38. Killian
38
KILLIAN
M y mouth is like sandpaper it’s so dry, and I swallow convulsively, smacking my lips in an effort to call upon some moisture. But I’m positively parched. With a groan, I force my heavy eyelids open, and the brilliant sunlight flooding through my bedroom window lances through my head.
Then the sweetest sound known to man fills my aching ears. “Killian? Can you hear me?”
Maybe I have died and gone to heaven. Because that’s the only reason Natasha would be in my room at this hour of the day. Then again, I don’t think heaven comes with headaches, and I’m currently nursing the mother of all migraines.
Groaning again, I turn my head away from the window, toward Natasha’s voice, and with monumental effort, I pry my eyelids open once more.
The brilliant smile Natasha rewards me with has me second-guessing my state of existence once more. Because I’ve never seen anything so breathtaking. And she’s less than a foot away. It would take nothing for me to lean in and steal a kiss.
“You’re awake,” she breathes, her cool, minty breath washing across my face as she exhales with relief. And then her soft hand cradles my face, shattering the last of my doubts that this is very much the world of the living.
Because she makes me feel so intensely alive.
I’m instantly aroused by her touch.
And even though I feel like I got run over by a bus, I want her with an agonizing need.
“How long was I asleep?” I ask, my voice croaking from my throat.
“Water?” she offers.
I nod, and she swiftly rolls away from me, reaching for a cup with a lid and straw. Then she turns back to me, holding it within easy reach of my lips—like an attentive nurse. The image of Natasha in a sexy nurse’s outfit immediately intensifies my arousal, and I beat it back as I take a deep pull of water. Cool relief washes down my throat, eliciting another involuntary moan.
“Three days,” she says, answering my question after a beat.
“Have you been here the whole time?” I ask, taking in her outfit for the first time.
She’s dressed in another of my button-downs, my boxers serving as a pair of shorts. And she looks as sexy as ever with her hair tumbling around her shoulders in loose, auburn locks.
Biting her lip, Natasha nods. “I didn’t want to leave before you woke up. Quinn…wasn’t sure when you would, and I just…”
She shakes her head, as if unable to voice the painful end of her thought. But the deep concern in her eyes triggers something deep inside my chest, and warmth floods my body as I see just how attentive she’s been while I’ve been lying here unconscious. She didn’t want to leave my side. And that gives me better hope for our future than I could have imagined after our conversation at the ball.
“She said they collapsed your lung when they stabbed you,” Natasha goes on softly. “You lost a dangerous amount of blood. Thankfully, you have some stockpiled.”
I smile and roll my eyes at Quinn’s obsessive insistence to collect the various types of blood whenever she can pin me or Lance—or one of the men—down for any length of time. “She’s always going on about wanting to be prepared to give us a blood transfusion because she never knows when we’re going to come home bled dry.”
“Well, clearly she has a point,” Natasha scolds gently. “Your sister put thirty stitches in you that night.”
I nod thoughtfully, trying to piece together the flashes of memory that filter into my brain. The mention of a collapsed lung and being stabbed help. But the images are fuzzy. I recall a crushing weight on my chest, searing pain between my ribs, and the agonizing inability to breathe.
Then the taunting threat rings in my ears, an Italian man telling me to hand over the Sokolov sisters and he’ll let me live. Not Lucian himself, but one of his men, I recall.
That triggers a flood of memories—the fight we had in the staircase, Lance and I protecting Natasha and Tatiana from Lucian Agosti’s men, who outnumbered us considerably. And though I gave it my all—and Natasha took out two of the men herself—I couldn’t finish them off before the last Italian stabbed me.
I vividly recall hitting the cold cement, choking in my blood as Natasha held me. Her tears were so genuine. The pain in her eyes had been agonizing to me because I knew I was the cause of it. But I was so far gone at the time, I couldn’t remember why I was to blame.
She begged me not to die…and promised to marry me if I would stay alive.
“Natasha,” I rasp, my chest suddenly tight with emotion as I think about the meaning behind those words.
“Hmm?” She leans closer, her dark-rimmed gray eyes intent as she searches my face.
And her genuine concern once again steals the breath from my lungs. I like this side of Natasha. Caring. Vulnerable. She’s looking at me like I’d always hoped she would once I found a way to bring her walls toppling. And I ache with longing to see the tender emotion in her eyes.
“About the promise you made…” I hedge, wondering if I have the strength to let her take it back. But I don’t want to force Natasha to marry me. I don’t want to guilt or blackmail her into anything any longer.
And for the first time, I have a sliver of hope that, if I set her free, she might just come back to me.
“To marry you?” she asks with a soft smile.
God , she’s beautiful. “Did you mean it? I mean…do you want to marry me? Because I want you to mean it, but I know you agreed to it in a desperate situation, and you just lost your parents…”
Deep, raw pain flashes in her eyes, and I can see the true devastation of that loss reflected in her face. I want to take it all away, to relieve the grief that threatens to buckle her shoulders. But I also know she needs the space to grieve if she’s going to properly honor the ones she lost.
Quinn and I endured the same loss when our parents died, and only Natasha can bear the weight of it. All I can do is hold her up and keep her in one piece as she works through those emotions.
I clear my throat, trying to find the right words. “All I’m trying to say is if you aren’t ready to marry me—if you only said it because you thought you might lose me…well, I can wait until you’re ready.”
But the thought of having to wait any longer still knots my stomach.
Because I want Natasha so badly it hurts. I want to lay claim to her in every possible way. And I want to hold on to her forever.
Bafflement flashes across her delicate features, followed by a hint of amusement. And she gives me one of those rare smiles that says I’m a complete idiot and at the same time puts me on top of the world. Her eyes search mine, the sincerity in them so soft and feminine it makes me fall in love with her all over again. And slowly, she leans in to brush her lips across mine in the lightest of kisses.
“Of course I meant it,” she murmurs, and her hand comes to rest lightly on my chest, right over my heart. “It might have taken me a while to get it. But after coming that close to losing you, I figured it out. I’m crazy about you Killian King. I’m completely and irrevocably in love with you. And I never want to live a day without you.”
Her lips find mine once again, this time with a far more scintillating urgency, and that burning desire awakens in my chest once more.
“I love you,” I rasp when she pulls back to meet my gaze. “I’ve been in love with you since the first night you snuck into my bedroom to kill me.”
The hilarity of those words makes me smile, and Natasha releases one of her beautifully melodic laughs.
“So, Natasha Sokolov, will you marry me? For real?”
“Yes, you crazy Irishman. I’ll marry you every day for the next hundred years if you want,” she breathes.
Warmth bursts through me, and though I’m a little worse for wear, I can’t help myself. I pull her on top of me so I can do a proper job of kissing her senseless.
“Killian, your stitches!” she gasps, her body tensing as she hesitates to settle on top of me, but her gloriously bare thighs are already straddling my hips.
“Why do you think I put you on top?” I tease. “I fully intend to sit back, relax, and enjoy the view. But I haven’t been inside you in far too long. And no petty stab wound is going to stop me from ravishing you. So I suggest you take my boxers off that sexy ass of yours and ride me like the perfect little minx I adore.”
Heat blossoms in Natasha’s eyes, and she slowly settles on top of me with exaggerated care. “You adore me, do you?” she murmurs, leaning in to capture my lips with her full, soft ones. “I like the sound of that.”
I hum, running my hands up beneath the soft fabric of her dress-sized shirt, and I groan when I find she’s not wearing a bra. Natasha’s breaths quicken, her back flexing beneath my palms as her hips roll on top of me, giving my first aching sense of relief after needing it for far too long.
“Make love to me,” I command, against her lips.
And Natasha rocks her hips again in response, confirming that’s exactly what she had planned for me to begin with. Then she murmurs, “You risked your life for me, Mr. King. I fully intend to do more than just make love to you.”
My cock throbs at the dark promise in her voice. And my fingers press into her soft flesh, reflexively pulling her closer.
Slowly, Natasha sits up, stretching to her full height, her thighs spread luxuriously on either side of my hips as her fingers go to the buttons of my oversized dress shirt. And she holds my gaze as she undoes them one at a time.
Air hisses between my teeth at the first glimpse of her perfect nipples, the dark flesh taut with anticipation. And when the shirt falls open, I reach up to palm her modest breasts. Natasha moans, arching into my hands. And her hips roll along my length once again, teasing it into an even harder state of excitement.
The pressure of her body weight grinding against my swollen cock sends a burst of pleasure through my core, and my balls tighten. Then Natasha shrugs out of my shirt completely, exposing her milky flesh.
It’s radiant in the soft morning sunshine spilling through the windows, and now that my eyes have had time to adjust, I can’t believe how appealing it is to look at Natasha’s naked body in the bright light of day. Because she’s so astonishingly perfect that, even now, I can’t find a single flaw.
She’s breathtaking.
A coy smile curls her lips, as if she can hear my thoughts, and she rocks onto her feet, standing above me so she can slowly slip the boxers down her hips. Revealing that she’s not wearing anything underneath.
“Come here,” I rasp, grasping her hips and pulling her forward until her palms are flat against my headboard, her pussy hovering over my lips. “I want you to sit on my face and ride my tongue until you come,” I command.
“Killian, you’re hurt,” she insists, immediately concerned for my health. As if I could have forgotten.
And I give her ass a sharp slap to silence her objections. Natasha yelps, color blossoming in her cheeks. Then her eyes blaze with the fire of arousal.
“As the man who risked his life to save you, I think I get to make a few demands. And I want you to ride my face until you come on my tongue.”
“Okay,” Natasha murmurs, and slowly, she sinks down until her pussy’s hovering just above my lips.
I breathe deeply, taking in the heavenly scent of her natural tang. And I grasp her hips firmly, bringing her down on top of me. Then I delve between her folds so I can tease her hot entrance with the tip of my tongue.
Natasha cries out, her hips rocking forward, almost as if of their own accord. And my cock twitches and throbs. I can tell when she finds her rhythm, because her hips start to roll in a deeply provocative way. And fresh arousal gushes across my tongue and chin.
I hum my approval, wrapping my lips around her clit. And I suck until I draw the sound of euphoria from her lips. Grasping the headboard to steady herself, Natasha rides my face, her hips rolling and twitching with her quickly building release.
And just as my lungs start to burn with the need for oxygen, she comes. Clit throbbing between my teeth, she shudders, her hips jerking forward. And I taste the fresh arousal as her channel floods with her juices.
Natasha pants as her hips still, her aftershocks rippling against my mouth.
And she slowly lifts herself off my face.
Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes hazy with lust, and she carefully climbs down my body so she can steal a deep and tantalizing kiss. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to be pleasuring you ,” she murmurs, her voice thick with relief.
“Believe me, love, that was more for me than you,” I assure her, and my cock twitches eagerly in confirmation.
Natasha hums and steals one last kiss, then eases back to grasp my joggers and carefully drags them down my hips. My cock springs free, rising to meet her as she brings her head level with my weeping tip.
And she wraps her lips around my silken head like it’s the sweetest lollipop she’s ever tasted. Intense euphoria crackles up my spine at the warm wetness of her lips, and I groan as my muscles flex.
My ribs throb. But I’m not about to let her stop over a minor discomfort.
Because it feels heavenly to be inside her mouth.
Natasha grips the base of my shaft and slowly takes me further, perfecting her motion in a matter of moments. The sinful relief is almost too much, it feels so damn good.
And every time I hit the back of her throat, I feel like I might just explode.
Combing my fingers into her silken locks, I grasp a handful of hair and bring her to a stop. My cock twitches beneath the attention of her tongue, which she continues to stroke up and down my thick vein. And while I desperately want her to keep going, I ache to be buried balls deep in her pussy even more.
“I’m going to come in your mouth if you keep that up, love. And that’s not where I want to come this time around.”