‘And that direction is …Northside?’ I say.
‘Well, yeah, right now it is,’ says Art. ‘We’ll see what happens next. Maybe more television, maybe script editing. Maybe directing. But whatever I do, I know I don’t want to go back to my old life in America. Dublin doesn’t seem so small to me anymore. So last night when I got home I rang the producers in New York.’
‘Were they angry?’ I ask. ‘What did you say to them?’
He grins at me. ‘Well, I told them I’d fallen in love with this angry goth and—’
I stare at him. ‘You what?’
‘Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that,’ says Art. ‘That was a joke! You know I don’t really think you were a goth—’
‘Not that part,’ I say. ‘The other part.’
‘Oh,’ says Art, as if he’s only just realised what he’s said. He looks down at our hands for a moment. ‘That part.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘The falling in love part. Did you … was that a joke too?’
Now Art looks straight at me. ‘No, McDermott,’ he says gently. ‘That was very much not a joke.’
I meet his gaze, more serious than I’ve ever seen him before.
I’ve always been afraid to tell people I loved them. I’ve never wanted to let my barriers down too soon.
But being with Art isn’t like being with anyone else. I may have only known him, properly known him, for a few weeks, but I know I can be myself with him. I alwaysfeellike myself when I’m with him.
He’s seen me at my most prickly. And he loves me anyway.
‘Well, good,’ I say. ‘Because I think I’m in love with you too.’
A smile spreads across Art’s face, a smile that isn’t cocky or smug at all. A smile that’s full of happiness and maybe relief and definitely love. The best smile I’ve ever seen. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Against my better judgement, obviously,’ I say, but I’m smiling back at him as I say it.
‘Obviously,’ says Art.
And then, beneath the lamp post outside Donnelly’s pub, on the very spot where Sean Cusack was murdered, where Rosie Cusack was born, where Mozzer McCaul was hauled away by the police, whereNorthsidelegends have died and fought and wept and fallen in love, Art Sullivan kisses me like I’ve never been kissed before.
Our kisses have been hot and intense and hungry in the past, and this kiss is all of those things, but it’s more than all of them too. This kiss is the start of something, and we both know it. I bite gently on his lower lip and he pulls me even closer to him, hishands on my waist, his body pressed tightly against mine. I reach up and cup his jaw and feel myself rising on my tiptoes to kiss him harder because I can’t get enough of him, of his mouth, of his hands, of his heat, of the way he looks at me.
God, Ilovethe way he looks at me.
We pull away from each other and Art says, ‘If I keep doing what I want to do right now, we’ll definitely get fired.’ He grins at me in a wolfish way that sparks a flame of pure lust inside me. ‘And possibly arrested.’
‘I think we need to get out of here,’ I say, my breath heavy. ‘I think we need to tell Susan we’re working from home today.’
Art pulls me in for another kiss. ‘I can promise Susan,’ he says in my ear, ‘I’ll be working very,veryhard.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
INT: ANNIE AND ROO’S HOUSE / EXT: THENORTHSIDELOT
He really does have nice hands.
That’s what I find myself thinking on Friday morning, when I wake up with Art’s arm around me. Sunlight is streaming through my too-thin curtains, but I’m pretty sure he’s still asleep as I take his strong, tanned, beautiful hand in mine and think of everything he did with it yesterday.
By the time we arrived here yesterday morning and slammed the front door behind us, after a taxi ride during which Art sent me into a feverish state of anticipation just by gently stroking the inside of my thigh, we were both ready to tear each other’s clothes off. My underwear was gone before we made it to my bed. As I pushed him down onto the sheets he brought his fingers to my lips, and when his eyes met mine something lit up inside me and I found myself biting him again.
‘Jesus,’ said Art, his breathing ragged, ‘I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to fuck you right now.’