sit up and get the hell out of there.

Bran’s arm tightened on my waist, sending me falling back to the mattress.

“Hey!”

“It means ‘living lament,’” he told me.

“Living lament,” I repeated, my heartbeat picking up as his hand fastened on my hip and squeezed.

He pulled me closer by the hip and lifted one heavy leg over mine, trapping me in place.

Bran nodded. “It’s an elegy for the living,” he murmured and brought his hand up to my face, stroking the backs of his fingers along my jaw and tucking my hair behind my ear.

It was such an unexpectedly tender movement; I didn’t know how to react to it. My body didn’t have the same problem. My nipples hardened into points, and my skin flushed.

Fuck, how was this man so effortlessly attractive? He should come with a health warning.

“Why did you get it?” I asked, wetting my suddenly dry lips.

“To remember someone who’s not dead but is forever gone. My living lament… a keen for a lost soul.”

I swallowed, and his gaze drifted down to my neck. He leaned in and pressed his lips against my pulse point. It hammered madly. His hot breath sent pleasure creeping across my skin from where he’d kissed me. He licked up my neck and pressed a line of kisses along my jaw.

“What are you doing?” I asked dumbly.

“What does it look like?”

“Surely you’ve had enough, after last night?” I protested.

“It only whetted my appetite for you,” Bran said. “When it comes to you, for the first time in my life, I’m insatiable.”

I opened my mouth to protest again, when my stomach did it for me. It growled the longest, most agonized sound I’d ever heard. Bran dropped his head to my shoulder and laughed. The spell broke.

The Selkie’s Rest was quiet midmorning, with the pleasant, cozy sort of bustle of a place that enjoyed a well-earned break before getting busy again.

I sat in a window booth and stared out at the bustling Hell’s Kitchen street. The pub looked out onto a small, residential road, and right now, kids played in the middle with a ball, despite the cold January weather. Bran had disappeared to talk to someone, and I was taking a moment to try and pull myself together. What was I even doing, playing house with this lunatic?

“Good morning, love,” a jolly voice called to me. Aoife, appearing with a much-needed pot of coffee.

I had to stop myself from grabbing at it.

She poured me a cup, and I wrinkled my nose at the light-amber liquid.

“What is that?”

“Tea. Decaf tea,” she added.

“What?” I was aghast. “Why?”

“Women who want to conceive shouldn’t drink too much caffeine. I’ll be out with your breakfast shortly.” With that bizarre statement, she turned and walked away.

Women who want to conceive? Conceive. It was official, every single O’Connor I’d met had clearly escaped from the nearest psychiatric facility and needed to be chased down by men in white coats.

Mind you, considering Bran hadn’t used protection, or even mentioned it last night, or this morning, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to see how having sex more than ten times in the space of eight hours might look like a couple trying to conceive.

Luckily, I didn’t leave things like that to chance; I had an implant.

Still, what was Bran’s excuse? The man was a menace. A uniquely talented sexual deviant. Why is that so hot? I wondered darkly as I sipped at the tea just to see if it was as unappetizing as it sounded.

Yep, it certainly was.

The pub door swung open, and a man walked in. He glanced around, and I recognized him as Keiran, the O’Connor family doctor. He spied me and ambled over.

“Nice to see you again, Giada. Is Bran about?”

“Probably. It’s next to impossible to escape the man — believe me, I know,” I told Keiran sweetly.

He laughed and leaned a tattooed hand on the table. “Well, Bran’s always been a bit like that… possessive over his things.”

I picked up the knife from my place setting and twirled it easily between my fingers. “Call me an object again, Doc, and you’ll get to see open-heart surgery from the patient’s perspective.”

Keiran chuckled. “Nice to see the boss has met his match. How’s your friend, Sol?”

I dropped the knife and pushed my tea away. “She’s okay. Recovering, though I wish she didn’t have to be.”

Keiran’s hard gaze softened. “And you? Are you okay? A forced marriage in this day and age. I’m not the kind of guy who condones that sort of thing…” He trailed off, his eyes lifting to peer over my shoulder. He snapped his mouth shut, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

Tension filled the air. I turned and checked behind me.

Bran lounged on the wall beside the booth, arms crossed, watching me and his friend. His unwavering green gaze was locked on Keiran.

“Are you not? That’s news to me, Doc.” His tone was light, and yet, his words sounded like a threat. “I was under the impression you’d do whatever you had to, for the family?”

Keiran sighed and straightened. He took a card out of his wallet and passed it to me. “If it gets bad… or if you need help, call.”

“What have I interrupted here?” Bran’s tone was cheerfully deadly. He plucked the card from the table and tucked it into his pocket, staring down his friend.

Keiran shook his head. “I might be an O’Connor, but I’m a doctor first, and I take those oaths seriously.”

“As you should, but that has fuck all to do with my wife,” Bran warned.

Keiran sighed, but his eyes lowered to the table and stayed there as he picked up his phone and shoved it into his pocket. It was clear who was retreating.

“I’ll be seeing you, Giada. Take care of yourself,” he added and glanced at Bran before stepping past him.

Bran reached out and stopped him with a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You might be a doctor and an O’Connor man, but you’re my friend, first and foremost. Don’t forget that, Doc.” He gave a couple of slow, heavy pats on the shoulder and then pushed him away. “Off you go, you eejit.”

With that, Keiran headed to the door, and Bran swung into the booth right beside me.

“There’s a whole other side, you know,” I protested, pointing to the opposite side of the booth.

“I prefer this side,” he drawled.

“Well then, I’ll move—” I started but didn’t have a chance to finish.

Bran’s arm snaked around my waist and pulled me into his side. “Hush, woman. I’ve not had my coffee yet.”

“Here, you can have mine,” I said with faux sweetness and offered him my cup.

He narrowed his eyes at me but took the cup, putting it to his lips without glancing inside. He only took one sip, shuddering in disgust.

“Jesus, what is this? The Devil’s piss?”

“It’s decaf tea that Aoife forced on me, because ‘women who want to conceive shouldn’t have caffeine,’” I snapped.

Bran stiffened at that for a second and then laughed. A hearty, rumbling sound.

“How’s that funny?”

“We’ve only been wed a few hours, and she’s already picturing little O’Connors running around the pub, bless her.”

“So, you know that’s crazy, right?” I asked, vaguely relieved.

Bran nodded. “We need a month at least…”

I smacked Bran in the stomach with my elbow, and he only chuckled more.

“You know, when I’m toasting your demise at your funeral, I’ll think fondly of the time, only hours before, when you actually thought that my brother would let you live long enough to have kids.”

Bran nodded, still grinning.

Aoife appeared then, carrying plates laden with food. She struggled to hold the heavy plates, and Bran had stood and taken them from her before I could move.

“What is this?” I asked, being from the side of the world where coffee and a small pastry was the extent of breakfast. He placed the plates down on the table, while Aoife followed and patted him on the shoulder when he sat again.

“A full Irish. Enjoy. You need to eat to keep your strength up with this one.” She cast a look at Bran and left us to our ridiculous breakfast.

“We can’t be expected to eat all this, right?”

“How are you going to carry all those hearty, hale Irish babies if you don’t eat up?” Bran asked, already reaching for his fork.

I clenched my fist around the knife, and he tutted.

“No stabbing at breakfast. No stabbing at all before your brother kills me. I want an open casket, so you can give my corpse the finger one last time, for old times’ sake.”

Just then, my stomach growled in the loudest, most unladylike way. Bran smirked and held a piece of crispy bacon to my lips.

“Open up, wee one… I know you want it; the body doesn’t lie.” His gaze trailed from my mouth, down my body.

I was swathed in a T-shirt, a thick plaid flannel, and jeans — all his clothes. Not a single thing came close to fitting, but he had ripped my poor dress to pieces. I didn’t even have a shred of underwear to sew together.

I bit the bacon, only just missing his fingers as he pulled them nimbly away from my teeth.

He chuckled, and I turned my attention to the food. Well, there was no point in it going to waste when I was damned hungry.

For the next while, we ate in near perfect silence. The sounds of the pub drifted over us. People chatting, local news on in the background, the door swinging open and closed regularly. The usual hubbub of a busy community. It wasn’t like any criminal family I’d ever known. The De Sanctis family wasn’t like this. There was an order to follow. More formality. That appeared to be sorely lacking in the O’Connor stronghold.

But strangely, I didn’t hate it.

“Now, as much as it turns me on to see you wearing my clothes, we need to get you dressed normally if I’m supposed to keep my hands off you in public.”

I put down my fork, stuffed. I’d made a very good attempt at the plate, though. I was proud of myself.

“You done?” Bran drew my plate toward him and tucked into the rest.

“What do you think the second test is?” I asked, remembering how The Sentinel had instructed Bran to come back tonight for the next part of his initiation into The Enclave. “According to my now dead source, it should be something about truth…” Bran sighed, finishing off the rest of the meal and sitting back.

“How will you pass it?” I felt sick at the thought.

Bran shrugged. “Let’s worry about that when it happens. I could be dead before this evening, after all.”

Right.