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"Are you going to be okay here?" Kieran asked, eying the security of my door with some scepticism

"I’ll be fine, thanks There are about five locks behind my door"

I paused as I conteht? Will you take care of him?"

I spoke so fast that I wasn’t even sure he’d heard the question He smiled at me, like he was pleased that I cared

"He’ll be fine He just needs to blow off soood"

Of course, he’d be okay, and now Kieran was probably laughing his arse off at iant of a man who trained to hurt people

"You just ht behind ht?"

I frowned but nodded He waited on the top of the stairs for me to shut the door and throw the locks before I heard hi that I was too keyed up to sleep, I took a hot shower and dried a pants and a vest top I’d piled asunder the covers, I shivered as I waited for the cold sheets to warm up around me It was pointless to turn on the heater By the tio to sleep, and I couldn’t afford to run it all night The low after my earlier lust-filled adrenaline rush had hit, and the lure of sleep beckoned Knowing that I could never fulfil the sexual fantasies of , I surrendered to it

THE SERIES OF LOUD BANGS at ht and out of bed in seconds My heart beat like a jackha that if it were Frank, I’d have seconds to dress and grab h theI looked through the spy hole to see O’Connell staring back atatto find out on this side of the door Taking a deep breath, I ranorder to the chaos As the next round of banging began, I opened the door

"I missed you, sunshine," O’Connell told me, with the kind of ridiculous, doe-eyed, sad face that a toddler would use to evoke sympathy

"I can tell by the need you have to break down rabbed his thick wrist to check the tiain just as quickly, "three o’clock in the h thestupid and sheepish

"It wasn’t locked," he slurred I shivered involuntarily at the lapse in security and tried hard not to think about how easy it was to get to

"You know it’s a good thing I’, you know"

"And do you have any suggestions as to where I could move that would be cheaper than this place?" I asked sarcastically

"You could live with ested hopefully