“Christ,” he mutters, moving his mouth to the sensitive flesh of my shoulder, dragging it up my chin and back to my lips again, still oblivious to our audience. “You burn under my fingertips, Rory. How do I give you up?”

Burn, I think. Strange choice of words, seeing how I’m always cold. But I feel it, too. The pull. The ache. It is not necessarily sweet or nice or called for. I’m aflame at the stake, a redheaded witch, watching his fire consume me.

I rip my mouth from his and mumble, “We can’t do this here.”

He kisses my mouth again. Then my nose. Then my forehead. He can’t stop. No part of him is in control.

“Let’s check you out of that money-sucking hotel and head back home. I want to spend every waking moment in you until you leave.”

“What?”

“With you. Get your mind out of the gutter, lass.”

“You put it there!” I laugh.

“You say carjacking, I say borrowing. Why are we still here discussing it?”

Dazed, I slip into the passenger seat of his car, fastening my seatbelt. Mal gets behind the wheel, revving the engine. He drank quite a bit of Guinness a few hours ago, yet he looks oddly sober. I look up one last time, catching Kathleen’s gaze. Her eyes are puffy and wet. It’s not in my nature to be a bitch, but it’s not in my nature not to fight back, either.

Mal doesn’t look back and doesn’t appear to notice Kathleen as he rolls down the road, taking a U-turn back to Dublin. Our hands touch, and there’s a moment I can’t explain. It feels like more than just our flesh links us. I tell myself it’s nothing, that I’m the only one feeling it, but then I slip my hand back between my thighs and we both shudder in unison, like someone unplugged us from an electric outlet.

To burn under your fingertips, I think, is to come alive.

During the drive, I realize what Father Doherty was talking about. I’m a gray squirrel‚ an unwanted pest who steals from the locals. The cunning, street-smart, diseased, rat-like thing. But villains are just misunderstood heroes. I learned that the day I realized my mother’s archnemesis—Glen—was the protagonist I wanted to meet the most.

I sit back and let Mal reach over, grab my hand, and lace his fingers through mine over the gearshift.

Life is too short not to kiss the one you want.

Midway into Dublin, I remember something. “Mal?”

“Princess?” he answers naturally, like we’re well-versed in conversations with each other.

“You said something was ironic, but never got to tell me what it was.”

“Did I?” He feigns innocence.

“Tell me.”

“Even if it’s no longer true?”

“Especially so.”

“Well, my name, Malachy, means angel, but Kath used to tell me I was the devil when we were teenagers, that I’d be the very thing to kill her one day. She was eighty-percent joking, I’m sure. I was always up to one shenanigan or the other. Climbing trees, lighting homemade torches, attempting to ride the cattle…”