Dangerous Games Read online

  Finn heard Evie stifle a laugh before he pulled her toward him and they walked up the stairs together. He took her to his room, which was surprisingly well kept but the guys did have a maid who they paid extra to come in three times a week to clean. Unfortunately, that meant moving all the drug paraphernalia out to the garage but it was worth it seeing as Carmelita didn’t lift anything more than a glass, usually filled with some sort of alcoholic beverage, to her lips.

  As soon as he had her settled on his made-up bed, he went back downstairs, grabbed her luggage and brought it upstairs.

  Evie removed her cute wedge-heeled sandals and lay back on the bed. “Thank you for what you did downstairs. Who the hell was that train wreck and how did she stick her claws into my cousin?”

  “You know that old joke about a ‘stiff dick and a conscience’, right? Lita has been an unfortunate fixture for the past year and as much as I can’t stand her, she has a great connection to the people we need to deal with and so far, we have prevented a lot of bloodshed here in south Boston. It could be a lot worse than it is but right now it’s just a bunch of people who want their drugs gettin’ ‘em and that’s it.”

  She sat up on her elbows and glared at him with those gorgeous gray-blue eyes of hers. “I still expected more from you, Finn. You could have gone to college and done something with your life. I didn’t expect to come back to find you dealing drugs with Dylan. Everyone knows he is a lost cause but you…” she trailed off.

  “And what makes me so different from Dylan, huh? After what happened between us and when I was sent back to Ireland, all I could think about was getting here, back to you and making things right. Does that make sense? I didn’t give a shit how it happened, just as long as it did. You have no idea what it has been like for me because you have been off gallivanting from one fancy college to another and I was here, stuck—without you.”

  Evie fully sat up as he kind of collapsed on the floor in front of the bed. Seeing her like this proved to be too much too soon. He loved her so much but he had no idea how she felt about him. She was his first and only love.

  He wouldn’t lie and proclaim how he’d been a saint. He’d slept with more women than he cared to remember but he never went down on them and he always wore a condom because the thought of fucking another woman—bareback and without protection the way he and Evie had always made love—was an anathema. He just couldn’t do it.

  There were one night stands that had lasted weeks with girls but Finn would never say he loved them and he would never allow himself to care for them the way he did Evie.

  Most of them were just one step above the common skank who were excited about his drug-dealing status and had delusions of grandeur. They would accidentally get preggers with his baby and be set for life. However, he prevented this from happening by having his own supply of condoms, and no one ever spent the night in his bed.

  Sheets were promptly changed shortly after a woman left his bed and they would be forgotten about as soon as they left his bedroom. Finn was extremely passionate but he could also be cold and withdraw at the drop of a hat. One didn’t grow up in a place like Northern Ireland and then later, south Boston, and remain soft. Not if they wanted to live to see old age. Both places were not for the faint of heart or the weak.

  “Is there something you want to say to me?” Evie inquired as her leg rubbed against his arm.

  Finn stood and collapsed on the bed beside her. Before he could get the words out of his mouth, his lips were pressed against her own and they kissed tentatively at first, afraid of where it might lead. Soon, the boldness of what he’d become used to returned and as her lips parted, he immediately sought her tongue out and when their kiss deepened into intimacy, she moaned and all resistance ceased as she allowed herself to swept into his arms.

  He’d forgotten the petal soft skin, the smell of freesia and the fresh breath that had always accompanied her kisses. He’d forgotten she was so damn clean and yet touchable. He’d almost forgotten he’d been there with her because she was not the same person he remembered all those years ago. She was a young girl, barely in her mid-teens, at the time but now she was a full grown woman with desires and the accompanying beauty he knew she would turn into with such startling accuracy.

  As they separated, he stared into her gorgeous eyes. “My God, you just reminded me of all the reasons why it was so difficult to let you go in the first place. Losing you was one of the most awful events in my life. I can’t go through with it again. If you don’t want to be with me then let me know now because I can’t deal with heartache a second time.”

  Evie touched his face with her hands and kissed his lips once more. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan to break your heart again.”

  Shortly after my heart to heart with Finn, I took a shower and dressed in a pair of cut-off pale blue jeans and a white short-sleeved peasant blouse. I’d had a couple of shots of Jack Daniels and was feeling no pain as I grabbed my phone to call my mother.

  Finn grabbed my Ulysse Nardin and whistled out loud. “Wow, this makes my iPhone look like one of those pay-as-you-go piece of shit phones. How much did this thing set you back?”

  I would never get used to the sound of his voice. He’d lived in Northern Ireland until he was ten years old when he and his mother moved here with the help of Cleona. His mother and my grandmother were second cousins but I always thought there was more to them moving to the States than met the eye.

  Though they technically arrived shortly before the famed Good Friday Agreement that was signed in 1998, he and his mother had returned to Northern Ireland often though no one really referred to the two separate entities as such, not around this part of Boston at least. When they’d gone back to see family, they merely were going back to Ireland to see family. The only difference between my grandmother and grandfather was geography. Granddad’s family came from County Kerry where as Grandma’s family originated from County Tyrone, Omagh to be exact.

  Finn had spent his first ten years of life in Omagh and had lost good friends when the bombing happened in August of 1998 by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army opposed to the Good Friday Agreement which had been signed the previous April on the tenth.

  Ironically, Finn also had friends who went on to join the very same organization. The IRA was, technically, a disbanded terrorist organization and now only known by its political wing, Sinn Féin. Ironically, while most Americans had spent the first decade of the millennium addressing the “war on terror”, the IRA had received most of its financing from Irish-Americans. Drugs and guns were the main source of where most of the financing came from and Boston was at the heart of it all. It was impossible to grow up Irish, especially in south Boston, and be clean of all gangster activity unless one was just a working stiff. Even then, one was still touched by it through a family member or loved one.

  Unfortunately, my mother’s family was heavily involved in gangster activity though most of my uncles and great uncles had legitimate jobs. This wasn’t quite the truth for a lot of my cousins. Some had gone on to become Yuppies and they promptly cut ties with the family, similar to what my mother had done. She was basically the shining star of the family. If Athena Donahue could do it then why couldn’t they? It was a bit ironic me, being my mother’s daughter, found myself right back in the middle of the “family business” and in love with a criminal.

  Did I still love Finbar Reilly?

  It wasn’t so much a question of whether I loved him because he was my first love but whether we were willing to try for a second time to make our relationship work now that we were adults. If he continued his criminal enterprise activities then obviously the chances of us having a functional relationship were slim to none. My mother would rather have me murdered herself than to have her only child wrapped up with an Irish thug.

  I promptly grabbed my phone from Finn and replied, “I didn’t buy the damn thing—my dad did for my nineteenth birthday.”

  “Wow. He really thinks a ninet
een-year-old needs a fifty thousand dollar mobile phone?” he inquired in a sarcastic voice.

  “Whoa, check out the big brain on Finn. How the hell do you know how much this phone costs anyway?”

  “I read you know. Contrary to what you might think, I am completely literate and can use a computer just fine. I have an iBook over there in the corner, a Kindle Fire, an iPod Touch and the latest iPhone. I also have an iPad but I mostly use it to watch films when I want to be alone.”

  I shrugged apathetic shoulders. “What can I say? He’s old world and Swedish…not to mention a former action hero superstar. He doesn’t get that people in the real world don’t carry around outrageously expensive shit like rich people do.”

  “Oh yeah, where is he living now and when’s the last time you saw him? I read about his marriage to Artemis Ozan. That must have sent your mother around the bend. He dumps her and marries a British pop singer who used to be part of the mega-girl group, The Baby Gyrls.”

  “No one even knows who the hell she is here so that helped.” I began to play with my phone just to keep my hands busy and away from his body. “It didn’t help that Artemis is a huge star in the UK. Mom used to hate to attend premieres there because they would always ask her questions about the woman and wonder whether she had anything to do with my parents’ divorce.”

  Finn stared me over with bright crystal blue eyes. “Did she?”

  “Well…yeah. He met her at the premiere of that film he did about the rogue CIA agent. He and Mom were having problems because of what had happened here between us but…she doesn’t blame me. She thinks she made the right decision but Dad was furious with her. He thought you and I could really make a go of it and wanted to buy us a place in Europe. I would have been sixteen soon and that’s the age of consent in Sweden. We could have gotten married.”

  I was silent for a moment. “He never thought we should have just been separated the way we were and furthermore, he didn’t want me to grow up in the spotlight. His bright idea was moving us away and allowing me to grow up like a normal teenager in Sweden. Of course that would have meant you would have wanted to move there but he was willing to finance the whole set-up.”

  Finn took the phone from my hands and set it down on the table next to the bed before he slipped his arms around my waist. “You know I would have gone anywhere with you. Why didn’t your dad have more of a say?”

  “Because Mom just took over the whole situation and that is when he gave up and went to Europe to do that film. By the time he got back, everything was already put into motion and there was nothing he could do. He kind of just allowed the marriage to fall apart and the next thing I knew, Mom told me he was moving to London to star in a Broadway show and they were getting a divorce.”

  We drifted down onto the bed and when he kissed me again my heart began to thump in my chest with an intensity I didn’t think was possible. Everything about the situation was perfect including the way his JD soaked tongue swirled with mine and we both kind of drifted into each other’s space.

  My hands had a mind of their own as they removed his wife-beater to reveal a new tattoo, one of a shamrock on the left side of his chest with the colors of the Irish flag. This joined a black Celtic cross he had on his right shoulder blade, a black broken heart on his right upper arm and my name in cursive on his left upper shoulder just above a hard-core barbed wire tattoo.

  I traced the shamrock tattoo on his chest. “This your last time dabbling with ink?” I questioned in a teasing manner.

  “I don’t know. You still have your tramp stamp?” he inquired.

  “Um, yeah. It makes interesting conversation when ever I have ever been in bed with a guy…which has only been a couple of times since you…guys I mean.”

  The tramp stamp he referred to was a tattoo I had at the base of my back, which read “Property of Finn R.” It was during the days when we were inseparable and although I was underage, it didn’t stop me from getting it done. I was so happy to be with him I would have had it tattooed on my face if he’d wanted me to at the time.

  “Speaking of being with other guys…I don’t want to hear about it, okay? And does that mean you’re on anything?” Finn inquired with cold look flashing through his gorgeous eyes.

  “No, I’m not on anything because the guys I have been with…we always used rubbers and lately, I’ve been kind of dabbling on the other side of the fence.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I have been fucking my roomie, Amaani. I managed to get her to transfer to Boston University with me so I wouldn’t be alone. We’re gonna live off campus though. Since I am sleeping with a woman, I don’t need to be on anything.”

  “She a hardcore crack snacker or is she just doin’ this because she finds you attractive?”

  “Um, she’s a Muslim female who believes she should save her virginity until she gets married. And neither of us are doing this because we are bored. We genuinely love each other though it is different from what you and I have if that’s what you’re asking. And yes, we find each other mutually attractive so that definitely makes our situation that much easier.”

  “Why do I feel like I am holding you up from doing something?” he inquired as he sat up, and handed me my phone again.

  “You aren’t. I just need to call my Mom. Will you please stay? I don’t want to talk to her in this room all by myself.”

  Finn gave me a look. “Need a little courage?”

  I stared at him sheepishly. “Yeah. You got some hash?”

  “I can do you one better.” He opened a bedside drawer and removed a baggie full of blue pills. Finn searched through them until he found what he was looking for and put the baggie away. He then used the bottom of the shot glass to crush it on a square mirror and a credit card to make thin blue lines. Expertly, he rolled up a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me.

  “Wait a fucking minute. Is that Oxy?” I wondered, stating the obvious.

  “Yeah but it’s a twenty milligram tablet. One line isn’t going to send you into a Pulp Fiction scenario. Plus, it isn’t cut with coke. You should be fine. It’s just going to relax you.”

  I snorted a line and the powder burned my nose but the taste was no worse than coke. I dealt with the drip down the back of my throat by downing another shot of JD, and waited for the pill to take effect.

  By the time I called my mother, I was feeling no pain and there wasn’t much she could say to me to really upset me. Oxy was a depressant, and with three shots of Jack, I really didn’t give a shit what she said to me.

  She answered on the third ring. “Evie? How are you? I’m about to start filming again. What’s going on and what the hell are you doing in Boston?”

  “I can’t deal with the fakeness of L.A. right now, and I just needed to get away. What difference does it make? You aren’t there. Plus, I was thinkin’ of comin’ to visit you in Montreal. Wouldn’t that be fun? I can’t wait to meet this Etienne guy,” I said while tried my best not to slur.

  “Yeah but I know for a fact that Finbar Reilly is there because he and Dylan are living together. You’re not staying with your grandparents because I’ve called them so you must be staying with him.”

  “I am. He’s got this dope house in Charlestown—the bougie part—and it’s completely safe here. I swear it’s not shady at all. Nothin’ is gonna happen to me.”

  “Evie, are you drunk?”

  “I had a couple shots of JD but nothin’ I can’t handle, Mom.”

  “Jack Daniels?” my mother whispered. “Just look after yourself and go down to the clinic. If you’re going to be in the house with them then you need to…make sure you’re protected. I’m not ready to be a grandmother yet.”

  I almost said something to the contrary but I would live to regret such a remark so I reluctantly bit my tongue. “I will. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, okay?”

  “If you say so. And watch the alcohol consumption—you’re still in the States and tech
nically, you aren’t old enough to legally drink yet.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I responded.

  “You know you can call me at any time and we can discuss when you plan to go back to L.A.”

  “Understood, Mom.”

  “I love you and talk to you soon.”

  “You too. Bye.”

  “Bye, sweetheart—”

  I ended the call and put my phone back on the bedside table drawer.

  “So, what exactly do you guys get up to around here for fun besides get high?”

  “Well, there is the horizontal dance but since we have to wait until you’re on something…” Finn trailed off.

  I got off the bed then and weaved a bit. “I don’t think so, Romeo. Last time we indulged in that, we both got in a world of trouble so that is definitely going to have to wait. Besides, we have to get to know one another again. I don’t think I would feel comfortable having sex with you again when we just met up again after four years of being apart. It’s not like we are the same people we were back then.”

  He nodded his head in agreement. “You can say that again because you have definitely changed.”

  “I don’t know if that is a compliment or an insult.”

  Finn grabbed my arm closest to him and pulled me back to the bed. “We can just lay here and talk. We don’t have to do anything you know.”

  We spooned though we were both mostly dressed and he slipped an arm around my waist. “Thank you.”

  “For what? You act like this is easy for me when it isn’t. It’s complete torture for me because the last four years have been hell. I have been so lost without you…we were each other first loves and I fear what will happen to you if you just leave for L.A. Perhaps we won’t see each other again and that would be devastating to me.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Exactly what do you think is going to happen to me if I go back to L.A.? I am gonna find some hot stud to replace you?”