Chapter 8 Sean
SEAN
Iclose the door of Maeve’s room behind me and briefly lean against it, my arm throbbing where I cut it. The towel wrapped around my forearm is already soaked through with blood, dark red seeping into the white terrycloth.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I push off the door and stride down the hallway toward my old room—the one I'd been staying in before the wedding, before I was expected to share a bed with my eighteen-year-old bride.
The word tastes bitter in my mouth. Bride.
As if this marriage means anything other than a jailer for her and a punishment for me.
The door to my room clicks shut behind me, and I finally let myself breathe.
I unwind the towel from my forearm as I walk into the bathroom and wince at the sight of it.
It's deeper than I intended, blood still welling up from the clean slice.
I've had worse. Much worse. But this one feels somehow worse, considering that I did it to avoid touching my wife.
Fuck. A stream of curses runs through my head as I find a first-aid kit from under the sink and lean against the counter as I begin to methodically clean the wound.
The sting of antiseptic is nothing compared to the ache in my cock, the frustrated arousal that's been building all night and has nowhere to go.
I grit my teeth and focus on the task at hand, pulling the edges of the cut together with butterfly bandages before wrapping it properly.
My hands are steadier now, my muscle memory taking over.
I've patched myself up more times than I can count.
But I've never felt like this afterward.
Never felt this churning mess of guilt and anger and desire all tangled up together until I can't tell where one ends and another begins.
I close my eyes, my teeth gritted, but all I see is her.
What was she thinking, putting on that fucking lingerie?
She looked like every man’s fantasy come to life when she stepped out of that bathroom in the white silk nightgown, the curve of her small breasts peeking out from under that lace, her nipples hard against the thin fabric.
The hem riding high on her pale thighs. Her ginger hair falling in waves around her shoulders, making her look even more innocent.
Even more untouchable.
Christ, when I saw her like that, I wanted to devour her.
Wanted to push her back on that bed and make her mine in every way possible.
Wanted to hear her cry out my name, feel her come apart under my hands, my mouth, my cock.
She looked fucking beautiful, and I could, by right, do whatever I wanted to her. I could make her mine.
And I hated myself for wanting any of that.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to block out the image, but it's burned into my brain. The way she looked at me with those light blue eyes, terrified and trying so hard to be brave. Trying to please me, as if any of this is her fault.
She bought that nightgown for me. Took off her underwear for me. Stood there trembling and vulnerable and offering herself to me because she thought that's what she was supposed to do.
And God help me, I did want it. Want her. More than I've wanted anything in my entire fucking life.
That's the problem.
The memory of sliding my hand under her nightgown and finding nothing but bare flesh has my cock throbbing, desire coiling low in my gut, and heating my blood.
And of course, I fucked all that up, too.
Accusing her of not being a virgin, treating her like she was an idiot.
But Christ, I didn’t know there was a girl left in the world that goddamn innocent.
I saw the way she was looking at my cock; I’d bet money that she’d never seen one before, not so much as a picture.
She’s innocent in a way that’s archaic, as if no one ever took a goddamn second to explain any of this to her.
No wonder she was so fucking scared.
Scared and innocent and not even a little bit deserving of what I was ordered to do to her.
I've fucked plenty of women. Women who knew the score, who wanted a night or two of rough pleasure and nothing more.
Women who could handle what I am—what I do.
Women who didn't look at me with hope in their eyes, as if I might be something other than a killer.
But Maeve…
Maeve is eighteen years old. A virgin who lost her entire family in the span of months and has no one left in the world. Who was forced to marry a man twice her age because the Irish Council decided she needed to be controlled.
Because I fucked up.
Because I couldn't pull the trigger when I saw that woman and child in the car with Brennan.
And now Maeve is paying the price for my failure. Saddled with a husband who doesn't know how to be gentle, who doesn't know how to be anything other than what the Council made him. A weapon. A tool. The Wolf of Dublin.
Not a man who deserves a wife like her.
I should have just done it. Should have gritted my teeth and pushed through, consummated the marriage like I was supposed to. It would have hurt her, badly even—Christ, I'm too big for someone so small and inexperienced—but it would have been over. Done. We could have moved on.
But when I touched her, when I felt how tense she was, how terrified…
I couldn't do it.
I've killed men without hesitation. Pulled the trigger, slit throats, broken bones. I've done things that would make most people sick. But I couldn't force myself on a frightened girl who was shaking so hard I could feel it through the bed.
Even if she is my wife.
Even if the Council expects it.
Even if every instinct I have is screaming at me to go back to that room and claim what's mine.
Mine.
The word echoes in my head, dark and possessive and wrong. She's not mine. Not really. She's a punishment. An obligation. A burden I never wanted.
So why does the thought of anyone else touching her make me want to commit murder?
If the Council finds out I didn’t follow orders, that I didn’t fuck her tonight, I’ll end up with a bullet in my brain, and she’ll be given to someone else.
Just the thought makes me feel as if every muscle is wound tight, like I’m going to come out of my skin and turn into the beast they’ve nicknamed me.
I’m clenching my fists so hard I can feel my fingers digging into my flesh, and my jaw aches from clenching it so tightly.
She’s not going to anyone else. But neither can I finish what I tried to start tonight.
I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, my jaw clenched so tight it aches. My cock is still half-hard, pressing uncomfortably against my trousers. The arousal hasn't faded, even after the disaster in that hotel suite. Even after seeing the tears on her face, the fear in her eyes.
If anything, it's worse now. And that makes me hate myself even more.
I know what she looks like under that nightgown, at least the sweet, small, tight pussy that I was supposed to fuck tonight.
I know the soft outer curve of her breasts and the shape of them under silk, the pale skin of her inner thighs, how fucking soft she was under my hands when I spread her legs apart.
I know the sweet, musky scent of her, the way she gasped when I touched her most intimate flesh for the first time.
I know what her clit feels like under my fingertips.
I know that she's not wearing anything under that silk.
"Fuck," I mutter, my hand moving to the front of my trousers before I can stop myself.
This is wrong. So fucking wrong. I should be thinking about how to fix this mess, how to make this marriage work without destroying her in the process. Should be planning how to protect her from Connor, from the Council, from every other threat in her life.
Instead, I can’t stop thinking about the way her body would feel under mine. The sounds she'd make if I took my time with her, if I made her want it instead of forcing her to endure it.
I undo my zipper with my good hand, the other one throbbing as I move. My trousers are open a moment later, and I'm palming myself through my boxers, already rock-hard again just from the memory of her.
I should stop. But I can’t.
I shove my boxers down and wrap my hand around my cock, hissing at the contact. I'm so hard it hurts, my body demanding a release I denied it earlier. Demanding her.
I close my eyes and let myself imagine it.
Let myself picture what would have happened if she hadn't been so scared. If I'd been able to get her wet and ready for me. If she hadn’t been terrified at the idea of me going down on her. I imagine running my tongue up the length of her small, tight slit. Up to her clit, teasing and licking it until it’s hard and pulsing for me.
My cock throbs in my hand as I slide my fist up and down, my breath coming in quick, hard pants as I imagine her splaying her thighs wider, hearing her small, mewling moans as she experiences what it’s like to have a man’s tongue on her pussy for the first time.
Christ, I never thought I’d be turned on by a virgin.
But the thought that no one else has touched her, tasted her, that I’d be giving her every sensation for the first time…
it makes me hard as fucking rock, my entire body aching with the desire to make it a reality.
The thought of teaching her what I like, of guiding her rosy mouth over my cock, instructing her how to suck me, how to take me…
pre-cum leaks and drips from my swollen tip at the thought, pushing me close to the edge.
I’d have worked her open with my fingers, one at a time, until she could take me.
Made her come once with my tongue and fingers, and fuck, if the thought of giving her her first orgasm doesn’t make my balls tighten, my body tense and ready to explode at the thought of seeing the awestruck pleasure on her face at discovering the sweet release I could give her.
And then…