Chapter Forty-Three Tiernan #2
“Something to hold you over until I come back.” I took a seat on the edge of the bed, seizing her chin and tilting her face up. “And I will come back, Lila. That’s a promise.”
She tore her gaze from mine, seized the bag, and rummaged through it. Lila wrenched the vibrator out, frowning and examining the box from all angles, like it contained ancient ruins.
“I won’t be here to help you fall asleep.” What the fuck was stuck in my throat, and why couldn’t I swallow it? “So I bought this to keep you company.”
By my wife’s expression, she was ready to hurl the vibrator at my head. I waited for her shock to subside, then asked, “Do you want me to show you how to use it?”
She didn’t say anything for a long while. Then, finally, she signed, “I’m an eighteen-year-old girl with access to the internet, Tiernan. I know how to use a vibrator. I’ve probably watched more porn than a millennial watched Friends in their lifetime.”
I gave her a blank stare. Then, incredibly, I started laughing.
And I mean really laughing. The kind of laughter that bubbled from the pit of your stomach and utilized every muscle in your body.
I never laughed. Barely even smiled before Lila came along.
She watched me with a proud grin, taking pleasure in her conquest.
“Besides, all these times, I didn’t fall asleep because of the orgasms.” She shook her head. “I fell asleep because I was in your arms and finally felt safe.”
Her words struck a place I didn’t know existed inside me, so I decided to change the subject.
“Does this mean your online shopping includes sex toys, and I bought this in vain?” I gestured to the vibrator between us.
She shook her head. “I don’t have any toys. You’re always available when I…” She stopped, considering how to put it. “Want to go to sleep.”
“Feel free to use me for power naps, too.”
“I’ll let you know how your gift measures up in comparison to you.”
“Then I better remind you how good I am.”
My mouth came crashing down on hers, my tongue plunging between her lips, and I could taste her misery, the sadness born from my leaving, maybe for good.
It only made me more fucking feral for her. I tugged at the front of her pink frock, unbuttoning the silvery buttons until the dress spilled and pooled around her waist like a puddle, without breaking our kiss.
After unclasping her bra, I let it fall across her arms, cupping her tits. I reached down to taste one of her nipples. It dampened with warm milk. A shock of primal pleasure made every single hair on my body stand on end.
I pressed my hand to her spine—her back slim, every vertebra pronounced—bringing her closer, twisting my tongue around her nipple, using my teeth to tug at it teasingly. She tipped her head back and moaned, fisting my hair.
Her breathing quickened. I trailed my tongue along the blue veins of her tits.
Sucked the other nipple. Another burst of sweet, warm milk on my tongue.
My hand snaked down her waist, moving between her legs, brushing her panties to one side.
I found her core, spread her arousal along her lips and her clit, and rubbed it in a circular motion, using two fingers to spread it open.
Lila’s mouth latched to my throat, sucking hungrily, leaving a mark. She sank her teeth into it, then moved her lips along my pulse soundlessly, thinking I wouldn’t understand what she was saying.
You’re destroying me, and I’m too far gone to care.
I pulled her in and kissed her cheek to keep myself in check. She tasted like my sweet ruin, my absolute downfall, and still, I gulped her up, manically, aching for more. I was on the brink of doing something I couldn’t fucking afford.
Staying. I wanted to stay.
I’d never veered off target. Starting now was a dangerous precedent.
I playfully stuck my tongue in her ear and gave it a lick, before nipping on the lobe of her ear. She giggled and squirmed.
“Tiernan…”
I pushed two fingers into her, curling them to tickle that spot that always made her go wild.
I pressed my thumb to her clit, kissing my way down her body.
Collarbone. Breasts. Rib cage. Waist. I pushed her legs open, holding her by the back of her knees, and got to work, flattening my tongue against her pussy with her panties still yanked to one side, my fingers still inside her.
“God…”
“Nah. Even he doesn’t get to touch my wife.”
I licked and teased and sucked until she had her first orgasm, before pushing up and kissing her, using one hand to jerk my cock free.
“Hold on to me, sweetheart,” I murmured into her mouth, sliding inch by inch into her.
She arched and moaned, her sweet breath skating over my face.
Her muscles clenched around me, the familiar rush of heat coating my cock.
I couldn’t even tell if I was enjoying myself or not, I was so laser-focused on making her come a second time.
She needed to sleep well tonight.
That’s all that mattered.
I pounded into her the way she loved being taken—with long, controlled, deep strokes at first. Then, when I felt her trembling, gasping for air again, I picked up the pace.
It was only after she fell apart inside my arms that I quickened my pumps, fusing our mouths in a dirty, tongue-filled kiss, hitting the magical spot deep inside her that was already making her quake again.
My balls tightened and an explosion of heat sizzled down my spine.
I came so hard I saw stars. I collapsed next to her on the mattress.
Lila was still breathless, blinking at me with that sweet innocent expression of hers.
This thing between us had no business being this fucking good. It was ruining my focus, priorities, and fucking life.
“What are you thinking?” She spoke, rather than signed. She only did that when she felt extremely comfortable and placated.
I reached between her legs, curling my index into her drenched pussy, and with our mixed cum wrote one word on her upper thigh—mine.
I popped my finger into my mouth, rubbing the residual nectar of her cunt on my gums like it was high-end coke.
I’d never sampled the shit I sold—hard drugs were a red line—but there was no point in denying it.
I was a junkie. Addicted to my wife. There wasn’t a low too low for me to stoop to in order to get my next hit.
We both stared at the possessive word for a long moment before she spoke again.
“If I weren’t pregnant, I’d tattoo over your handwriting to keep it there forever.”
“If I wasn’t made too jealous by the prospect of a tattoo artist laying their hands on you, I’d let you.”
I considered hopping into the shower for exactly one second before remembering that (a) smelling like the Ferrantes’ baby sister’s cunt was exactly the kind of punishment her brothers deserved, and (b) I, myself, took strange comfort in smelling Lila on my skin.
“I have to head out in the next ten minutes. Just texted my driver to round up the car.” I strode over to my walk-in closet, tugged a fresh shirt from a hanger, and buttoned it on my way back to the bedroom.
Lila covered herself up with her dress and sat on the bed, staring at me through tear-coated eyes.
I’d rarely seen her cry.
She was braver than all of my soldiers combined.
I didn’t miss my other eye often. But when I did, it was because it took me twice as long to watch every atom of my wife’s existence every night.
To count each of her thirty-three beauty spots—yes, including the one behind her ear.
Her fourteen freckles, all of them peppered across her celestial nose.
All the twenty shades of yellow and silver in her hair.
“There is something I want to give you before you go.”
She reached for her nightstand and took her sketchbook, tearing a page and handing it to me. I tugged it from between her fingers and flipped it.
It was me.
A portrait of me, to be exact.
Much like the one she drew of Tate, but somehow…better. Sharper. I looked more alive in the drawing than I did in real life.
It looked like I was forged through marble and flames.
And it was the first time I stared back at myself and liked what I saw.
I swallowed hard, loathing how vulnerable this made me feel.
I leveled my gaze at her. “Cheers.”
God, did my voice just break? Good thing she couldn’t hear it. Only I didn’t mind her knowing.
She shrugged, downplaying it. “You were so touchy about the Tate portrait; I couldn’t send you off without letting you know how I feel.”
Dangerous, now. There was a difference between playing house and fucking one’s delectable wife and actually falling for her.
“And how do you feel?” I asked anyway. I wasn’t normally a reckless cunt. She brought that side out of me.
“I…I think I love you,” she blurted out.
Our gazes clashed.
There were two instances when I never believed someone’s words—when they had a gun pressed to their head or when they just had an orgasm. Lila just had three.
She stared at me wildly, searching my face, her eyes so big, so blue, so heavily lashed, my heart skipped a beat. How easily this unassuming creature had undone me.
“Please don’t go,” she added with a choke.
I said nothing.
“No. I won’t let you leave,” she tried another method, punching the bed.
I was going because I wanted to return.
And I wanted to return because I wanted to be with her.
The only way out was through. I could never live with myself if I let her stay by my side without settling the score with the Rasputins. The code of honor cemented that women and children were beyond the scope of retaliation, but my entire existence attested otherwise.
I’d broken the code myself several times. I wasn’t putting my trust in anyone else when it came to her.
Rolling my nightstand drawer open, I produced the cross pendant Lila had gifted me, securing it around my neck. She stared at me through tear-curtained eyes, and it hurt so fucking much I actually contemplated closing my eye so I wouldn’t have to see it.
I leaned down, cupped her cheeks, kissed her forehead, and stared into her eyes.
“Don’t follow me.”
_______
The drive to the private airport was silent. The journey from the car to the airplane on the tarmac a haze. The sketch burned a hole in my front pocket, and all I wanted was to stare at it until my eye bled, because she drew it.
I was met with stoic Luca and pissed-off Achilles on the plane. The rest of the soldiers were already in Vegas.
Luca plucked a red grape from a charcuterie platter, going over the blueprints of the warehouse we were going to raid. Achilles sprawled across from him in a recliner, thumbing through his phone with a frown.
Luca was the first to look up and acknowledge me. “Jesus fuck, were you mauled by a pack of wolves on your way here?”
He referred to the scratches, love bites, and sex hair.
I plopped on the seat opposite him and lit myself a joint. I didn’t usually smoke. I did now. I needed to take the edge off.
“Who tried to kill you?” Achilles asked. He looked somber. Probably pissed that the assassination attempt failed.
“Your sister.” Smoke skulked out of my mouth, crawling in the air, invading his space. “Fucks like a champ. Thanks for making me spell it out for you.”
Their smug smiles melted away.
The rest of the journey was blissfully quiet.
Time to paint Las Vegas red.