She opened her eyes. “That was worth waiting twenty-three years for.”

He threw back his head and laughed, letting a tension he’d been carrying for a long time spill out of his mouth. He knew he was a deft lover. Enough women had told him so. But this was Frankie, and he’d wanted it to be perfect for her.

“And I see that you’re still waiting,” she said, her gaze dropping to the erection rising from between his thighs.

“I can wait a wee bit longer,” he said, circling his fingers around one of her ankles to bend her leg so he could roll her and stretch out beside her, his cock snugged between the cheeks of her bottom. He could easily come just by rubbing himself against the ripe roundness there.

As though reading his mind, she shifted backwards to nestle him closer in.

“You’re killing me, Frankie.”

“Just keeping your interest up until I can return the favor.”

He slipped a hand around to cup the velvety weight of her breast. “This will help.”

“Ah, but whose interest are you keeping up now?” she asked, pushing her tight nipple into his palm.

The hard press of her on his skin nearly undid him, but he held onto his control. He could feel tiny shudders still running through her body, and smiled with satisfaction. Then a fist of emotions, so many he couldn’t name them all, lodged in his throat as he enfolded her small, strong body in his arms. The touch of her skin against his thighs, his belly, his chest. Her heat radiating through him. The sound of her breathing, the thud of her pulse, the silky brush of her hair. His dreams had not prepared him for the sweetness of the reality and it nearly overwhelmed him. He swallowed, his eyelids squeezed closed against a burn of tears.

She was right. It was too much.

“Liam, could you ease up a bit so my ribs stay intact?”

He loosened the grip he’d unconsciously tightened. “Just making sure you don’t slip away from me again.”

Her body jerked a little and she sighed. “You knew I wasn’t going to stay in Finglas.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” He released her breast to smooth his hand over her hair. “I’ve imagined this for so long that I can’t believe it’s real and not a leprechaun’s trick.”

She wriggled against his erection. “Feels solid as a rock to me.”

He moaned at the blast of sensation. Frankie levered herself up to kneel beside him. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she pushed him onto his back. “I could just look at you forever,” she said, her gaze traveling down and up again, making his cock twitch as though she’d touched it. “I lied,” she said, resting her hands on his chest. “I need to touch you.”

She leaned over, her hair brushing his skin, and kissed first one of his flat nipples and then the other. Her touch ricocheted down to his groin, drawing it tighter. His bollocks were aching. “Frankie, do you mean to drive me out of my bloody mind?”

She laughed against his skin, making his hips flex without his willing them to. Then she trailed her lips down the center of his body, the silkiness of her hair dragging over his skin, slowing as she got closer to the place he wanted her mouth. She traced her tongue along the defined line that ran from his hip to his groin. He held his breath and watched as she braced one hand on the bed beside him and raised the other to feather it across the head of his cock. And then he was lost, swamped by the feel of her fingers, her mouth, her tongue on his straining, yearning skin.

He came with a blast of pleasure, wringing out every muscle and every nerve, emptying him of all thought except Frankie.

When he could open his eyes again, she was sitting back on her heels, a smug smile curling her lips. “You’re a loud one, Keller.”

“Did I say something? My mind was obliterated by a nuclear explosion.”

She laughed once. “A man’s mind is an easy thing to turn blank with sex.”

It hurt him that she thought of it as nothing more than sex, but he wasn’t going to call her out on it yet. She could get mulish when pushed.

She crawled up the bed and fitted herself against his side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Her fingers drifted over his chest and ribs and then down to his hip, tracing the shamrock inked there. “Tell me what the ‘O’ and the ‘F’ stand for.”

He felt as though she’d slammed her fist into his gut. Dragging in a breath, he forced his voice to sound relaxed. “Can’t you guess about the ‘F’?”

“Not without sounding conceited beyond belief.”

He tried to laugh, but his throat wouldn’t release enough. “Of course it’s for you, ye eejit. I wouldn’t defile my body for anyone else.”

“But you did. The ‘O’.” She said it softly.

He brought his hand over to cover hers, flattening it over the tattoo. “The only other person in the world I love as much as I do you.” He drew in another breath. “Owen. My son.”

Joy roared through Frankie, squeezing tears from her eyes. She’d always hoped that he would be a father. The kids in Finglas had followed him around as though he were the Pied Piper. Unlike most of the older boys, he wasn’t too proud to play soccer with the younger ones, giving them tips on their game. There was so little kindness in their world that it tugged at her heart to watch him on the soccer pitch with the wee ones swarming around him.

“Why are you crying, Frankie?” His voice was tight with some strain she couldn’t interpret and his hand nearly crushed hers against the point of his hip.

She lifted her head to let him see her happiness and found him scowling. “Because you were meant to be a father. He’s a lucky boy, your Owen.”

His face relaxed as Liam closed his eyes and then opened them again. “You scared the shite out of me. I thought you…. But you’re crying.”

“Because I’m happy for you.” She’d cried more in the last two days than in the last five years. “But there hasn’t been a breath of it in the press. How did you keep it a secret?”

Liam wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hitched them both up to sit against the headboard. “There are always ways to avoid the press. And deals to be made with them when you can’t.” His voice went hard on the last. “He lives in New Jersey, so I didn’t get to visit him often.”