Unfixable

Chapter Eleven

The four of us walk into the Claymore Inn and stop dead in our tracks just inside the door. I can barely see into the pub, it’s so packed full of customers. Every last one of them appears to be drunk and sunburned, shouting along with the music blaring through the speakers. My gaze shoots to Faith, but she’s completely frozen, apart from her wringing hands in front of her. A young woman bumps into me muttering a preemptive, hiccupping apology, and I notice she’s wearing the same wristband we’re sporting, that got us into the Championship. It dawns on me then that all these people must have migrated from the park a short distance away, packing the pub on what should have been a quiet night.
Just then, the crowd parts slightly and I glimpse Shane behind the bar. He’s completely on his own fulfilling orders and utterly swamped. Not only that, he’s seen us walk in and he’s livid. At the end of the bar, Kitty stands wide-eyed, her look of helplessness identical to her daughter’s. Beside me, Faith starts to mutter, “shit, shit, shit,” under her breath.
“I don’t think you’ll be getting us that table, Faith,” Brian half shouts.
Without waiting to hear if she replies, I begin to skirt my way through the crowd. I don’t know what I plan on doing once I make it past the staggering bodies. I only know someone needs to help. I’m surprised when I hear Faith pipe up from behind me, voice laced with more steel than I’ve come to expect from her.
“I’m going to jump on waiting tables, yeah?” She nudges the small of my back with her hand. “God only knows where Orla has gotten off to. Think you can manage to help Shane behind the bar till she turns up?”
I know nothing about bartending apart from what Ginger has reluctantly shared with me, so as not to encourage me to pursue the same profession. “Yeah, yeah. I got it,” I call over my shoulder as she disappears though the crowd in the direction of the kitchen. When I reach the end of the bar, I take a deep breath and walk behind it, already knowing Shane is going to reject my help. Too bad. He’s getting it. I’m actually grateful for the chance to repay him for this morning, for two reasons. One, I don’t like unpaid debts. They burrow under my skin like a splinter. Two, if anything ever happens between us, I don’t want him mistaking it for gratitude.
Kitty actually looks relieved to see me. “Oh thank God. That American is here.”
My answering smile disappears when Shane spots me.
“No.” That’s all he says.
Determined not to budge, I square my shoulders and look around. How hard can this be? I even feel a kick of excitement in my belly when someone assumes I’m an employee and shouts out an order for three pints of Guinness. Shane shakes his head at me in warning, but I ignore him. As I grab glasses off the shelf, I notice that Shane is only pouring them halfway full of the thick, black liquid and letting it settle before filling it the rest of the way. Feeling his blue eyes drilling into me, I stand next to him at the beer taps and start pouring.
“Let me guess, you’re mad?”
“What tipped you off?” He makes an impatient noise and reaches up to help me angle the glass I’m holding differently. Electrified pinpricks race down my arm when our hands brush. “I don’t need your help.”
“Beg to differ.” I set the first pint down and look up at him, sensing he wants to question me about Patrick and Brian. The curiosity is there in his eyes, but I refuse to give into the urge to explain. I keep having to remind myself I don’t owe him any explanations. Not about where I’ve been or with whom. His eyes narrow, telling me that resolve is written clearly on my face.
“We’ll see about that.” Briefly, his gaze drops to my exposed midriff, warming my skin as it lingers. “Pints are five Euro, bottles are four. I’m going to keep the register partially open so you can make change. Think you can manage that?”
I flutter my eyelashes. “Gosh, I don’t know, can I?” Unbelievable. Two minutes behind a bar and I’ve already turned into my überflirtatious sister. If she knew I was behind a bar with my stomach showing, the way she used to do for money, she’d raise unholy hell. Forcing a serious expression onto my face, I nod. “I mean, yeah, I can manage.”
“Good.” He watches me a moment before turning to take another order.
In the beginning, Shane has to point out where certain bottled beers are located or switch places with me when customers order something more complicated than beer. But we quickly fall into a rhythm. It’s a totally new experience…and I like it. Being able to remain detached while still feeling involved in several different conversations at once. Some funny, some sad. Some of the discussions are even about Shane, whispers about his achievements on the circuit. Speculation about whether or not he’ll go back.
I find myself avoiding those conversations.
I’m dying to race upstairs and grab my camera, but I’m sure Shane would just love me photographing his customers when I’m supposed to be helping. I put the urge aside and focus on serving drinks. The music grows steadily louder, forcing me to strain to hear each order.
I’m leaning across the bar doing just that, when I feel Shane brush behind me. His hand squeezes my hip a little before moving on. I have to ask the customer to repeat himself. Twice. We make eye contact as I’m pouring Guinness, and I feel it everywhere. It’s like he’s trying to communicate something with his unsmiling stare, and although I can’t put a name to the message, my body seems to understand. It wants Shane. I can freely admit that at this point.
I start to feel a little breathless, and a lot anxious. It originates in my belly and spreads lower. In these jeans, I feel sexy, a rarity for me. Every time Shane and I pass each other behind the bar, we touch, and the eagerness sprouts wings. Sometimes it’s just the backs of our hands sliding together, but it escalates quickly to my bottom slipping against his lap, his fingertips brushing across my collarbone. None of the customers are sober enough to pay us any attention. I’m still aware of their presence because I’m serving them drinks, but when I’m talking to them, I’m thinking of Shane and where he’s standing in relation to me.
Finally, the crowd begins to thin slightly, and Patrick is able to struggle his way between two customers. I return his jaunty smile, knowing that I’m flushed head to toe. I pray that if he notices, he’ll chalk it up to me exerting myself behind the bar. “Tell me, Willa. Is there anything you can’t do?” he shouts over the noise, sending me a wink.
I nod at the guitar he’s holding against his chest like a precious child. “I can’t play guitar.”
His eyebrows raise, voice dipping slightly. “You know, I’m an excellent teacher.”
With a laugh, I start to respond, when I feel Shane move behind me. It feels like crackling energy racing over my skin. As if I’d been caught doing something wrong, I move back from Patrick…which puts my back hard against Shane’s chest. I wait for him to move and he doesn’t. Instead, he drags his fingers across my exposed stomach slowly. I don’t even have to turn around to know he’s staring at Patrick as he does it. It’s written all over Patrick’s face. This is Shane telling him to back off, that I’m somehow…his?
I should turn around and scratch his eyeballs out. Put him back in his place right in front of everyone, then light him on fire. This jealous, possessive, bullshit shouldn’t be heating me up. It shouldn’t make me want to turn my head and request he take me somewhere private, where he can move his hand lower. Higher. Where he can put them everywhere. I’m so distracted by these thoughts, that I barely notice when Patrick salutes me and disappears back into the crowd.
“We might have agreed there wouldn’t be any commitments between us.” His lips brush my ear. “But as long as we’re both in Dublin, there will be no sharing.”
I fight another surge of intense heat and focus on my irritation. “Don’t talk about me like I’m a f*cking ham sandwich. I decide—”
“When you wrapped your legs around me and stuck your tongue in my mouth this morning, you decided.”
“If I’d known it would turn you into a caveman, I wouldn’t have done it.”
His chest vibrates against my back with a growl, but we’re interrupted when a flustered Orla trips her way behind the bar. When she sees us standing so close, her eyebrows raise with interest, but she doesn’t comment. “Sorry I’m late?” she says, her apology sounding more like a question.
Swallowing the rest of the retort I’d worked up for Shane, I push away from him. With a mumbled greeting in Orla’s direction, I stomp out from behind the bar, intending to climb the stairs to my room. I need a way to relieve this pent-up sexual frustration. It’s been building for days, weeks, and I feel ready to explode. Shane barks a command for Orla to cover the bar and I sense him following me. His words from that night in the alley come back to me in a rush, making me feel fevered. Having to chase you only makes me want to pin you down.
I want him to chase me. The realization hits me hard, knocking the breath out of my lungs. Before I can clear the bar, my hand is enfolded in Shane’s larger one and I’m being pulled through a set of double doors behind the bar where I’ve never been. I don’t even know why I make a halfhearted attempt to pull away, but I do. Maybe so I can tell myself later that I tried.
Excitement is humming in my veins, something dark and demanding pooling at the tops of my thighs. Shane’s steps are purposeful, his back flexing beneath his shirt, as he leads me through another door. A stock room, I barely have time to acknowledge before he’s slamming the door closed and pressing me forward over what looks like a waist-high refrigerator. The bent over position he’s put me in is unexpected. I’d anticipated him pressing me up against the door to kiss me. The way he continues to keep me guessing, never doing what I expect, is a crazy turn-on. As if I need any more reasons to crave this guy. I resent him and want him at the same time.
His hips press against my bottom and my forehead drops forward on a soft moan. “I know you won’t tell me you want me right now. Not with words. You’re too damn stubborn.” He leans over my body, so he’s flush against my back. His voice is rough against my ear. “So tell me with your body. Give me more of what I got behind the bar when you couldn’t stop swishing your ass all over me.”
“That was your game. You started it.” I cringe when I hear the halting quality to my immature words.
“Aye. I did start it.” His mouth moves over my neck. “And I’m dying to finish it.”
Jesus, was that a whimper that just came out of me? I reach down deep, making one last attempt to stay sane. “I thought you didn’t want me in the bar for the first time.”
“I meant it, too.” He gives a quick thrust of his hips jarring me against the fridge. “I won’t f*ck you tonight, no matter how badly we both need it.”
His harsh language triggers a long, torturous squeeze in my lower body. I’ve never been spoken to like that in a sexual context. I’m far from offended. It’s gritty and honest…and I want more of it. A lot more. I’m kidding myself by thinking I could ever walk away from Shane and this need he’s creating, so I give in and push my bottom up against him, savoring his groan. “What are you waiting for? Permission?”
“Yes,” he groans, clutching my hips.
A breath rattles in my throat, and I jump without looking. “You have it.”
Calloused hands eagerly slip under my shirt. My bra is pushed aside before I have time to register which direction his touch is moving. Shane cups my naked breasts and squeezes with just enough force to make my vision blur under the onslaught of sensation.
“Sexy girl,” he grates, molding them rhythmically. “Maddening girl.”
“You love it.” I don’t know this person anymore who sounds so sexually confident. This girl who not only responds to such challenging words, but responds in kind. Should it be thrilling me this much? I have no answers, only a desire to take it further. Let Shane take it further. My back arches as if I have no control over my own body’s movements anymore. Maybe I don’t.
“Careful, Willa.” He circles my nipples with his thumbs. “I’m starting to like your smart mouth a little too much.”
I can hear my harsh breaths echoing in the small room, but I’m beyond caring. “And if I’m not careful?”
Shane’s raspy inhales of air joins mine. One big hand slides up my throat to cup my jaw. “I’ll find a better use for that mouth. Is that what you want to hear?”
A choked sob is my only answer. My position feels more provocative with each passing minute. I’m pinned down by him, just as he’s told me he wanted. His chest is anchoring me down, his erection pressing snugly against my bottom. I’ve never been taken like this, and I suddenly want it more than anything. I manage to slide my legs farther apart and move my hips in a slow circle.
Shane’s thigh muscles bunch, his low curse burning in my ears. “What are you trying to tell me, babe? You want something between your legs?”
“Yes.”
Shane releases my jaw, drawing his hand roughly down my body and ending at the snap of my jeans. “I’ve been going mad, thinking of you walking around like this all day. What happened to the bloody hoodie?”
“Laundry day.”
Snap. “I didn’t see you leave with any laundry.” He draws down my zipper. “Does that mean I should expect you to be dressed like this again tomorrow?”
“I’ll dress however I—” My words end on a moan when a single finger traces along my center, then pushes into me. Hard. My thighs squeeze together around his hand, holding him there. I don’t think there’s a way for the pressure to feel any more unbelievable, until he begins drawing his finger in and out. “Oh my God.”
“Ah, babe, how long have you been like this?” He doesn’t have to explain his question. I know what he’s asking. I can feel how ready he found me. When I squirm a little in embarrassment, he kisses my neck with a hot, open mouth until I stop. “That night in the alley, I wanted to touch you here so bad. You wouldn’t let me.” He adds a second thick finger and my knees dip down, having gone weak. “You’re letting me touch you now, aren’t you, girl?”
“Yes.” The word falls out of my mouth so quickly, I’m a little alarmed. He’s touching my body, but this control he has over my heightened senses scares me. Frantically, I try and detach my mind from my body, try and experience what Shane is doing to me without losing myself to him. But I can’t. I can’t. His fingers slip from inside me and begin to circle the concentration of all the pent-up stress I have, thanks to him and his words. The way he’s been staring at me. I’m desperate to take some control back. I’ve given him too much.
I reach behind me and slide a hand in between our bodies. My fingers close around his erection where it presses against the fly of his trousers. His hissed curse brings what I suspect is a triumphant smile to my face. Shane’s breath falters, his fingers increasing their circular rhythm between my legs.
“How long h-have you been like this?” I throw his earlier question back at him, but it loses its effect when I gasp the last word.
“Since the airport. Since I turned around and saw you’d given me the slip.” His lips trace over my shoulder. “Did you think I wouldn’t catch you?”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, he stops touching me. I make an irritated sound, but it sticks in my throat when Shane begins yanking my jeans down my legs. My eyes flutter shut, and I imagine what he’s seeing. Me, bent over, naked except for boy shorts and boots. Hurriedly, I toe off the latter and step out of my jeans, seconds from swallowing my pride and begging for him to touch me again, when he whirls me around and pushes me backward onto the fridge. Now that I can see him, see his heavy-lidded eyes and the determined set of his chin, I feel a flash of nerves. Automatically, I try and close my legs, but he steps between them. Both of his hands coast up the insides of my thighs, and all the while he’s watching my face. When his thumbs meet at my center and begin a slow massage through the cotton, my head falls back on my shoulders and I cry out.
“I’d like you to admit something to me, now.” He uses his knuckle to nudge aside the material of my underwear and slip beneath. When it stops just short of where I need it, I hold my breath. “When I touched you behind the bar in front of that f*cker. You liked it. You liked having the decision taken out of your hands.”
“There was no decision.” My voice is hoarse. “I told you he’s just a friend.”
“Answer me, anyway.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. “Yes, I liked it.”
Shane sinks his knuckle inside me and twists it. I almost climax, barely managing to suppress a scream. He leans down and kisses my belly as he slips my panties down my legs. Has he changed his mind? Are we going to have sex?
“I’m going to use my mouth on you, Willa. Would you like that?”
His words catch me off guard, but I want to shout yes. Relief at this point could come in any form and I’d be grateful. Then I notice Shane’s labored breathing, the thick ridge of his arousal encased by his pants. The hands drawing my underwear down my thighs are shaking. “What about you?”
He pauses for a split second, eyes seeking mine. I suspect he’s reacting over the way I posed the question. The quiet, sincere concern in my voice. I’m reacting to it, too, on the inside. It sounded too much like I care about…him. Do I care? Shane breaks the spell first, hooking his hands beneath my knees and throwing them over his wide shoulders.
“This is for me.”
I’m unable to think about anything except his mouth as it moves over my flesh hungrily. Oh sweet Jesus. While I’m not experienced by any stretch of the imagination, I know without a doubt that Shane knows what the f*ck he’s doing. He has me near the edge within seconds, his tongue and lips nipping, licking, and soothing in all the right places, pulling back when I get too close, then driving me back toward the peak. My fingers have somehow found their way into his hair and wound the thick strands tight in my fists.
“Shane…dammit, Shane, please.”
As if granting me a wish, he pushes two fingers deep, rotating them without stopping the tight, quick strokes of his tongue. Finally, he lets me get past the beginning stages of my orgasm. He can’t stop at this point, or I’ll sock him in the jaw. I know he’s reading my mind when he makes an encouraging sound and it vibrates through me.
“Oh God. Shit, shit.”
I feel like I’m being turned inside out, my back arching in a way that suggests I missed my calling as a gymnast. Shane’s fingers are pressed hard inside me, applying just enough pressure to prolong the feeling sweeping through me. He doesn’t stop until I’ve sagged back onto the fridge, my legs still draped boneless over his shoulders. I should pull myself together, cover myself up, but the urgency is lost on me compared to what I just experienced. When I finally get the strength to pick up my head and look at him, he’s staring at me, an unreadable look in his eye.
“F*ck. I can’t wait to be inside you, girl.”
Just like that, my heart is beginning to pound again. The so recently satisfied parts of my body grow heavy under his appreciative gaze. I want Shane. I want to blow his f*cking mind, just like he’s blown mine tonight. Slowly, I let my legs drop from his shoulders and sit up. Without a thought, my hand go to his belt buckle, tracing it with a single finger. “What are you waiting for?”
He swoops down with a curse, mouth covering mine, our kiss beginning at one hundred miles an hour. While I yank the leather of his belt through the loops, his mouth devours mine, his fingers pinching my hardening nipples. Oh God, I’ve never been this desperate. I need to feel him inside me. At this moment, it feels like a necessity.
“Shane?”
We both freeze at the sound of Faith’s singsong voice. I rack my muddled brain, trying to remember if Shane locked the stock-room door when we walked in. Oh boy, I don’t think so. I open my mouth to whisper the question, but he closes a hand over my mouth and shakes his head. When I see a touch of horror on his face, mixed with pain, I can’t help laughing into his palm. His eyes widen a little bit, probably at me having the audacity to laugh when he has a king-size boner in his pants, but something shifts in his expression. And he laughs, too.
Something exhilarating and terrifying moves in the air between us, but I don’t have time to wonder what it could be, because Faith speaks again. “Right. Well, Ma saw you two come back here. I can only assume you’ve finally shagged each other rotten.”
Shane abruptly stops laughing.
“Another group has come in, and we need you back behind the bar, Shane, if you don’t mind zipping it up for a spell.”
The sound of rusty hinges reaches the stock room, telling us Faith has gone back out into the pub. For a long moment, Shane only stares at me. “Did she just say—”
“Yup.”
He pushes a hand through his hair, leaving the side standing on end. “Jesus, living with family is going to be the death of me.”
“Not racing cars?”
I don’t know why I say it. Scratch that, I know exactly why. We just shared something, and I need to put things back on even footing. I’m leaving Dublin, and he’s going back to racing. We are a diversion. I needed to remind myself of that fact out loud.
Laughing without cause, I jump off the fridge and begin replacing my clothes as quickly as possible. I assume Shane has left the room and I’m trying to ignore the twisting in my chest when I feel his fingers lift my chin.
He studies my face. “Maybe you’ll be the death of me.”
Shane doesn’t wait for my response, but drops his hand to his side and walks out. I don’t move for a long time.