Intractable Souls : Book 1 of the Bound for Ireland Series (66 page)

Gently tightening the grip on her hips, he
sways her, smirking proudly. “You think I’m hot?”

“Oh yeah! Super hot!” She runs her fingers
through the hair at the back of his neck. “Sizzling as a matter of
fact.” She’s amused at how he seems to be humbled by the
suggestion.

Ethan raises his eyebrows and grins.
“Sizzling? That’s good right?”

“Yes, that’s good.” Laughing, she licks her
lips before brushing them against his. Tightening his grip, he
pulls her close, claiming her mouth. Suddenly his cell phone rings
and in unison they both curse. Ethan shakes his head as he reaches
for it.

“Well at least we know it’s not John.” She
says, noting that it was an unfamiliar ring tone.

“Sorry baby, my day starts early and picks
up speed as it goes.” Pulling away, he brushes his fingertips along
her cheek and answers the phone.

“O’Connell.”

Why does he make his own name sound so sexy?
Moving to the desk, she checks her purse and make sure she has
everything before they leave.

“
Bonjour mon ami. Je suis
ent
rain de partir pour le
bureau.”

Olivia stops and looks up. Damn! Only Ethan
O’Connell can take “SIZZLING” and turn it up a notch. Something she
didn’t even know was possible before meeting him. Ethan catches her
staring and smiles.

“Listen, I’ll ring you in an hour.” Ethan
throws his discarded clothes into the bag that John sent over while
continuing his conversation.

“Sure, why are we speaking English? I
thought you wanted me to help you keep your French in practice.”
Landon Scott asks in a deep voice with a French accent.

“Because I’m not alone and it’s impolite.”
Ethan zips up the bag and takes it to the door, stopping to kiss
Olivia on the way. It was one of those cheesy exaggerated kisses,
the kind that makes a loud ‘muah’ sound when you pull away. She
smiles, glad that his playful mood has returned.

“What the hell was that? Are you kissing me
goodbye, Ethan? I didn’t know you switched teams, big guy.” Landon
teases.

“As if I’d kiss you, you ugly fucker.” Ethan
laughs. “I’ll ring you later, Landon. I need to escort a very
beautiful woman to her car.”

Olivia smiles as he tucks her hair behind
her ear and kisses her again. “Landon Scott from South Africa?” She
whispers as he pulls away. Ethan winks and nods his head.

“Ok I was just checking in. I heard that you
were having more problems with Jess.”

Ethan picks up his bag and holds his hand
out to Olivia as he opens the door. “That’s an understatement. Call
Carter, he can fill you in.”

Feeling his pockets before he closes the
door, he checks to make sure he has everything, his watch, his
wallet, and his keys. “I’m just heading into the office.”

“You already told him that.” Olivia says
impatiently.

Ethan looks at her with a suspicious kind of
surprise as he disconnects his call and tucks his phone into his
pocket.

“What?” She asks at the strange look on his
face.

“Yes I did, but I didn’t know you understood
what I said.”

She grins. “Well I told you my French was a
little rusty but I can pick out words here and there. So you best
not ever talk about me thinking I won’t know.” Her grin spreads
wider and she gives him a little hip bump.

“Good to know.” He quickly reads a text
message, and then shoves his phone back in his pocket. “John sent a
car. It’s waiting downstairs.”

It’s only a short car ride to the office and
Ethan makes sure Olivia gets safely to her car.“Are you going to
work? Or are you going to go home and get some sleep?” Wrapping his
arms around her middle her pulls her close for one last cuddle.

“I don’t know, I guess I’ll text Rachel when
I get close to town and see what’s going on.”

He reaches up and holds her chin. “Wait
until you get home before you text her, yeah? Don’t be doing that
shit while you’re driving, it’s not safe.”

She’s usually annoyed that he continually
warns her about her safety as if she’s a child without any common
sense, but there is something calming about his concern today. His
worry is a welcome acknowledgement of how much he cares for her.
She figures that now she’s agreed to forget about the agreement
it’s either going to get better or so much worse.

Chuckling when she rolls her eyes, he opens
her car door and makes sure she is safe and secure. When she rolls
the window down, he leans in for one last kiss. “I’ll call you
later.” He says between little love pecks. Olivia yawns against his
mouth and then laughs. “Totally your fault.”

“My fault? Now wait a minute… who woke up in
the middle of the night and needed some loving?” He raises his
eyebrows at her as she tries not to look guilty. “Yeah, thought so…
it was you.”

She pouts. “Hey, I had a nightmare, it
freaked me out. I needed my knight in shining armor.”

“Well far be it from me to refuse a damsel
in distress.” Grinning, he looks up when he hears his name and
looks around the garage and turns to find Scott approaching.

“Hi Liv.” Scott says, surprised to see her.
“Are you coming… or going?” He asks, looking at his watch.

“Hey.” She smiles. “Don’t worry. I’m
going.”

“Drive safe OK? Traffic is brutal today.” He
looks over at Ethan. “We have an account update with the rest of
the team in 10 minutes. Are you going to be late?”

“No, Olivia is on her way, I was just saying
goodbye.” Leaning down, he peeks in the window. “Have you got your
phone, love? In case you have any problems?”

That’s the second time he’s called her that
today. Her heart beats at the sound of it spoken with an Irish
brogue. Love. How dreamy. Reaching down she pulls it out of her
purse and holds it up for him to see.

Having a clear look at the call display,
Ethan frowns. “Looks like Noah Is pretty anxious to talk to you, is
there something I should know?”

Scott leans in to look at the screen and
shakes his head. “What?” She asks surprised. Turning the screen, he
shows her that there several text messages and missed calls from
Noah. Some from last night and one already this morning. Sighing,
she takes her phone out of his hand and she proceeds to delete
them.

Ethan watches her erase all the messages
from her phone without reading them. “Have you talked to him since
Saturday?”

She shakes her head No. “He keeps sending
messages but I delete them, I don’t really care what he has to
say.”

Scott interrupts. “Ethan we need to go.”

“Ok.” He caresses his thumb across her
cheek, knowing that she’s obviously upset about what happened.
“We’ll talk later.” He gives her a reassuring smile and sneaks in
one last kiss before Scott drags him away. If the truth were known,
he’s happy Noah has fucked up big time. He’d be even happier if he
were out of the picture all together. He doesn’t like him one bit
and trusts him even less than that around Olivia.

Olivia drives towards the exit with a smile
and as she passes from the dim light of the parking structure into
the bright sunlight on the street, someone steps in front of her
car. “Holy Shit!” Slamming on the brakes, she makes the tires
squeal. When she opens her eyes and looks up, the thin figure steps
out of the blinding sunlight into the shadow of the garage.
Olivia’s eyes try to adjust to the light and focus on the blurry
figure, her hands shaking and her breathing ragged from the
fright.

“Are you nuts lady? I could have killed
you!” Olivia screams.

Unfazed by Olivia’s anger, the little,
silver haired psychic saunters to her open window and glares at
her. “It’s happening.” She says in an eerie tone. “YOU are the key
to his anger.”

Feeling more edgy than ever, Olivia almost
hyperventilates, blowing air through her mouth consciously trying
to regain control over her breathing and her racing heart. “Excuse
me?“

Her face takes on a serious and hardened
look. “You need to know child. YOU are the ‘happening’ that finally
ends his turmoil. All his struggles, his anger... will come to an
end with YOU!”

Olivia is distraught now. “What the hell do
you mean ‘I’ am the happening? Who’s struggle do I end? Is it Noah?
Or is Sam coming back for me?” The thought makes her blood run cold
and her stomach feel nauseous.

“Wait!” Olivia pleads.

The woman starts to back away slowly, an
unnerving look on her face. “Provide closure to the one who
deceived you and the pain will end. New life will welcome you. You
must trust the one who guards your soul.”

The one who guards her soul? Olivia opens
the car door and moves towards her but she continues to back up
towards the street and into the bright sunlight. “Please! Wait!”
She shields her eyes as they adjust to the intense brightness of
the sun but it’s too late. She’s vanished. Olivia looks right and
left but the frail woman is nowhere to be seen. Her eyes flash
across the street to the small shop just in time to see the door
swing shut. How the? A car horn beeps impatiently from behind her
and she turns to see another car waiting to exit.

“Sorry!” Rushing back to get into her car,
she exits onto the street. The drive home seems to take forever and
she nearly works herself into an anxiety attack as she drives. She
has just been warned, by some crazy woman that her ex’s anger will
not be satisfied until he has closure. She tries to contort the
words into several different interpretations but by the time she
gets home, she has convinced herself that she has just been warned
that Sam won’t stop until he’s finished the job and killed her.

Showering, she hopes that the warm water
will wash away some of the tension but it doesn’t work. Maybe she
just needs some sleep? Lying on the bed she wraps her arms around
her pillow and tries to relax but her racing mind won’t settle long
enough for sleep to set in. The longer she lay there the more her
thoughts start to dwell on the past day’s events. Her muscles grow
tighter, tenser. Finally, she throws off the blanket and gets
dressed. She’s not going to get any sleep and thinking about “The
Day of Destruction” as she later comes to call it, will only drive
her completely insane.

She might as well go to work and keep her
mind busy. By late afternoon, she’s haggard, her mind bouncing all
over the place when she looks up to see Noah walking through the
parking lot and heading to the front door. Horrified, she gets to
her feet to find Rachel standing at the door.

“You saw him?” Rachel asks.

“Yes. Can you make up some excuse about
being on a conference call or something?” Her eyes pleading for her
help.

“Okay, but you know you’re going to have to
face him at some point. It doesn’t look like he is going to give up
and eventually Ethan is going to find out.”

“Ugh, that will get ugly.” Olivia sighs. “I
just can’t deal with him today, Rach. Can you please just get rid
of him?”

She nods her head. “Yes, of course.”

As she closes the door, she hears her say
“Noah, what a nice surprise. I’m afraid Olivia isn’t available this
afternoon. She’s on an important conference call. She could be
hours.”

Just then, her phone rings making her jump
out of her skin. Ethan’s name lights up the display.

“Hey.”

“Hi. You ok? You sound a little ‘off’. ”

“I’m exhausted.” She admits, purposely
leaving out the part about Noah tracking her down at work.

“Me too. Are you up for dinner? John wants
to take Shannon to the restaurant and I thought that since you two
seemed to hit it off last night that she might enjoy your company
instead of sitting around listening to John and I fake our way
through polite conversation.”

Olivia laughs. “I agree that would be
painful. I’ll go, but it needs to be an early evening.”

“Sounds good to me. Our last meeting is at
4pm then I’m taking off. We can eat around six if that’s ok. Shall
I pick you up?”

“No, I’ll drive myself.” Watching out her
window, she feels relief, as Noah walks to his car and drives
away.

Ethan yawn and it makes her laugh. “Your
fault.” He chuckles into the phone.

“Fine! It’s my fault.” She finally gives in.
“But it was worth it. Right?”

“Absofuckinglutely!” He whispers into the
phone.

Rachel startles her as she swings open the
door to her office and gives her the thumbs up on the Noah
situation. Boy, is she edgy this afternoon.

“I have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”
Hanging up, Olivia looks over at Rachel who’s still standing in the
doorway with her arms crossed and giving her ‘that look’.

“What?”

“You look like crap, James. Are you going to
tell me what happened last night?”

“Nothing.” She yawns as she says it and
Rachel raises her eyebrows in disbelief. “Ok, something. I stayed
the night with Ethan in a hotel downtown. Did you know who owns a
hotel?”

“You spent the night with Ethan? In a hotel
that he owns? In a BED?”

Olivia grins. “Well he’s part owner of the
hotel, but yes… in a BED.”

“So I’m guessing you look like crap because
you didn’t do much sleeping.” She laughs.

“Something like that.” Olivia replies
blushing.

“Well what the heck are you doing here? Go
home and sleep! I’ll cover for you. The day is almost over
anyways.”

“Thank you, Rachel” She quickly retrieves
her keys out of her purse. “I’m exhausted and we’re going to dinner
at six with John and his girlfriend Shannon.”

“Wow, look at you. For three years, I
couldn’t get you out of that house. Ethan shows up and all of a
sudden you’re never home.”

Olivia worries, feeling guilty that her
friend is starting to feel a little left out. “I’m sorry Rach. I
guess I have been busy lately.”

Rachel holds her hands up, halting her.
“Don’t say another word. You don’t need to apologize to me. I’m so
happy that you’re out and doing stuff again. Actually, now that I’m
not constantly worrying about you, Scott and I have been doing a
lot of... you know? Rekindling the romance. I’d forgotten just how
sexy that man is once we got all caught up in our careers and grown
up life.”