Chapter 38

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

FINNIGAN

“Please. Just hear me out,” Cat begs before placing her phone onto the kitchen island. Her face etched with disappointment.

“He’ll come around,” I try to comfort her, rubbing my hand over her back and hating how Father O’Flaherty is treating her. “It’s barely been a month.”

“You think?” Her voice holds so much hope that I can’t bear to say anything negative.

“ Piscín , he’s been finding reasons to hate me for at least twenty years,” I half-heartedly joke, trying to lighten the mood. “He just needs a little time to learn that I am absolutely amazing and how happy you are with me. He will come around.”

Even if I have to force him .

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here today?” I hate the thought of leaving her when she’s so upset.

“No, Finn,” she brats. “I’m a fragile little thing, and I need you to take care of me every waking minute of the day.”

Spinning her barstool, I step between her thighs and cup her face. “Don’t fucking tempt me.” My snarl is more of a tease than anything else.

“Go.” Cat huffs, playfully pushing me away from her. “Go do mafia crap with your brothers or something.”

“Mafia crap? Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“It sounds better than criminal crap,” she quips, climbing off her barstool with a smirk. Grabbing her wrist as she passes, I pull her into me and kiss her bratty lips. “Go. I will be fine. I’m meeting up with Layla and we’re heading over to Quinn’s this afternoon,” she firmly demands while cupping my face.

“Don’t go anywh?—”

She interrupts with a heavy sigh and mocks the instructions I provide every time I’m not with her. “Don’t go anywhere without Owen and William. And make sure I have my phone. The ringer needs to be on, and it must be fully charged before I leave the house. If anything seems wrong, call you immediately.”

While I don’t appreciate the sarcastic mockery in the slightest, I take a great deal of comfort in the fact she knows exactly what I intended to tell her. Even more in the knowledge she will follow her rules to a T.

It’s a lot .

I didn’t think much of it when Tris and Dec brought women into our family, but Layla, Quinn, and now Cat have made a substantial sacrifice to be in our lives. As if the worry about our safety every time we walk out the door isn’t enough, we guard them like Fort fucking Knox to ensure they don’t come to any harm for the sins we commit.

“I fucking love you, piscín .” I kiss her once more before heading toward the door. “Be safe.”

“You too, mo ghrá.”

Fuck, do I ever love when she calls me that.

When I step into the hall and close the door to the apartment, I find Owen ready to watch over her while I can’t. “Protect her at all costs.” There’s none of my signature joviality in my instructions.

“With my life, sir,” Owen responds.

He better.

It’s in his best interest to die protecting her; death would be better than what I would do to him if anything were to happen to her.

After assuring Cat’s helmet is firmly fastened to the bike so that I can safely pick her up later, I pull mine on. Climbing onto the bike, I gun the ignition and pull from the garage. We’ve had an influx of applications to Club Triskelion lately, leaving us with a lot of new members to vet this afternoon.Which is why I leisurely weave through traffic as I make my way to meet up with my brothers.

I park in the valet at the club since it won’t be used for patrons for several more hours. Conor arrives just after me, parking the Tahoe so close to my bike that I’m certain he’s going to tap my rear tire as I dismount.

“Just the brother I wanted to see,” Conor chirps, climbing from the SUV. He sighs as he walks toward me with a shit-eating grin on his face. “You would not believe the fucking dream I had.”

“You seriously need to get fucking laid so you stop telling me about Cat starring in your wet dreams,” I snark, pulling open the front door to the club.

“Who said I had a hot fucking dream and wanked to Cat?” Conor smirks, drawing Declan, Liam, and Tristan’s attention as they sit at the bar, shuffling through paperwork.

“We need to find you a woman.” Tristan sighs with annoyance. “Maybe then you’ll stop fantasizing about ours.”

“Better make it two… Maybe three, because fuck, was it ever a good dream.”

“You can’t be serious.” Declan’s face reddens with something that looks a lot like jealousy.

“The four of you need to imagine the three of them naked.” He pauses for a moment and slides onto a barstool beside an annoyed Declan. “Now, imagine them thoroughly enjoying one another.”

As much as I would never share Cat—with my brothers or my sisters-in-law—I cannot deny the way my cock twitches when I briefly picture her with Layla and Quinn.

They’re all fucking gorgeous; it would be hot as sin.

“Yeah.” Liam clears his throat. “I would totally fucking wank watching that.”

“New rule,” Declan gruffly declares. “The lot of you no longer talk about wanking to or fucking my wife.”

“I just want it on record that I haven’t wanked to thoughts of your wife in a couple of months,” I share, trying very hard not to sound too smug.

Declan huffs before shoving from his seat and grabbing a bottle of Tullamore Dew from behind the bar. “Fuck the lot of you.”