20. Lilah
LILAH
“ I ’ve only ever been yours, Killian. I brace myself on my elbows and plant a bare foot against his firm chest. Only ever yours.”
Like a man on a mission and I’m the prize, he shreds my red lace thong and presses me back against the cool piano. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? I had you for one weekend, Lilah, then you shut down and pushed me away... again.”
His rough hands run up my legs. “Never again, princess. No more pushing. It’s you and me, and we’re gonna fight, and we’re gonna get pissed, but we’ll work it out. No more shutting down. No more pushing away.”
He runs his nose up my neck and inhales before scraping his teeth over that soft spot at the base, then soothing it with his tongue, and I gasp.
“I hate that nickname.” I whisper the lie for old time’s sake and smile.
“No, you don’t. You never did.”
Killian drags a hand up my leg, bunching the red silk nightgown as he goes. “Have you gotten yourself off since your birthday, Lilah?”
My breath falters, and this gorgeous man smiles.
Still the devil you know . . .
“Did you think of me fucking you while your fingers were filling your pussy, baby?”
Holy fuck.
“How am I supposed to think when you say something like that?”
“You’re not.” He grins as his gorgeous green eyes darken to nearly black.
My laugh dies in my throat when he slides a finger between my thighs and through my sex. “You feeling needy, princess?”
“Always needy for you.” I drop back against the piano, already shaking when he slides one finger inside me, then another. My body pulses around him as want wars with need, both driving me higher. Needing more. Wanting it all.
I press my foot against him, backing him up. “I need you,” I warn before I swing my legs down and slide off the piano and onto Killian’s lap. “I need you inside me. On me. All over me. I need to feel you?—”
I’m cut off when he wraps an arm around my waist and shoves his pajamas down with the other before he sits us back down. “Take what you need, baby. Just give me you. You’re all I want. You’re all I see.”
I lift my hips and press Killian’s cock against my sex as I brace my hands against his shoulders and slowly sink down, taking him inside me.
Pleasure tinged with pain spikes, as he stretches me so thoroughly, my body hums around him.
I move slowly... achingly slow, my eyes locked on his. Barely breathing. Wanting to make up for all the years we’ve missed. For all the hurt. For everything.
I bite down on the thick, corded muscle of his neck, holding back a scream when I finally take him completely in.
“Fuck, princess, take your time. I don’t want to hurt you.” His big hand cups my face and tugs me down to his.
Goosebumps pepper my skin as I wrap my arms around those broad shoulders I love and try to move. “God, Killian. I love you.” I press my lips to his. “Only ever loved you.”
“ More ... more,” I pant between kisses, then lean my forehead against his when I can finally move. “I need more.”
“Taking me like such a good girl, Lilah,” he murmurs against my lips.
His praise is like a gentle, loving stroke against my oversensitive skin. And when he finally begins to move, I’m already so close.
His strokes are slow and lazy, like we have all the time in the world.
And then it dawns on me.
We finally do.
“Hey, Lilah...” He licks into my mouth and thrusts deep inside me. “Welcome home.” He groans as his hips pick up speed. Grinding into me. Holding my hips against his. Creating the most delicious friction against my clit as his cock swells inside me.
Home . . .
I whimper as his words sink in, unable to form a coherent thought.
Lost somewhere between lust and love.
Chasing my orgasm.
Knowing he’ll be here to catch me when I fall.
Killian sucks my neck while he fucks me furiously. He slides a hand between us, and the pads of his fingers play with my clit until I’m one giant nerve, exposed and at his mercy.
His other hand holds me so closely, carrying all my weight. In complete control, and for once in my life, I give over willingly.
It’s overwhelming. Too much. Not enough.
It’s everything.
“Don’t stop,” I beg and throw my head back.
“Fucking never, Lilah.” He fucks me harder. Faster. Slamming up into me over and over and over again. So good that when my orgasm finally tears through me, thousands of stars splinter and shatter behind my eyes, and I come with his name on my lips, his love seared on my soul.
“So fucking pretty, princess,” he rumbles in my ear, then holds my face, demanding my mouth. “And all fucking mine.” His hips snap up, and I cry out, and any threads of the past I was clinging to pull and fray. “Tell me your mine, Lilah. Tell me your pussy...” The first thread snaps. “Your body...” Snap. “And your fucking soul belong to me, Lilah. You belong to me, and I belong to you. Only you. Fuck, princess... My whole life, it’s been you.”
And without thought or choice, every last thread snaps, and any tether to the past is gone. It’s just him and me and right now.
I cry out as a second orgasm threatens to drown me and press my lips to his. “My whole life, I’ve been yours. In this life. In every lifetime. I’ll only ever be yours.”
Killian comes with a roar.
My name falling like a sacred benediction from his lips and reverence in his eyes.
H ours later, I lie in bed, my fingers tracing circles over Killian’s chest, unable to close my eyes for fear that when I wake, it will all have been a dream.
“You were right, you know,” I whisper into the night, feeling both strangely brave and yet completely vulnerable at the moment.
Killian buries his face in my hair and pulls me in closer. “You’re going to have to be more specific. I’m right an awful lot.”
I laugh quietly and keep tracing. “If you had kissed me that night at Crucible, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave for my first tour. You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted more than music.”
He rolls me over and looks down at me, love shining in his big green eyes. “We had things we both needed to prove to ourselves. You were already my world, Lilah. If we had taken things further, I don’t know whether I’d ever have had the determination to do what I’ve done. I would have been fat, dumb, and happily lost in you for the rest of my life. At least when I do that, I’ll be able to tell our kids I was a champion once.”
“Our kids?” I squeak and trail my fingers over the strong angles of his face. “You think about our kids?”
He doesn’t skip a beat. “Sure. I always thought they’d look like you, but now that I know from experience what dogs men are, I’m kinda hoping they’re ugly. I don’t know if I can take having daughters who look like you. Not unless we have sons first.”
As if there were ever any doubt how long I’ve loved him, that one sentence just did me in in so many ways. “First, can we just ignore that you have experience being a dog with anyone but me, please? Because the thought of that makes me kind of stabby.”
I pull his face down to mine and nip his lip. “But I can’t wait to have your babies one day, Killian. I think the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be more than a singer is a mother.”
“Is it too early to ask you to marry me, Lilah?”
My heart stops and starts all at once, and I smile against his lips. “Maybe a little.”
“How about we start with you opening your birthday present, then work our way up to a ring?” He teases. At least I think he’s teasing until he gets out of bed and takes the unopened pink box from where it’s been living on my vanity.
I sit up and wrap the sheet around myself as he sits back down and places the box in the palm of my hand. “Happy birthday, princess.”
“Why am I nervous?” I ask with shaking hands as I untie the box and tear off the paper. A tiny red box sits in my hand, and my voice and my heart get stuck in my throat.
“Open it, Lilah,” he tells me gently.
And my heart is no longer in my throat because it sinks to the floor.
I crack open the lid, and sitting neatly on a layer of red velvet is the golden strawberry necklace Killian gave me for my sixteenth birthday. “But how...”
“Princess.” He wipes my eyes before I even realize I’m crying.
“But I threw this in the trash.” And wished a million times I hadn’t.
Killian shrugs and takes it out of the box. “Turn around.”
I lift my hair and turn as he fastens it around my neck.
“I took it out of the trash and kept it. I guess I always knew I’d get the chance to give it to you again.”
I climb into his lap and wrap myself around him like a spider monkey. “Thank you for keeping it safe for me.”
“I will always keep you safe, princess.”