22. Ruairí #2
I flip her onto her knees, haul her hips back, and press the tip against her entrance, but don't slide in.
Not yet.
I rub it there, catch against her, let her feel the size of it.
She looks over her shoulder, hair in her eyes, mouth parted, sweat gleaming along her spine.
"Please," she says.
I drive in slow, inch by inch, watching her take me.
She stretches around me, tight and wet and pulsing, and when I bottom out, I have to close my eyes for a second to keep from coming.
Her breath stutters.
Her fingers grip the headboard.
I pull out halfway and push back in harder.
Her moan cracks open in the middle.
I do it again, harder still, until she's pushing back to meet each thrust, wild and greedy.
The rhythm builds.
I grip her hips, drive into her deep and slow, then faster, slamming into her with wet, obscene sounds that bounce off the walls.
She cries out with each thrust.
She clenches around me like she wants to hold me there forever.
I reach around, fingers slick as I circle her clit, teasing it while I pound into her.
She wails and comes, shaking apart on my cock, walls fluttering around me.
I flip her again, lift her leg over my shoulder, and go in deeper.
Her nails rake down my back.
She drags me closer, sweat-soaked and feral, and when I kiss her it's brutal, teeth and tongue and the taste of her still on my lips.
"You feel what you do to me?" I whisper.
"You feel how close I am?"
"Yes," she pants.
"Don't stop."
I pull her into my lap and let her ride.
She grinds hard, breasts bouncing, mouth open.
I grip her ass, slam her down onto me, over and over, until she starts to come again, trembling, sobbing my name.
I thrust once, twice, then lose it completely, roaring into her neck as I come hard, pulse after pulse, buried deep.
She clings to me, shaking. I hold her through it, both of us spent, breathing each other in like we'll never have enough.
The room is quiet except for the hum of our breath.
She's still on top of me, soft now, slow in her movements.
My hand slides up her back.
I press my lips to her temple.
Her breath comes shallow and warm against my throat, the edges of her body softening as the last waves of release ebb through her.
She stays curled against me, her thigh still hooked over my hip, her hair damp against my collarbone, her cheek nestled in the hollow just above my heart.
I rub slow circles between her shoulder blades with the flat of my palm, feeling the flutter of her ribs start to calm.
Her skin is flushed, scraped in places, bitten in others, and I kiss each mark with a kind of reverence that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with her.
I ease her onto her back, drape the sheet low across her hips, then fetch a warm cloth from the basin.
She watches with half-lidded eyes, unmoving as I kneel beside the bed and clean her gently, murmuring quiet apologies every time she flinches.
She doesn't say a word until I crawl back in beside her and pull her against my chest.
Then her fingers find my jaw and hold me there, grounding herself in the curve of my mouth.
"I feel like I disappeared," she whispers.
I stroke her hair back and press a kiss to her temple.
"You're here. I've got you."
She murmurs something soft in the back of her throat, not quite a word, but enough.
I reach down and pull the quilt up over us both.
Her body fits against mine like she was carved from the same grain of wood, rough in the same places, hollowed in others.
I stay awake long after her breathing evens, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest, counting the beats of her pulse against my arm.
My hand stays on her hip, thumb brushing the curve of her waist, slow and steady until she is fully asleep.
I do not sleep easily, but when I do, it is full of the warmth of her skin and the scent of her on my hands.
When the morning light begins to spill through the window, she stirs.
She shifts against me, stretches long and catlike, then turns to face me with the kind of clarity that only comes after a night like that.
Her voice is hoarse but sure.
"We need to end this," she says.
I nod once, already there with her.
"Tell me."
She sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest more out of habit than modesty.
I prop myself on one elbow and wait while she gathers her thoughts.
Her eyes are sharp, clear, stripped of the softness they had last night.
She is Keira Donnelly again.
She is Crowley, too.
The name matters less than the fire behind it.
She begins ticking off what we already know.
"They know about the pregnancy. Moretti had eyes on the midwife. Padraig's giving them intel, and someone else in Brussels is backing it all with Donnelly money that should have been locked up years ago."
"And the Elders?" I ask.
"They want peace on paper," she says.
"But not one of them believes in it. They're hedging bets. They think if they keep everyone just unsteady enough, they can stay in power."
I nod again, slower this time.
"So we give them instability."
Her smile is faint, but there is steel behind it.
"We stage a split, Ruairí."