Chapter 15 Maeve #3
Sean's control visibly fractures. His hand comes up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone. The touch is gentle, but there's violence lurking beneath it.
"Maeve," he says, my name rough on his tongue. "You shouldn’t say things like that to me.”
“Why not?” I whisper, an ache spreading through me that confuses and terrifies me all at once. “I’m your wife.”
Sean makes a sound low in his throat—something between a groan and a curse. And then his mouth is on mine, hard and demanding.
The kiss is nothing like I imagined a first kiss would be.
It's not gentle or tentative. It's intense, possessive, all-consuming. His lips move against mine with practiced skill while I freeze, overwhelmed and unsure what to do. I’ve never been kissed before, and while I’ve imagined it, it’s so much different than what I thought.
He pulls back slightly. "Kiss me back," he orders, his voice harsh. The sound of it makes me go hot all over, my knees weak.
I try. I part my lips and press back against his mouth, mimicking his movements.
It's clumsy, and I'm probably doing it wrong, but Sean makes that sound again and his hand slides into my hair, destroying the careful twist, holding me in place while he deepens the kiss.
I hear the clink of hairpins hitting the concrete of the balcony, my hair suddenly loose in his hand.
His tongue touches my lips and I gasp, and he takes the opportunity to slip inside. The sensation is foreign and overwhelming and makes something low in my belly clench with heat. I grip his shoulders for balance, feeling the solid muscle beneath my palms.
He kisses me as if the rest of the world has stopped spinning. Like I'm the only thing that exists in this moment. Like he's been starving for this and is finally allowing himself to feast.
When he finally pulls back, we're both breathing hard. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, and his hand is still tangled in my ruined hair.
"Fuck," he mutters. "We shouldn't—this is—"
But he doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, he kisses me again, harder this time. His free hand grips my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I can feel every hard plane of his body through the thin silk of my dress.
This time when his tongue slides against mine, I meet it tentatively with my own. He groans into my mouth, and the sound sends a bolt of heat straight through me. I've never felt anything like this—this wanting, this aching need for more.
Sean presses me back against the wall of the balcony, cages me in with his body, one hand still in my hair and the other sliding down my side, following the curve of my waist, my hip. Every nerve ending in my body is on fire.
"Tell me to stop," he says against my mouth. "Tell me this is a mistake."
I can’t. When I open my mouth, I can still feel the pressure of his lips, the hot slide of his tongue. “I… I don’t think I want you to stop,” I whisper, my eyes fluttering open to meet his. The hunger I see there takes my breath away.
His control snaps completely. The kiss turns brutal, all-consuming, and his hand slides down to grip my thigh through the silk. He pulls my leg up, hitching it around his hip, and suddenly I can feel him—the hard length of him pressing against me through our clothes.
I should be frightened. Should be remembering our wedding night, the panic and fear. But this feels different. This feels like something I want, too. Like if I said no, he’d stop… but I don’t want him to stop.
I want to find out what happens next.
Sean's mouth leaves mine to trail down my jaw, my neck. He finds a spot below my ear that makes me gasp, and I feel him smile against my skin before he bites down gently. The sensation sends sparks of pleasure and pain through me.
"Sean," I whisper, and I'm not sure if I'm asking him to stop or begging him to continue.
His hand slides higher on my thigh, fingers slipping beneath the silk, skating over bare skin. I'm trembling against him, overwhelmed by sensation, by the feeling of his mouth on my neck and his hand on my thigh and his body pinning me to the wall.
"You're so soft," he murmurs against my skin. "So fucking perfect."
His fingers trace higher, and I realize with a shock that he's going to touch me there. Touch me the way he did on our wedding night, before everything went wrong.
Part of me wants to stop him, is frightened by how fast this is happening. But a bigger part—a part I'm only just discovering—wants more. Wants to feel his hands on me, wants to understand this heat building inside me, wants to know what happens when I don't pull away.
Sean's fingers brush against my panties, over the thin silk there, soaked through with want. We both freeze. He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes wild and dark.
"Christ," he breathes. "Maeve, we can't—not here—"
But even as he says it, his fingers are moving, stroking over the silk barrier. The sensation makes me gasp and grip his shoulders harder. It feels good. Better than good. Jolts of electric pleasure are rippling over my skin. It feels nothing like when I’ve tried to touch myself.
"Please," I whisper, though I'm not sure what I'm asking for.
Sean groans and captures my mouth again while his fingers keep moving, creating a friction that makes my hips move instinctively against his hand. He's breathing hard, his control clearly hanging by a thread.
His fingers slip beneath the silk, and the feeling of his skin against mine—there, in my most intimate place—makes me cry out into his mouth. He swallows the sound, kissing me deeper while his fingers explore.
"So wet," he mutters against my lips. "Fuck, Maeve. You're so wet for me."
I don't fully understand the mechanics of what's happening to my body. But I know it feels incredible. Know that every stroke of his fingers makes the heat inside me build higher. I'm making sounds I've never made before, desperate and needy.
Sean's other hand moves from my hair to slide down the front of my dress, cupping my breast through the silk. His thumb finds my nipple, already hard and sensitive, and circles it in a way that makes me arch into his touch.
This is nothing like our wedding night. Nothing like the clinical, frightening touch that made me panic. This is fire and heat and desperate wanting. This is me pressing closer instead of pulling away, me gasping his name instead of begging him to stop.
His fingers find a spot that makes me jolt, pleasure spiking through me so intense it's almost painful. He focuses there, circling and stroking while his thumb continues to work my nipple through the silk.
"That's it," he murmurs. "Let me make you feel good."
The pressure inside me is building to something unbearable, something that feels like it's going to break me apart. I'm gripping Sean's shoulders so hard I'm probably leaving marks through his tuxedo jacket, my head thrown back, completely lost to the sensations he's creating.
And then—suddenly, shockingly—I understand.
I understand what he's building toward. What my body is reaching for. And the realization hits me like cold water.
I want this. Want him. Want to come apart under his hands and see what happens next. I want all of it with an intensity that terrifies me.
The force of that wanting—the way my body is responding to him, the desperate need I feel—snaps me back to reality.
I grab his wrist, stopping his movement. "Wait."
Sean freezes immediately, his hand going still. He pulls back to look at me, and I can see the effort it takes him to stop, the wild hunger in his eyes warring with concern.
"Did I hurt you?" he asks roughly.
"No." My voice is shaking. "No, I just—I need—"
I need to think, to understand what just happened. Need to process the fact that I was seconds away from letting my husband make me come against a balcony railing at a gala where anyone could have walked out and seen us.
I need to understand why I wanted that so badly.
Sean reads something in my expression and steps back, removing his hand from under my dress and releasing my thigh. The loss of his touch leaves me cold, aching, confused. I can see the ridge in his suit trousers, straining against his thigh. The hand that was just inside of me curls into a fist.
"Fuck," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. That was—we shouldn't have—"
"I wanted it," I interrupt. The truth of it is undeniable. "I wanted you to touch me."
"You don't know what you want." But his voice lacks conviction. "You're eighteen and inexperienced and—"
"Stop telling me what I do and don't know," I say, surprised by the firmness in my voice. "I'm not a child, Sean. And I know I wanted that."
He stares at me, jaw tight. "This complicates everything."
"It was already complicated." I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the heat still thrumming through my body. "I want to leave. Can we leave now?"
Relief flashes across Sean's face, though he tamps it down just as quickly. "Yes. We'll leave."
He takes off his tuxedo jacket and drapes it around my shoulders, probably to hide how disheveled I look. Then he offers me his arm, formal and distant, like he didn't just have his hand under my dress.
Like he didn't just kiss me senseless and make me feel things I've never felt before.
We walk back through the gala in silence. I'm hyperaware of every eye on us, certain everyone can see what we just did written on my face. My lips feel swollen, my hair is half down, and I can still feel the phantom touch of his fingers between my legs.
Flynn catches Sean's eye as we pass, his eyebrows rising in question. Sean gives him a subtle signal—I'm not sure what it means, but Flynn nods and turns back to Gia, who's still hanging on his arm.
We step outside into the cold air. Sean looks around for the valet. “I’ll tell Flynn to track them down,” he says, but I shake my head.
“I just want to go,” I whisper. “Let’s just walk back to the car. The garage can’t be far.”
They will have parked the cars in a garage down the street. I give Sean a pleading look and he presses his lips together and nods.
“All right. Let’s go.”
My arm is still in his as we start to walk, quickly through the cold night. And I can’t help feeling, as we walk away, that I’m not the same person who walked into that gala tonight.
I keep changing. Keep finding new parts of myself, because of Sean.
And I don’t know if that’s for the better, or for worse.