Kiss Me, I'm Irish: The Sins of His Past / Tangling With Ty / Whatever Reilly Wants...

Nothing earth-shattering.

Deuce took the bag with him to his car, sliding it behind the passenger seat and made a mental note to leave it with the keys on Diana’s table for her to find when she came over to walk Newman.

Correction. Tomorrow morning, Kendra would wake up in his bed. Then he could give her the bag in person.

He gunned the Mercedes’s engine and pulled onto High Castle with a sense of anticipation he hadn’t felt since his last opening day.

FROM BEHIND THE TWO-FOOT protection of a sand dune, in the nearly moonless night, Kendra heard the rumble of the Mercedes’s engine. Blue halogen headlights sliced into the night.

A trickle of guilt wound its way through her chest. Hiding out on the beach was a chicken thing to do, but if Deuce knocked on her door and melted her with that smile and annihilated her with that mouth…she’d be dead. She’d had all night to think about the “reenactment” he proposed, knowing full well he was basically asking her to sleep with him.

And, Lord have mercy, she wanted to say yes. Her skin practically ignited at the thought of giving in to the full-body ache he caused. She’d never say no if he had her out on West Rock Beach. Or in a bedroom. Or a car. Or the kitchen. Or…

The lights faded and she heard a car door. Kendra sank deeper into the sand.

She just had to keep avoiding him, and when Seamus and Diana returned, she’d tell them…what? She wasn’t sure yet. The bar was profitable, no doubt. But the cyber café revenues were up as well. She was no closer to “working it out” with Deuce—as Seamus had instructed—than the day this all started.

She was, however, closer to giving in to that toe-curling attraction that had blinded and stupefied her for, oh, twenty-odd years now.

She imagined Deuce rounding the side of the house, peering at her darkened, quiet beach bungalow. Would he give up then, or would he knock?

He’d assume she was dead asleep…or out for the night. Then he’d surely go back to Diana’s and slide the kitchen door open.