Bonus Scene
Declan
“Are you as surprised as I am that Shay agreed to stay home?” Aela mused.
When she looked through the rear window of our limo, her brow furrowed with suspicion, I hid a smile. The dress she wore was some one-of-a-kind creation that an ex-student had designed for her, and sure, it was beautiful, but there was a lot of it. To the point where the skirt took up half the goddamn back seat and it rustled as she twisted around to study the house I’d bought her in Paris as if proof of Shay’s intentions were etched on the exterior walls.
“I told him we’d hit a fight tomorrow,” was my nonchalant retort.
Her eyes narrowed even further than they already were. Tiger Mom mode had been activated. “What kind of fight?”
“Muay Thai.”
“Why the heck would he want to watch that?”
I snorted. “Since my brothers tainted him?”
Her lips twitched. “That’s a strong word.”
“He agreed to ditch the opera, Aela. For. A. Fight. I didn’t expect him to say yes.” I tugged on the necklace I’d twined around her neck earlier. My cum had dried on the jade beads so it wasn’t sticky anymore but fuck if I didn’t love them hanging around her throat, marking her with my scent. With me.
Especially in the so-called city of love.
These French fuckers with their clitoris-Olympics-mascot could go fuck themselves instead of sniffing around my wife tonight.
“The scowl is aimed at your brothers and not at me, right?” she grumbled, hands floofing around her skirt. Again.
“More like my kid. Who the Irish Mob are ruining with violence.”
“I’d be the first to complain if that were the case. You and I both know it’s those little bastards at school. Fucking bullies,” she hissed beneath her breath.
Neither of us mentioned that violence had long been a part of his life—even before I’d managed to bulldoze my way back into the family I didn’t deserve but would never, ever relinquish hold of again.
“Actually, my scowl’s aimed at this monstrosity,” I drawled, deciding to change the subject to a less inflammatory topic as I eyed the ten yards of fabric that kept us apart. “It’s a good thing you’re wearing my cum or this dress would really be cramping my style.”
She smirked. “You said it yourself earlier—it’s beautiful.”
“I’m not arguing. It is. It’s still a fucking pain.” As I let the beads settle around her throat, I murmured, “Still think you look hotter out of it.”
Her cheeks, impossibly, tinged pink.
Aela never ceased surprising me and that was just one thing I loved about her.
“Are you blushing?” I teased gently, leaning over the bridge of her skirt to let my nose slide over that heat.
“No,” she muttered, tipping her face down so that, suddenly, the oxygen around us was tinged with our scents and our breath.
“Yeah,” I whispered, inhaling us and getting high on it. “Hey, after what we’ve been through together it’s probably a miracle you can still do that.”
A soft rumble of laughter escaped her. “You’d have realized it was still an issue if the house wasn’t as big as it is.”
I pulled a face at what I knew was a backhanded complaint. “Ma wanted to come and I needed a babysitter. You don’t trust anyone else with our kids—“ With good reason. Only family would ever watch over them. Alongside four guards protecting whichever house or apartment we were living in. “—and it wasn’t like I could invite Aoife over without Finn because you know he’d fucking croak if they’re not in the same city, never mind the same country.”
She snorted. “As if you’re any better.”
I grinned but didn’t take the bait. “It’s pretty weird, by the way, how you trust Ma so much seeing as you hate her.”
Her nose crinkled but she couldn’t argue—Ma had been a regular babysitter at our place recently. “She sucks but I know she’d literally go ‘Kill Bill’ on anyone wanting to hurt her grandkids. As for Paddy…”
“Yeah, don’t ask me how but he sneaked a fucking gun into the country.” I groaned at the argument I’d had with my ‘Problem Child’ uncle our first morning here. He’d only brought the damn gun at Ma’s suggestion too, for fuck’s sake.
“You sure he didn’t pick one up here?” she asked, concerned.
“Where? Between the airport and the boulangerie?” I rolled my eyes. “Why do you think the house is so big? I knew my fucking family wouldn’t be able to resist coming. This way, they have one wing and we have the other. I won’t want to kill them. Much.”
She smirked at me. “More like you won’t have as many opportunities… Not that you’d act on them. Especially when you were the one who invited your Ma and Paddy…”
“It’ll be worth it to go on some dates with you,” I groused.
“You’re such a sucker for family, Declan O’Donnelly. Don’t pretend that you’re not.”
I grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I’m a sucker for you.”
When that blush made another reappearance, I just shook my head and smiled.
After two kids and two decades and dozens of deaths since we got together, I really did consider that blush a miracle.
Because SHE was that.
My miracle.
Mine.
Copyright Serena Akeroyd 2023
