11. Killian
KILLIAN
Two hundred and eighty pounds of steel cut into my shoulders. I let the bar bite into my traps. Usually, the strain stops me from thinking. Tonight, it doesn’t do a fucking thing. Every scenario I run ends in the exact same way. Ellie’s blood on my hands. Again.
Gabriel and I spent three hours securing this property. Motion sensors in the jasmine vines. Cameras in the eaves. Pressure plates under the gravel driveway.
None of it will be enough.
I knew this day would come. The second I manipulated my way into Ellie’s program, I started the clock on Ross’s retaliation.
The man doesn’t forgive. He doesn’t forget. And he sure as fuck doesn’t let his former enforcers find happiness while he’s still breathing.
This isn’t just about Ellie’s research into her father’s death. That’s just an excuse.
This is about me. About daring to feel something. About wanting a life he can't control.
He’ll make me watch her die for that crime.
My time in prison taught me one useful thing.
You can’t think when your muscles are screaming.
I strip off my shirt and queue up Resentvul Pitch Black.
The bass hits hard enough to feel in my chest cavity, pounding through the speakers, matching the rhythm of my movements as I transition from pull-ups to push-ups to a brutal core sequence.
I plank until my abs feel like they’re tearing. Then twenty seconds longer.
Sweat coats my skin as I force my muscles through rep after rep, set after set. My muscles scream for the break I won't give them. Usually, I can breathe through this, block everything out until there's nothing but the movement. Tonight, the focus won't come.
Halfway through my squat set, the air changes. I don’t hear her over the music, but my instincts fire. My radar trips the exact same way it does when a weapon is aimed at my back. The burn in my muscles vanishes, replaced entirely by her.
I finish the rep, return the bar to the rack, and kill the volume. She’s standing in the doorway, hair still wet from the shower, dressed in workout shorts that should be illegal and a tank top that’s basically an invitation to lose my fucking mind.
"I couldn't sleep." Her eyes rake over my bare torso. "Too much adrenaline, I guess."
"You should try to rest. It’s going to be an intense few days."
"That's what I came here for," she admits, stepping fully into the gym and letting the door close behind her. "To burn off some of this anxious energy. But it seems you had the same idea."
She has that ‘do-or-die’ look in her eyes tonight. It makes her damn devastating.
I can’t stop thinking about the surveillance. Cameras pointed at her windows. Microphones in her ceiling. Men watching her sleep, tracking her movements, observing her routines. Not fear. Worse. The need to put my hands on her, confirm she’s breathing, whole, still here and not already gone.
Stupid. Dangerous. Everything I shouldn’t fucking do right now. But I do it anyway.
She takes another step closer. Close enough that I can see her pulse beating at her throat.
Fuck it.
“Ellie,” I warn, though I’m not sure what I’m warning her against. Myself? The danger of being alone with me when we’re both raw with fear and desire? The things I want to do to her that have absolutely nothing to do with combat training?
“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” Her voice cracks on the word alone. “Not with all that’s happened. Everything keeps replaying. The cameras. Those men in my house. Watching me. Listening.”
Her hand finds my chest, palm flat against my sternum, fingers spread wide like she’s trying to feel proof I’m real. “Make it stop,” she whispers. “Just for tonight. Make my brain shut the fuck up.”
“I know what this is.” She meets my eyes with sudden clarity. “I know we’re probably going to die tomorrow, or the day after. I know this is reckless.”
Her fingers press harder against my sternum, anchoring herself to me.
“And I don’t care anymore. I’m tired of being careful. I’m tired of pretending I don’t feel this.” She gestures between us.
She sounds like a scared kid waking from a nightmare, except this nightmare is very real. She just learned that trained assassins have been inside her home, watching her shower, recording her phone calls, and planning her death. And I’m the only thing standing between her and them.
The thing is, I’m worse than they are. She just doesn’t know it yet.
"This isn't a good idea," I say, even as my hand reaches up to brush a damp strand of hair from her face.
"I know." Our eyes collide, hers unflinching and brimming with tears. "But I can't be alone right now. I'm too scared of what's going to happen."
She rises onto her toes and presses her lips to mine in a soft kiss.
I respond immediately, my arms encircling her waist to pull her flush against my chest. Her hands slide up into my hair, gripping hard, and it goes from soft to desperate in a heartbeat.
Her mouth opens wide under mine, tongue sweeping against mine with a frantic hunger that shatters every ounce of my control.
I groan a curse into her mouth. My hands drop to her hips to lift her slightly, walking her backward until the back of her legs hit the padded gym bench. I lower her onto it, my mouth dragging down the side of her neck.
"Take these off," I command, my hands already tugging the hem of her tank top. "I need to taste you. I need to bury my tongue inside you."
Her pupils blow wide, leaving barely a ring of hazel around the black. She doesn't hesitate. She lifts her hips as I hook my fingers into the waistband of her shorts and drag them down her legs.
I grip her thighs, spreading them wider than necessary, watching her face as I display her completely. Her eyes widen, but she doesn't resist. I kneel between her legs, pressing kisses to the soft skin of her inner thighs.
"I've thought about this," I tell her, my breath hot against her sensitive skin. "Every night since I first saw you.”
"Killian," she breathes.
I bite down on her inner thigh, hard enough to leave a mark. "I want you to feel this tomorrow. A reminder of who's been between your legs."
I look up at her, maintaining eye contact as I move closer. My first touch is a slow, broad stroke of my tongue from entrance to clit that makes her gasp and arch off the bench.
"God," she moans out, her hands flying to my hair.
The first taste hits my tongue, and my brain whites out for a second. Rich and dark. Something so fucking addictive it burns every other thought out of my head. I want to memorize it. Drown in it.
Each stroke of my tongue changes the taste. Gets richer, more intense. Her hips roll against my mouth like she can’t help herself. I focus on her pussy, alternating between soft circles and firm pressure, testing what makes her thighs shake.
"Give it all to me. Every. Fucking. Drop."
Her thighs shake at the command. All her refined control is gone. All that's left is this. A woman trembling under my tongue, desperate for a release I’m in no rush to give her. I drive her higher, my tongue relentless, until she's clutching my hair tight enough to rip the roots.
I suck her clit between my lips and thrust two fingers inside her.
The sudden internal stretch tears a breathy moan from her throat.
I hook my fingers, dragging them hard against the sensitive ridge inside her.
A come-hither motion has her clenching around my fingers, her whole body arching off the bench as she tries to catch her breath.
"Fuck," I growl against her. "Come for me."
I redouble my efforts, fingers pumping relentlessly while my tongue works her. Her thighs begin to shake uncontrollably on either side of my head.
“Let go for me,” I command.
She comes with a long, broken cry of my name, her body arching into a heavy, violent shudder as she spills. I don't ease up, driving her through the peak, making her take every bit of it until she's pulling my hair and gasping.
"Too much," she pleads, voice wrecked. "Too sensitive."
Only then do I relent. I press one final, claiming kiss to her clit before looking up at her.
She’s flushed and disheveled, nothing like the composed Dr. Hart who’s been treating me for weeks.
I wipe my mouth, making sure she watches. "Now I know what you taste like," I tell her. "I'm going to be thinking about it every time I look at you."
But despite her release, hunger still darkens her eyes, a need that mirrors my own. Seven years of fantasies won’t be satisfied with just a taste.
She reaches for me, her mouth capturing mine before I can even pull back. She’s frantic, tasting of herself and her own pleasure.
“I need you,” she gasps, her fingers digging into my shoulders. “Inside me. Now.”
I hook my hands under her thighs and haul her off the bench in one motion. Three strides until I shove her back against one of the mirrored walls, the glass biting cold on her skin. Her head hits the surface with a dull thud.
She goes still, the muscles of her ribcage pulling tight as she draws in huge gulps of air against me, but she doesn't pull away. She wraps her legs around my waist, her heels digging into my lower back. She follows my gaze to the glass.
“Killian,” she moans as she rocks against me, her body searching for the friction she needs. In the reflection, her eyes are nothing but black voids, the hazel completely erased by the need boiling in her.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, yanking my head back until my scalp stings. I capture her mouth, muffling her moans as my grip on her thighs tightens.
I drag my mouth down her neck, bruising the skin. I find the spot where her shoulder meets her neck and bite down. Hard. Her head slams against the glass, a hollow thud that vibrates through both of us.
Her nails dig into my shoulders, her body arching into the pain.
"Please," she whispers, her hands fumbling between us, tugging at the waistband of my sweatpants. "Killian. Now."