“None.”
“Not one?” I ask incredulously.
“No.”
“You have never had any relationships with any of your sexual partners whatsoever?”
“That’s what I said.”
When I absentmindedly bite my lip to take that tidbit of information in, he groans and turns his attention back to his plate. I immediately pull my teeth off my lip before his willingness to answer my questions vanishes.
“Have you slept with many women?”
“Yes.”
Well, that was a stupid question.
Of course he has.
The way he holds court in the bedroom is enough proof of his experience.
Ask him what you really want to know, Rosa.
“Let me rephrase. Have you slept with anyone more than once?”
“A few.”
“How many is a few?”
“Two, maybe three.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I have more important things to occupy my mind with than remembering such things.”
He’s right.
A man like him probably doesn’t even remember a woman’s name after he’s had her, much less the number of times he took her to his bed.
“For how long? How many days did those relationships last?”
“If you can call banging a woman’s head into a headboard while I fucked them from behind a relationship, then I would say no more than a couple of days. A week tops.”
“Figures. That would explain why you got tired of me after only a day,” I mumble, distracted by the imagery he planted in my head.
“Hmm.”
I maul my lip while tapping my fingers onto the table.
“Stop punishing your bottom lip and just ask what you really want to ask, wife,” he orders, his eyes not lifting once off his plate.
Instead of wondering how he knew I was chewing on my lip, I ask the burning question that has been slowly driving me up the wall.
“Have you slept with anyone else since we’ve been married?”
“No.”
With this question he has the decency to look me in the eye.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care either way.”
We grow silent as we continue on with our staring contest, waiting until one of us breaks.
Neither one of us does.
“I saw glitter on your shirt that first week back at The Liberty Hotel. You came in smelling like cheap perfume, too.”
“Did you really?” he asks, engrossed in my small confession. “I thought you were asleep?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You waited up for me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I shrug, preferring to feign nonchalance than to tell him the truth.
If I admit to him that I was slowly going out of my mind wondering when he would touch me again, or that I couldn’t get our wedding night out of my head, and that him spanking my ass like that until I came had been the most lurid and fascinating thing I had ever experienced, I’d never live it down.
Nope.
Not happening.
Fabricated nonchalance it is.
Tiernan’s gaze on me never falters as he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Before you came to Boston, I hadn’t touched a woman in over a year. The stress of the treaty and sending Iris off to be married to the Bratva killed my sex drive.”
“It didn’t seem dead to me the other night.”
“Things change.” He smirks. “But there you have it, wife. I haven’t slept with anyone that wasn’t you, and for the foreseeable future, I don’t intend to, either.”
“Because you’re too busy for such things.” I snort, irked at the ‘foreseeable future’ remark he just had to include in his rant.
“No. Because if I want to get off, I have a beautiful wife waiting for me at home, ready and willing to assist me.”
“You sure think highly of yourself.”
“I only speak the truth, wife. If I wanted you this very minute, I could have you. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I hate you,” I seethe when the mere sound of his velvety voice calling me wife has my lower belly aching with need, wanting him to put his theory to the test.
“No, you don’t, wife. But you will.”
He then gets up from his seat and walks over to me. My forehead wrinkles when he gently picks my chin up so I have no choice but to crane my head back and look him in the eye.
“Thank you for dinner, acushla. I will now anxiously look forward to them in the future.”
He bends down and places such a sweet and gentle kiss to my lips, that I’m left both confused and utterly bereft when he pulls away.
“Goodnight, Rosa.” He smiles softly, running the pad of his thumb over my lower lip.
“Goodnight, husband,” I breathe out on a sigh and then watch the infuriating man retreat to his office, leaving me with even more questions than I had answers.
Chapter 16
Shay
When Rosa walks into the living room in white flannel pajamas that mostly cover her from head to toe, I’m not only disappointed but oddly fascinated.
“Shay?” She rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she draws closer.
I can’t blame the poor thing for being tired after the number Colin and I did on her body yesterday.
“Morning, petal.”
“Morning.” She yawns, walking over to the kitchen to grab some coffee.
“Don’t I get a kiss good morning?”
She crosses her eyes at me but blushes all the same.
“It’s too early for your teasing,” she says between yawns.
I wasn’t teasing.
She could be wearing a potato sack over her head and I’d still want to kiss her stupid first thing in the morning.
But saying such things will only get her and me in trouble.
For all I know, Tiernan has his apartment bugged just to make sure no one touches his prized possession when he’s not around.
Fucker.
After she’s filled a mug full of her daily dose of caffeine, she walks over to the couch and sits right beside me.
“Where’s Colin? Isn’t he supposed to be babysitting me today?”
“Nope,” I pop the p at the end. “I got you all to myself for the day.” I nudge her shoulder playfully with mine.