Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
ALESSANDRO
Rory’s studio is a controlled chaos that mirrors its owner.
Canvases are stacked against the exposed brick walls, half-finished landscapes and portraits staring out from the shadows.
Jars of pigment line industrial shelves, catching the afternoon light.
The air is thick with the chemical bite of turpentine and linseed oil—a sharp, pungent smell that coats the back of my throat.
The drafting table dominates the center of the space. It’s a massive slab of scarred wood, currently covered in sketches I recognize as preliminary studies for forgeries Rory will never admit to creating.
Rory gave us the studio and left without being asked. He looked at his brother—at the blood dried brown on his jacket, at the careful way Killian lowered himself into the paint-spattered armchair—and then he looked at me standing beside him, my hand hovering near the small of Killian's back.
He read the room in three seconds flat.
"I'll be at Brennan's," he said, grabbing his jacket. "Lock up behind me."
The door closed. The deadbolt turned with a heavy clunk. And the silence in the studio thickened into something that has mass and weight.
"Let me check the stitches," I say.
Killian is slumped in the armchair. His jacket is off, discarded on the floor.
The t-shirt underneath is stiff with dried blood—oxidized now, the color of rust. He looks like a man who has been through a war, which is accurate.
He looks exhausted, his eyes heavy-lidded, his skin pale beneath the grime.
"I'm fine," he grunts.
"You lost enough blood to lose consciousness. The wound needs to be checked for infection."
"I said I'm fine."
"Killian." I crouch in front of him. I pull the first aid supplies from the kit Rory produced—gauze, antiseptic, fresh tape. "This isn't a negotiation."
My fingers find the hem of his shirt. I lift it carefully. The dressing is intact, the gauze dark with old blood but not fresh. The sutures are holding. The skin around the wound is pink, not red. No heat. No swelling.
I exhale, a breath I didn't know I was holding.
My fingertips brush the skin beside the dressing. He is warm. Alive.
His hand catches my wrist.
The grip is sudden and complete—his fingers wrapping around the bone with a pressure that stops my hand mid-motion and holds it against his bare flank. His palm is hot. Rough.
"Stop being a doctor," he says.
His voice is low. Rough. The gravel-and-whiskey register that I heard in the kitchen, in the container, in every moment where the distance between violence and want collapsed to nothing.
I look up. His eyes are on mine. The green is dark—dilated, the pupils swallowing the iris. It is a physiological response I can identify and categorize.
Arousal.
"What do you want me to be?" I ask.
The question comes out before the filter catches it. Unscripted. Unanalyzed. A live round fired from the hip.
He pulls my wrist.
The motion is fluid—one continuous force that brings me forward, off balance. I stumble between his spread knees. His other hand catches the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair, and he pulls me down.
His mouth crashes onto mine.
He bites my lower lip, hard enough to split the skin. The taste of blood floods my mouth—copper and salt—mixing with the chemical tang of the antiseptic on my fingers. He doesn't ease off. He bites harder.
I make a sound—low, surprised—and surge upward. He rises to meet me. We collide standing, his chair rocking backward on its legs. Our bodies slam together with a force that drives the air from my lungs.
He walks me backward. His hands are on my hips—both of them, the grip crushing. His fingers dig into the muscle above the iliac crest hard enough to bruise.
My back hits the drafting table.
The impact jars my spine. Sketches scatter across the floor. A jar of pencils rolls off the edge and shatters on the concrete, the sound lost under the ragged noise of our breathing.
"Off," he growls.
His hands find my jacket. He doesn't unzip it—he shoves it off my shoulders with a force that threatens to tear the fabric. The tactical vest underneath is next, hauled over my head and thrown into the corner. The t-shirt follows, stripped with a single violent motion.
I am bare to the waist. The cool air of the studio hits my skin, raising gooseflesh.
He looks at me.
He looks at me with unfiltered hunger. A carnivore’s focus trained on a body that is no longer an obstacle, but a meal.
It is hunger. Unfiltered. Undisguised. A carnivore’s focus trained on a body that is no longer an obstacle but a meal.
His mouth hits my collarbone. Teeth. He bites down hard—the kind of bite designed to leave a mark. I arch into it, my hand finding the back of his head, fingers fisting in his dark hair. I pull him closer instead of pushing him away.
The edge of the drafting table digs into my spine. It hurts. I don't care.
He drops.
Not slowly. Not with the controlled descent I gave him in the kitchen. He goes to his knees with the impact of a man falling—hard, graceless, the concrete punishing his kneecaps.
His hands yank my belt open. The button pops. The zipper rasps down. He shoves my trousers and briefs down my thighs in one motion.
My cock springs free, hard and aching.
He doesn't wait. He opens his mouth and takes me.
His mouth is wet heat. He takes me to the root in a single, devastating stroke, his lips sealing around me with a suction that makes my vision white out. My hips buck forward involuntarily, driving deeper into the slick pressure of his throat.
My vision whites out at the edges. My hips buck forward involuntarily, driving deeper. He takes it—his throat opening, his jaw working, his hands gripping my bare hips with a force that anchors me in place.
"Fuck—" The word tears out of me. My hand tightens in his hair. I pull, trying to control the depth, but he resists. He pulls back—slow, dragging, the suction increasing as he withdraws until only the head is between his lips—and then drives forward again.
The rhythm he establishes is not gentle. It’s brutal. Wet, fast, the obscene sounds of saliva and friction filling the quiet studio.
I look down.
His eyes are closed. His lashes are dark against the flush on his cheekbones. His mouth is stretched around me, lips slick and swollen.
The image—the Reaper on his knees, servicing me—short-circuits my brain.
I watch his head move. The muscles in his jaw flex with each stroke. Spit runs down his chin, dripping onto his shirt. He doesn't wipe it. He’s beyond that. He operates in the animal register where fluids are currency and mess is the point.
He pulls off. Gasping. His mouth is wrecked—lips swollen, a string of saliva connecting his lower lip to me. He looks up. His eyes are wild—green gone dark, the intelligence replaced by something older.
"Turn around," he commands.
Two words. The command register.
My body responds before my mind can process. I turn. I brace my hands on the drafting table. The wood is cold and smooth under my palms. I lean forward, presenting myself.
Behind me, I hear him stand. I hear the clink of his belt. The rasp of his zipper.
His hand runs down my spine. Rough. Possessive. From the nape of my neck to the base, a single unbroken stroke that maps the territory he’s about to claim.
His fingers find my hole. Dry. The contact is electric, a spark against oversensitized nerves.
"Wait," I manage. The logistics matter even when the brain is offline. "There's... Rory's cabinet. Linseed oil."
He’s gone for four seconds. I hear the cabinet open. The cap unscrew.
Then he’s back. His chest presses against my back. The heat of his skin radiates through the thin layer of air between us.
His fingers return. Slick now. Coated in the viscous oil.
He pushes one finger inside me.
The stretch burns. My hands clench on the table edge. He isn't careful. He’s efficient. His finger works in and out with a mechanical purpose. A second finger joins the first. The burn deepens. I push back into it, seeking the grounding pain.
"Harder," I hiss through clenched teeth. "Don't be gentle. I didn't ask for gentle."
His fingers scissor. The stretch intensifies—a sharp, singing pain that radiates through my pelvis and converts into pleasure so intense my forehead drops to the table.
He withdraws. His slick hand grips my hip. His other hand guides himself. I feel the blunt, thick pressure of him against me—wider than his fingers, hotter, insistent.
He pushes in.
The pain is immediate and enormous. The stretch of him splitting me open is a sensation that exists beyond pleasure or pain—it is invasion. It is possession. It is the physical reality of a body being opened by another body.
My fingers claw the drafting table. The wood groans. My jaw locks.
He sinks deeper. Inch by inch. The oil eases the friction but doesn't eliminate it. The drag of him inside me is a sensation I feel in my teeth.
His hips meet my ass. He is fully seated—thick and pulsing and so deep I can feel him in my stomach.
He pauses. One breath. Two.
Then he moves.
The first thrust drives me into the table. The edge bites into my hips. I brace against it. His hands clamp down on my waist—both hands, the grip annihilating. He pulls back and drives forward again. And again.
The rhythm is punishing. Deep. Hard. Each thrust landing with the full weight of his body behind it. The sound of skin hitting skin fills the studio—a wet, percussive slap that echoes off the brick walls.
"Harder," I beg. "Don't stop. Killian—fuck—don't stop."
He doesn't stop. He accelerates. His hips piston. He hits the spot that detonates a white-hot cascade through my nervous system.
My back arches. My hands slide on the table, scattering sketches.
I reach back. My hand finds his hip—the wound side. I grip it.
The sound he makes when my fingers dig into the muscle near his stitches is animalistic. Pained and aroused. His thrust deepens in retaliation.
His hand wraps around my throat. From behind.
The fingers close over my airway. He narrows my breathing to a thin, whistling stream—not enough to choke, but enough to control. My vision narrows. The sensation of his cock pounding into me while his hand controls my oxygen is overwhelming.
"You're mine," he rasps against my ear. "Say it."
"Yes."
The word is strangled. Honest.
His hand tightens on my throat. His hips stutter, then drive deeper, hitting a nerve that sends a shockwave through my spine.
My vision blurs. The pain of the wood digging into my hips merges with the burning stretch of him inside me until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It builds low in my belly—a heavy, coiling heat that tightens my testicles and makes my toes curl in my boots.
The noise in my head stops. There is only the burn.
"Killian," I gasp.
He slams into me one last time, hitting the prostate with a precision that breaks me.
I come.
It isn't a detonation. It’s a collapse. My legs give out, my entire body seizing as pleasure rips through me, hot and blinding.
I spill onto the drafting table, thick ropes of seed coating the scarred wood, dripping onto my thigh.
My hole clamps around him, milking him, desperate to keep him inside.
The constriction rips a roar from his chest.
He buries himself to the hilt. I feel him pulse—hot, thick spurts filling me up. He groans, his forehead pressing into my sweat-slicked back, his breath scorching my skin as he pours himself into me.
He grinds forward—small, desperate movements, working through the aftershocks.
We stay there. Bent over the table. His weight on my back.
He pulls out. The withdrawal is slow, slick. The emptiness is a physical absence I register instantly—a negative space shaped exactly like him.
I turn around. I lean against the table. My chest is bare. There is cum drying on the edge of the table and running down my leg.
Killian is standing there. Breathing hard. His trousers are open. His cock is still half-hard, glistening with oil and fluids.
I check his side. The stitches are intact.
He steps forward. His hand cups the back of my neck.
He leans in. His mouth finds the junction of my neck and shoulder. He bites. Hard. A sustained, deliberate pressure that breaks the surface.
He releases. He looks at the mark. A drop of blood beads on my skin.
"Mine," he says.
The word is a claim. A seal.
"Yes," I say. My voice is clear now. Voluntary.
His forehead touches mine. The contact is warm. Quiet.
We stand in the wreckage of the studio—sketches on the floor, drafting table smeared with evidence—and the city moves beyond the blackout curtains. The war continues. Seamus Maguire is still breathing.
But in this room, with his forehead against mine and his blood on my shoulder and his cum inside me, the vow has been remade.
Not in a church. Not in front of forty-six witnesses.
In the only language we've ever spoken fluently.