Chapter Twenty-one
Brynn
My eyes blink open before my alarm goes off.
I want to keep sleeping, but it’s light outside, so I tell myself I should probably wake up.
Waking up feels different today.
Killian is sprawled on the other side of the bed like always, but the sight of him naked with just a blanket draped haphazardly over half of his hip makes me smile. His ass is half visible, and I have to resist the urge to reach over and touch it. Given the way he decided sex was going to go last night, I didn’t get to explore his body as much as I want to now that this whole new experience has opened up to me.
And to be fair, he has a great ass.
But I’m not bold enough to grope someone while they’re sleeping—not that he seems to have a problem with it—so instead, I ease out of bed, careful not to wake him as I snatch my discarded pajamas off the floor and head to the bathroom.
I pee and brush my teeth so I don’t have morning breath, then I grab my phone and my reusable water bottle off the bedside table. I glance over at his side, but he didn’t bring his water to bed, so I ease the door open and slip out of the bedroom.
I feel light and happy, like an old-school animated Disney princess. I’m Snow White, dancing through the cottage as I gather ingredients in Killian’s kitchen to make us breakfast. All I need is a really long dress to pick up while I dance around with Toast eyeing me from her perch on the arm of the couch.
“I see you judging me over there,” I tell her. “You want some breakfast?”
She does, so when she sees me get her food bowl, she climbs off the arm of the couch, then leaps down before prancing to the kitchen for her food.
It’s already eight o’clock and we both have class in a little over two hours. I know he got in late last night, but I need to shower and get ready, and we both need to eat.
I don’t want to have no time whatsoever to enjoy our first morning after, so I’ll need to wake him up soon, and why not with breakfast?
I put on a pot of coffee, too, since I know we’re both bound to be tired today.
I hum to myself as I’m cooking, and ready each plate. I made each of us a piece of buttered toast with a fried egg on top. I still have a few strawberries left and I need to use them up before they go bad, so I add two strawberries to each plate as well.
“There we go,” I murmur, adjusting his coffee cup next to his plate at the counter and mine next to mine.
I walk gently back to the bedroom, but when I open the door, I’m surprised to see him sitting up on the edge of the bed. He must have just woken up, and he’s checking his phone.
He glances back at me over his shoulder, and I grin, climbing across the bed so I can wrap my arms around his neck from behind.
“Good morning,” I murmur, hugging him.
His mouth tugs up, and he puts his phone back down on the bedside table. “Good morning. I take it you slept well.”
“For a few hours,” I say wryly, still smiling. “What about you?”
In one smooth motion, he turns, sliding his arm around my waist and rolling me onto my back. He ends up on top of me, looking down at me, and I can’t help sighing at how damn beautiful he is.
“How could I not?” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss me.
Interest stirs between my thighs, which I find mildly alarming, but I suppose after last night, and him having me in this position…
It doesn’t matter. There’s no time.
Ignoring my impulses, I tell him, “I made us breakfast.”
“How thoughtful.”
“And coffee,” I add.
His hands slide up my thighs until he’s holding my ass in his hands. “I think we should blow off class altogether and stay in bed today.”
I crack a smile. “And I think we should fly to Italy for dinner tonight—oh wait, that’s almost as crazy as what you suggested.”
He smirks down at me. “I’ve heard of crazier things.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I have a test today, and basically the only way I can skip a class is if I die—and honestly, even then, I would request whoever I’m living with to do a Weekend at Bernie’s and haul me to classes for the rest of semester, if at all possible.”
“That’s dedication.”
I shrug. “What can I say? I’m a dedicated girl.”
“An admirable trait,” he says, kissing my collarbone.
I nod. “So is promptness, and we’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.”
Reluctantly, he lets me drag him out of bed, and we head to the kitchen for breakfast.
I consider asking him about where he went last night while we’re eating, but then I think if he wanted to tell me, he would. Just because he told me enough to explain why he would be gone sometimes doesn’t mean he’ll be able to tell me what he was doing, and I don’t want to put him in an uncomfortable position. This is all new to me, so I don’t know how it works yet.
To save time, Killian suggests we shower together, but once we’re naked in the steamy shower, I’m skeptical it’s going to be a timesaver.
Killian’s hands settle on my hips, and he walks me back against the wall.
I drape my arms over his shoulders as I tell him, “You have the look of a man who wants to make me late.”
He smirks, leaning in to kiss the side of my mouth. As he runs his lips along my jawline, he asks, “What gave me away?”
I sigh with pleasure, tilting my head to make room as his kisses reach my neck. He takes his time there, then he kisses a path from my neck to my collarbone.
“I know what you’re trying to do, mister.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he murmurs innocently as he kisses my breasts.
Arousal stirs between my legs and there is not time for this, so I brace a hand on his chest and push him away, cocking an eyebrow. “You behave yourself.”
He smirks, taking my hand and locking my fingers with his. It seems sweet at first, but then he takes my other hand and raises them, pinning them to the shower wall. My back naturally arches, pushing my tits closer to him.
“Or I can do whatever I want. I do have handcuffs built into my bed, remember?”
My heart flutters as his mouth returns to my tits, his tongue flicking out to tease a pert nipple. “You also told me you’ve only ever taken willing prisoners,” I remind him, struggling to hold tight to my resistance when his mouth is making me want more.
“Are you not willing?” he murmurs, catching my nipple between his teeth and biting down gently, but hard enough to make me gasp. Releasing it, he teases the tip with his tongue, then he sucks on it. “I guess I’ll have to try harder.”
Fuck.
I try to fight the yearning building inside me, but it feels twisted in the best way to be pinned here with my tits out and on display for him. Something about the helplessness is so hot. Knowing he can do what he wants to me, and I’m trussed up here like an offering, powerless to stop him.
It’s not even that I truly want to stop him. If we had the time…
He rearranges my hands, pulling them higher over my head and pushing them close together so he can pin my wrists with one hand. Then he slides his now-free hand between my thighs, and I gasp as he pushes a finger inside me. He continues to feast on my breasts, and the stimulation is enough to make me crazy.
I’m helpless to stop it as he teases and finger fucks me until I come.
He takes advantage of my docility in the aftermath, too. He turns off the shower. We both got clean last night, we really only needed to rinse off, but I did want to clean his back and freshly bandage him while we were in there.
He doesn’t seem to be thinking of that, and instead grabs my hand, dragging me into the bedroom.
I want to object when he bends me over the side of the bed and opens the bedside drawer, but the truth is, I want him inside me. I’m already wet from being pleasured in the shower, so he slides a condom on and positions himself between my thighs, and when he shoves into me, I grab the bedding so I have something to hold on to.
I’m a little sore this time when he fucks me, but I don’t mind the ache.
I moan as he hits me just right, and my thighs tremble. He circles his hips, grinding against me as I cry out into the bedding. His hands are on my hips, the only points of contact between us as he pounds into me.
But when I cry out, he reaches up and palms my skull, pushing my face down into the bed. “You like that, pretty girl?” he asks roughly.
My heart flips over and my stomach twists. I nod since I can’t speak, and then he starts fucking me more forcefully. It hurts a little when he slams into me, but it feels good, too. I’m not sure I like being forced down against the bed and taken like this, but I’m not sure I don’t, either.
I do know I can’t hold on much longer. It shouldn’t feel good for my pussy to be battered like this, but I can’t deny the building pleasure as he fucks me like this, like he’s trying to break the bed or bury me in it.
Make it my tomb, so I can never leave.
Grabbing desperately at the bedding, I think I never want to leave. I wish we could stay here, I wish he could pin me and fuck me and do whatever he wants to me all night long.
Killian slams into me, and I start losing myself to the building pleasure. I gasp and I cry, desperate little whines slipping out of me as he slams forward again and again. I’m so close, I can taste it.
“Killian,” I cry desperately, clawing at the bed as my muscles tremble.
His steely grip on my hips keeps me from crawling away—which is an idiotic impulse because all I want is him deeper inside me. He drives his cock into me hard, and I gasp, losing all sense of my place in the world as he pushes me over the edge.
I moan loudly through the flood of pleasure, taking his thick cock as my pussy squeezes around him.
“Oh, fuck, Brynn,” he groans, driving his hips forward, pumping into me a few more times before he joins me in rapture.
In the aftermath, I barely manage to pull myself up on the bed so I can collapse in a heap. Killian joins me, sinking into the bed behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“We should have had sex immediately,” I murmur.
“What?” he says, sounding lightly amused.
“Think of all the time we’ve wasted not having sex. That was so stupid.”
He chuckles against my skin, absently kissing the ball of my shoulder. “I tried to tell you.”
As much as I enjoy being his little spoon, I wiggle out of his grasp enough so that I can roll over to face him. I want a kiss, and I need to be close to him, so I hook my leg around him and pull myself close, then I lean in to give him a little kiss.
“I love this,” I tell him, cuddling even closer.
“So do I,” he murmurs, sounding much more thoughtful, but maybe it’s just because he was sleepy. He was out late, and then he spent his time at home showering and fucking me, so the poor guy has only slept for a few hours.
“We should go to bed early tonight,” I decide.
“Agreed.”
Tilting my head up so I can meet his gaze, I ask, “Do you go home for the holidays?”
I’m wondering how much time we have, what the future will look like for us. We haven’t technically even been on a single date, but here we are tangled up in bed together, so that’s gotta be something, right?
Plus, he told me all that stuff about the Blue Bloods, about how it can be difficult to date one. Why bother if he had no intention of actually dating me?
It feels like we’re dating even without the dates. We’re temporarily living together, and we definitely like each other.
I could see a future with him, and I wonder if he does, too.
He looks a little guarded when he nods, but I know he has mentioned having conflicted feelings about his family, so I guess that’s probably why.
With a slightly playful smile, I ask, “Have you ever taken a girl home before?”
I already suspect the answer, but he confirms it when he shakes his head. “Nope.”
“I haven’t either.”
“You haven’t taken a girl home before?” he teases.
I roll my eyes good-naturedly. “A guy. When I was younger, I loved the holidays—which isn’t unique or anything, but I don’t just mean the ones where you get presents. Presents are cool, but what I enjoy about the holidays is mainly that downtime and togetherness with people you love. The bonding time, you know? The feeling of family.”
Nodding thoughtfully, he says, “I can see how that would be nice. Holidays never felt like that to me.”
“I haven’t felt it in a while myself. I don’t go home for the holidays anymore, but I look forward to a day when I have a family of my own to celebrate with every year. I know you don’t believe in marriage,” I say lightly, “but do you plan on having a family at least?”
“I never said I didn’t believe in marriage.”
I hesitate, going back in my memory for the thing that made me think that. “I guess you didn’t, but you said you don’t believe in love. I took that to mean you were anti-marriage, too.”
He shakes his head faintly. “Love and marriage are separate things. Marriage is a commitment you make to someone, to build a life with them, to always be there for them, and they will do the same in return. I’m not afraid of a well-made commitment. I even like them in some capacity because they let you know exactly what you can expect. Love is much more fickle. People fall in and out of love all the fucking time. It seems worthless to me, honestly. People who follow their hearts alone can’t be depended on, and the way I’m setting my life up… There’s no place for undependable people. I want to know who’s in my corner, and I don’t want them to be there because they were in the mood to be for a moment, because then what happens when their mood changes?” He shakes his head more firmly. “I like to know exactly what I’m getting into, what’s expected of me and what I’ll get in return.”
I smile faintly, caressing his jaw. “I’m not sure that’s how life works.”
“It’s how my life’s going to work,” he states.
I know his parents’ rocky marriage clearly impacted his view of love, so I can understand his severity about it. I know deep down it’s really fear, and I get that, too.
“I think you have to trust someone a lot to marry them, and even if you do, you can be completely wrong about them. Someone you believe will be reliable can change their mind, or you can find out things about them they hid from you while you were getting to know each other. People guard their secrets, and even if they share some of them… can you ever really know someone else?”
“I think you can,” he says, his gaze fixed on my shoulder, but then his gaze shifts to mine. “This is more stuff I shouldn’t tell you, but the Blue Bloods have a set procedure for bringing in a new member and building trust quickly. It’s like you said, people guard themselves and their secrets, and that’s the biggest barrier to finding out who someone really is. So we exchange secrets right up front. Blue Bloods can’t hide from each other, so we make it so we don’t have to. It would never work if we weren’t genuinely bonded to and invested in one another. We make the stakes high so people take it seriously. It’s not a club you join or leave as you please. If you take the oath, you’re a Blue Blood for life. Only way out is death, same as a marriage—well, in theory, but Blue Bloods take their commitments to each other more seriously than a marriage. There aren’t real stakes in getting married for most people. It’s not a true commitment it’s just what they feel like doing at the time and then they quit if they change their mind later. But there’s no option to quit being a Blue Blood, so you have to mean it when you opt in. And people know that, so they do. They know there’s no out, so they put more effort into making it work. I think my membership with them is part of why I don’t feel that way about marriage. I know how a commitment can look with like-minded people. I’ve seen it work if you focus on the nuts and bolts without emotion clouding anyone’s judgment. My brothers and I, we don’t love each other, but we are committed to each other. We’d kill for each other. We can always count on one another to show up, and that’s because we made a logical choice to, not because we give each other butterflies,” he says mockingly.
His deconstruction of marriage is fascinating to me. He ignores the romanticism that makes it appealing to most people and finds the commitment aspect appealing without the romance of it.
My baby has some deep abandonment issues.
I can relate, I think I’ve just been more honest with myself about mine, so they don’t have as much power over me.
I want to dig a little deeper with him, but we don’t have time right now.
Especially because we really do have to get to class. At this point, I won’t have time to do my hair or makeup, and I can kiss my hope of getting to school early so I could cram a bit before class goodbye.
“Well, you give me butterflies,” I tease right back, “but you can still count on me to show up for you. You seem to believe love weakens commitment, but those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. They can go hand-in-hand.”
“I don’t believe love weakens commitment, I just think people who don’t use their brains to make decisions… their commitments hold very little weight.”
I lean in to give him a kiss. “I want to return to this conversation later when we have more time.”
His hold on my waist tightens, apparently anticipating my attempt to escape. “We’re skipping class, remember? We have all the time in the world.”
“We absolutely are not,” I say, shooting him a playful warning look. “Now, let me out of this bed so I can get dressed.”
He tightens his grip even more and tilts his head to kiss the side of my mouth. “Make me.”
Pouting, I ask, “Why do you have to make this so hard? I want to stay here, too, but I’m going to fail my class and fail out of school and then I’ll end up panhandling. Are you trying to ruin my life?”
He smirks. “Maybe.”
I sigh dramatically, but he finally releases me.
“Fine. Get dressed if you must.”
Before he changes his mind and grabs me again, I roll out of bed. I expect him to follow me since he needs to get dressed and head to class, too, but he just lies there, one hand resting on his chiseled abdomen as he looks up at the ceiling.
A frown flickers across my face. I thought he was playing before, just tempting me to play instead of work because it would be more fun, but looking at him, I’m starting to wonder if there’s more to it than that.
Maybe it’s just the stuff we were talking about weighing on his mind, but he truly doesn’t look like he wants to get out of bed.
It makes me want to climb back into bed with him and blow off all our responsibilities, but I can’t, so… reluctantly, I leave him in the bedroom and slip into the bathroom to get myself ready.