Iron Cross (Will of Iron #2)

23. You Robbed Me

Chapter twenty-three

You Robbed Me

Kira

I don’t know what I expected.

He had already fucked me, that was true. He had taken me as I was still shocked by his… transformation. His change from being Aaron Jackson, to suddenly being Eoghan Green. Had I protested? Yes. I had said no every step of the way, even as my body craved him. Even as I clung onto him for dear life, needing his body to fulfill a need that I despised within myself.

Now, here we were, standing in a closet full of my old things. Old clothes I had never worn, dresses he had gifted me, jewels that I had never tried. All the luxuries he had given me had been undisturbed in the past three years, as if they were in suspended animation, waiting for me to return to them. But as they had been still, I had changed. I was no longer the woman in the gallery.

My body had changed. My mind had changed. I was at least twenty pounds heavier and far less fit than before. I was not the woman who had a narrow waist and an easy time wearing high heels.

“You say you have changed, but how would I know?” he whispered, his lips still sweetly on my clavicle. “I was not there to observe it.”

Finally, there was the malice I knew would come. The bitterness of my betrayal.

“I did not watch your belly grow, and I was not there to hold your hand as you pushed our child out.” His voice cracked under the heaviness of it all, as he came to his knees before me, his golden hair soft against my stomach. “I was not there to see his first breath.”

I could hear the pain in his voice, and it broke me. I felt a hot tear forming on my right eye, and I tried to blink it away.

“You robbed me of it. No, don’t pull away now,” he whispered into my skin, his hot breath rolling over my navel, over the stretch marks I had earned from carrying Cillian… our son. “You robbed me of my job as a man, as a father, of being there. Of caring for you. Of holding him as he opened his eyes for the first time.”

My hand trembled as I stroked his hair, wanting to comfort him, but also fearing him at the same time. His temper. His unpredictable and volatile nature.

“Tell me about this scar,” he said, and I felt the hot flush of embarrassment, as his fingers traced the ugly scar that ran below the pouch of my belly. It was long and white with age, but was still no less hideous.

Shame. That was the feeling that went through me. Why, exactly, I wasn’t ready to examine.

“Pre-eclampsia,” I spat out. “My heart rate was very high, and I fell going to the grocery store. I fainted.”

He pulled away, his eyes looking up at me in complete, genuine misery.

A misery I felt down to my core.

“It was Magda, actually, who called 911 and came with me to the hospital. They had to do an emergency C-section—”

I didn’t need to finish the story. I couldn’t. Not when I saw a tear roll down his perfect cheek. Not when I saw the anguish written all over his handsome features.

He loved me. He loved us.

How had I discounted that?

“I could have lost you both and not known. I might not have even been able to find your unmarked graves, emblazoned with the wrong fucking names. My son! ” His hand circled my hip, his thumb hooking over the pelvic bone, his fingers digging into my skin. “You believed the witch over me.”

He bit down on the loosened skin. Softly. Lovingly, at first. Then harder, angrier, until I whimpered at the pain. I wanted to pull away, but his hands kept me still. He was obsessed with these changes in my body - changes that I hated.

“I loved you, and you left me.” I tried to pry myself away, my mouth open to plead my case and explain, but he held on tighter, his hands digging into my hip bone. “Shhhh, no, Kira, don’t move. Don’t provoke me.”

Then that soothing touch again. That hand over the belly that was rounded and softer than before, to hips that were wider over thicker thighs.

I was shaking from fear, regret, and pain. The tears I was fighting tumbled down my cheeks.

The image of Aoibheann’s broken skin, the blood, the scars that marked her entire body flashed through my mind. I tried to keep my fear at bay, but my heart sank.

I knew it’d be my turn. He was angry, and he’d… he’d…

I tried to stand still. As still as he wanted me to, but I trembled so much. I tried to breathe, to calm myself down, but I was so, so scared. So scared of what he would do to me. How he’d take his anger out on me. Or perhaps, he’d take his love out on me, and make me regret every choice, and every wasted year.

“You won’t leave me again.” I looked down and all I could see was that golden hair. The beautiful, soft, golden hair parted on the side, and curling softly over his ears. “You won’t… put yourself in that kind of danger again. Do you understand?”

I nodded, though I knew he couldn’t see me.

But how could I keep such a promise when he was the danger in the dark? When he was the one who could hurt us the most.

But I didn’t think my response mattered. He continued without pause.

“Three years I’ve lost.” He kissed my belly again. “Two years of my son’s life I will never get.”

He lifted his eyes then, and I saw his face. Where I expected fire, there was nothing but sorrow. His eyes were shiny with unshed tears, his blond lashes stuck together by the wetness.

He came to stand before me, his hands holding me against him, my naked breasts grazing his hard pecs.

“You won’t rob me again.” I could feel the venom dripping from his voice. The bitterness that I had put there. That I would pay for.

He kissed my forehead, just as he had done all those years ago. Back when he had charmed me into his grasp. The gesture destroyed my resolve. My shaking started in earnest, and my breath ragged. I started shaking my head. I put my hands on his chest to try to push him away but I had no strength. I had nothing left but my trembling.

“Please,” I tried to say, but it came back like a frightened whimper. I had no strength left. I was so tired. So scared. I had no fucking pride. Not when it came to me. My son. My survival. “I’m sorry… Eoghan… I’m…”

“Shh,” he said against my lips. “Don’t. Provoke. Me.”

His warning did the trick. He said it so quietly, casually like he was talking about the weather but I could feel the hard edge as if he ran a barbed edge against my skin.

I started to cry. Not a few solitary tears, but whimpers that bubbled from my throat.

“I am still a monster, sweet Muse,” he said, his lips grazing the numbed skin of the scar, but I felt every bit of it. “I am still the man you ran from, but…”

He paused, his voice heavy and deep with so much emotion that thrilled and frightened me in equal measure.

Would he cut me? Whip me? Mark me like his father had done to Aoibheann? Was I strong enough to endure? I had to be. For my son. But God… I was so scared. But beneath that fear was something else. Something sinister and shameful that pooled in my lower belly and made me rub my thighs together. Heat and moisture in the space between us.

“Shhh,” he soothed, his hand coming to stroke my cheek, before he came up and licked my tear away. “No more of these, Kira.” He planted a chaste kiss on my lips. “No more fear, no more distance.” He bit my lower lip and sucked the pain away. “You loved me once.” He licked the tears from my other cheek. “You love me still.”

His words struck me where he intended. Like a knife through my heart. It was true. I loved him. I had never stopped. I had confessed as much to Aaron Jackson, and told the truth to the man I had sought to hide myself from.

“You’re mine,” he said, and his breath ran down my temple where more tears ran.

He took his hand into the space between us, and I heard the unbuckling of his belt. Then the pop of a button. The slide of a zipper. Fuck. He was going to fuck me, right now. Right here.

“Don’t,” I whined, still rooted, unable to move. My body was paralyzed and out of my control. Of course it was. It was never mine to begin with. It was his. “Someone might come in and see.”

It was no use pretending that Cillian would wake up. Once he was down for a nap, he’d be out for at least two hours, like clockwork. He was a boy with a predictable sleep schedule - a blessing in every possible way.

“It’s my house. And I’m fucking my wife . I don’t care who sees.”

I felt his tip grazing between my folds, picking up the moisture that was there. He gasped at the feel of it. My wetness was a confession of my dark desires. I wanted this. No matter how scared I was, he was my greatest desire.

“Eoghan…” I wanted to be strong. To say his name as a warning, but it came out like a prayer. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Another graze of his smooth tip against my folds, going in just a little deeper into my entrance.

“I’m not…” I wracked my brain for why I couldn’t. Why I had to stop him. Why I should stop this.

If I let him, he’d own me. He’d take over my body as he had before. There was only one thought I could tug like a string. The only thing that made sense. The only plausible reason to pause the inevitable course we were on.

“I haven’t been with anyone else. I haven’t taken precautions… I…” His presence muddied my thoughts as I tried to pluck out what I meant. “I’m not on birth control.”

Then I remembered that he liked that. He wanted a dozen children, if I allowed it.

He grazed the tip again and chuckled, confirming my realization. Then he pushed into my heat, the thick head of his cock opening me up. I gasped against the intrusion, and the pressure of being spread.

“All the more reason for me to take you now, before you have a chance to block me,” he said, pausing his movement for just a moment, letting me accommodate his girth. “This time, I’ll be there for every appointment, every kick.”

He captured my mouth and invaded me with his tongue as he pushed his cock even further in. I winced at the stretch as he carved himself back into my body. He pried his lips away.

“I’ll watch your belly grow, and it won’t be some fucking neighbor taking you to the hospital. It’ll be me.” He pulled out a little, then thrust in so hard that I bounced away from him.

His hand found my throat, forcing me to look at him, keeping me rooted to him. He held my entire being in the palm of his hand.

“You’re mine, Kira.” He grabbed my right hand, and spread my fingers so that he could see my palm. “I’ll mark your skin until you know it.”

He brought it to his mouth and bit down so hard, I winced. Sandwiched between his palm and his teeth, I felt like my hand was going to bleed. When his teeth pulled away, tearing my skin with it, he looked down at the red scrapes, then down at my face, still thrusting.

Stranded as I was inside the damn walk-in closet, I was forced to lean on him for balance. I had nothing else to turn to, no shelves to hold, no wall to brace against. Nothing except him.

My body couldn’t take all the emotions spilling from my heart, or the contradictory feelings from every cell. Before my knees buckled, he grabbed my thighs, pulling them up to circle his waist. In so many ways, he knew my body better than I did, and I wanted to weep at the knowledge.

I felt seen, and felt, and heard. I felt acknowledged, needed and desired. All the things I had not experienced in the last three fucking years when I had been robbed of his glorious presence.

My toes curled from desire, my lips moaned with the rhythm of his cock, my body climbed and climbed to its climax. My pulse throbbed with the pain in my palm, and my lungs ached with the air he was stealing from my throat with the clench of his hand.

All of it was out of my control. And God help me, I liked it.

“It’s not enough,” he said, as he tugged my left arm from around his shoulder, until my palm landed in his. “Not enough.”

He stared down at my hand, his eyes turning cruel. His rhythm was frantic, and I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t handle it. He brought my palm to his lips, and instead of a gentle, sweet kiss, he bit down hard, and I cried in pleasured pain, my head light with the intimacy of every fucking movement and gesture.

“Please,” I begged, “I can’t take anymore. Please…”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak anymore. Darkness was coming to the edges of my vision and still, my body, the pleasure, the rhythm… my toes curled against his assault.

He let go of my throat and the rush of air made me dizzy. I came instantly, my back arching, and I screamed. I screamed so loud, it pierced through my mind until nothing else existed.

Every cell of my body had cooled and released at once, and I had no control over my nerves, my limbs, or my heart as I fell apart, wracked with sobs.

Pleasure gave way to ache, and the cooling loneliness of reality.

I was nothing to him. Just as I had been before. A hole, a body, a thing. As my body fell, my mind awoke and the grief came pouring in. The cries I had withheld were now flowing with the tears.

I wanted to curl into myself, to wrap my arms around my body to protect my heart, my vital parts from this man who could break me with a single word, or look. But he wouldn’t let me turn away.

“Why,” he whispered quietly, “are you crying?”

“I don’t know.” I lied.

He kissed me, and my heart ached even more.

I loved him. I still loved him. The memory, the feel, the touch, the ache he caused in my heart when he punched a hole in it. It was all still there, unearthed now because he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t leave me alone until I was nothing but a pile of ash because that was what Eoghan Green did. He went one step further than you could handle.

Just one more taste, one more moment, one more heartbeat. And one turns into another, into more than you have.

How I had loved that passion and fire, and I was burning, dying in agony. Yet he still moved his hips, giving my body pleasure while my soul was in pain.

He broke the kiss and cupped my face in his hands.

“You can’t leave me.” His voice was husky, thick. I opened my eyes and they blurred with tears but… was he crying too? “You can’t leave me, Kira. Don’t ever… I can’t let you go.” He ravaged my mouth again, his shaft inside me getting harder and harder. Against my lips, he said, “I’m not a man without you. Just a shell.”

“You’re lying,” I whispered, even as I knew that he never lied.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” I hit him in the ribs with my fist. “Don’t lie to me anymore.”

“You first,” he accused. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

“Because it hurts.” The words spilled out like the hot water crawling out of a boiling pot. “It hurts so much to be nothing to you.”

It wasn’t pain from now. It was an imagined hurt, when I had watched him on the gossip columns with women at his side. When I had imagined him, in an attempt to hate him, placing his cock inside Malinda, kissing her as he kissed me. Was it stupid? Yes. But I felt it all the same.

“You were never nothing.” His fingers tightened around my face. “You were my fucking air, and you left without a word with our baby.” His lips curled back in a pained grimace. “I should have been there with you. I would have left all of this for you.”

The connection was messing with my heart, his hard cock pacing languidly in and out of me as the rest of me was in turmoil.

I held on to my truth. To my reality. Because he could so easily change my mind with his trickery.

“You lied to me. Again and again.” I shook my head. “You said you were nothing like your father, and when I knew what he really was I… what he did to his wife…”

“I would never have done that to you. No one gets to touch you but me. No one. Ever.” He swore, with so much conviction I wanted to believe him. “I lied. That’s true. I’m not a fucking businessman or an artist. I’m a killer. You know that now.” He stole my lips and stole my air again. “And now I’m telling you the truth when I say that you are mine . My wife.”

Just when my legs weakened, their hold around his waist drooping as I shook from exhaustion, he pushed me into the wall, shoving clothes, blazers and dresses off their hangers, letting them pile below us in a heap.

His cock was demanding, thick and heated inside me, and I adored every bit of it. I needed him. I wanted him. I loved him, and hated him all at once. I wanted nothing to do with him, even as my arms clung onto his shoulders, pulling his chest against mine, relishing in his warmth.

His movements became jerky and frantic, hard and desperate. His body heated even more, his cock thickening inside me, and I knew it was time. My body responded with eagerness that shamed me as I arched involuntarily, parting my thighs further, welcoming his pleasure as if it was my own.

Even with his cock still buried inside, our juices spilled out, coating my inner thighs.

It was so dirty. So visceral. Everything that stood for Eoghan fucking Green.

“I have been faithful to you,” he continued. His voice crooked, his breath warm against my ear. “Because you were always my wife. My woman.” He placed a kiss on my cheek. “How could I take anyone else when you existed?”

He kissed me, his tongue delving inside me. Still, I ached for more. I felt greedy and hungry for more. My nails clawed at his back, pulling him towards me.

“Our handfast vows are taken only once.” His forehead came down to land on my neck. “And there is no death do us part. It is taken until the end of both our lives.”

Again with the stupid fucking handfasting. These people were a fucking cult. I froze, remembering my words with Malinda, and what she had said. How she told me I was nothing. Maybe not outright, but she did say it in not so many words.

“You…” I didn’t know how to talk about this. I didn’t know what to say, or even what I wanted. “You never took those vows with me. Which means that…”

“No, I didn’t.” He still didn’t move from inside me. I wasn’t sure he ever would. “You’re not one of us. You weren’t born into this life. I thought it would frighten you. But I made those vows on our wedding day, if not in words, in my soul.” He lifted his head, and those black eyes stared down at me with great sorrow. “I didn’t want to frighten you with a blood oath, sweet Muse.”

Another tear. Another perfectly reasonable explanation. But I wasn’t sure I believed it.

“I thought that if you wanted something, you always got it.” I swallowed hard, feeling the dryness in my throat. “That if you had wanted that, then we would be.”

“What I wanted was you. ” His hands came to my face, cupping them in a grip that kept me from looking away from him. “ You! More than a ceremony, more than a piece of paper. I’d take you in any way I could.”

He kissed me again. The same insatiable kiss. The selfish kiss of a man who needed to consume. When he broke off, he was panting, his breath heavy, his chest heaving against mine. I was the same. Breathless and greedy.

“Will you?” He shut his eyes, bringing his forehead to mine. His warm skin was heating the air between us. And I was so conscious of his cock that was still buried in my warmth, I could feel his pulse speeding up, causing him to harden again.

My head was swimming with the possibility of another round. Still, my heart and soul longed for that friction. I wanted more of him. I wanted to make up for the last two years. For every evening I spent alone, with no one to keep me warm. For every night that I had missed him.

“Will I do what?” I finally asked, when I remembered that he had asked a question.

“Handfast,” he said, his eyes still weren’t on my face. “Will you take the blood oath in front of everyone, and…” He swallowed. He blinked, slowly. Then raised his eyes to look at me. “Pledge to be mine forever.”

Another tear. This was so fucking insane. Cutting yourself to take a blood oath? Not only was it insane, but it was unsanitary and ridiculous. Medieval! And if I searched hard enough, I bet it was also patriarchal and sexist.

“Don’t handfastings happen at a wedding?” I asked, wondering if it was all too late.

“Aye.”

“We’re already married.”

“Aye, but this is different.”

“How?” I looked up at him, my hands palm up in his, as we both looked at where we were joined.

“Handfasting started when there was no priest to let people marry,” he said, taking one hand up to his mouth, kissing the heel of my palm. “It was like a blood oath. It fell out of favor, and was seen as pagan, but somehow we managed to keep it alive. Here, and some of the folks in Boston.”

He took my other hand and kissed the inside of my wrist, letting his lips linger there.

“It changed over time, and for the likes of someone like me, being handfasted to a woman means more than clan, more than family.” He came to his knees in front of me, placing his forehead on my lap. “An arranged marriage wouldn’t do this. Many people don’t feel the need to draw blood on their oath.”

“But you do?” I asked with a chuckle. “Because you’re melodramatic.”

He laughed a little. “Aye, lass. It comes with the art.”

He looked up at me, his hands adjusting so that his thumbs were at my pulse point, his fingers around my wrist.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. But it would be an honor to me if you would think about it.” He kissed my knuckles. “There is no higher vow. My father made the oath to his wife, my mother. He didn’t for Aoibheann. Even if he had loved her, which he didn’t, he couldn’t. Because you can only take this vow once.” He let out a breath. “Aoibheann handfasted with Jericho Vasiliev of the Bratva, because they are in love. My cousin, Dairo, handfasted with Rose as well.”

He kissed up my forearm, my skin tingled where his lips touched.

“A ring can be taken off. But the scar that’s left with a handfast can be shown at any time, anywhere, forever. It will be honored by the men of my clan, and of the Murphys in Boston, the O’Bradys in Chicago and, now, the New York Bratva.” He tilted his head down like a supplicant. “I would be honored if you would let our vow be on your skin.”

What woman could possibly resist something like that? This was insanely hot, and incredibly romantic, even if the idea of a blood oath was borderline psychotic. But that was Eoghan. Sweet, darkly passionate, and insane.

“Okay,” I croaked. “I’ll do it.”

His black eyes popped up, a small smile on his face. That was the look of hope. A disbelieving hope like a homeless kid being offered a chance at a family.

“Do we need a priest?”

“No.” His eyes were searching my face, likely trying to find any hint of hesitation or reluctance. “No, it can be between us. Just us two.”

I nodded, slowly. But I remembered Malinda, and her awful words. Eoghan’s father had done it in front of everyone. He had declared it loudly. So was I only good for this in secret? “You don’t want witnesses?”

“A knife and just a cloth…” He was slowing down. Was he regretting his request now that I had said yes? Was he nervous? I couldn’t tell. “If that’s what you’re willing to do, but…”

His voice trailed off, and again my heart sank. Why am I so attached to this stupid idea?

“Are you changing your mind?” I asked, quietly. “Do you not want to do it anymore?”

“Aye, I do, I just want to know that you’re sure.” He leaned back, sitting on his heels. “You understand the significance? It means that if another man were to touch you, one of ours could slit his throat for me, and I’d have to reward him. This vow means that everyone will also be supporting our fidelity above all things.”

“So?” I said with a laugh. “I couldn’t even kiss you when you were in disguise. I couldn’t move on even when I wanted to.” My eyes fluttered shut. “I take it the restrictions only apply to me, though.”

Oh, I was bitter. Men in the Mafia, regardless of origins, all felt that they were allowed their way with women. A mistress for fun, a wife for family. I had seen it play out a million times. So why was I pretending it was new to me?

“No,” he said, his hands squeezing my wrists, pulling them so that my hands lay flat on his chest. “It’s for both. Any woman who tries to come between a handfasted couple is likely to vanish into thin air.”

“Vanish, huh?” I lifted my brow.

“Aye, a chuisle, ” he said, taking a strand of my hair and pulling it behind my ear. “The vow goes both ways.”

Everything was happening too easily. We were reconciling too fast. The whiplash of it was disorienting, but it was too good to pass up. It was too sweet to question. I wanted him so badly, I wasn’t sure it was in my power to say no.

He kissed my shoulder, his sweet lips grazing my skin, eliciting a tender moan from me.

“A handfast is committing one’s soul to another, and it requires honesty,” he said, and I quietly vowed with my groan of pleasure that I would tell him everything and anything he wanted. I’d give him everything if he never left me. “We must be joined, of one mind. Can we do that, sweet Muse?”

“Yes!” I cried out, as his arms encircled my waist, pulling me up against him.

He kissed my throat, then my cheek.

I was loved. I was forgiven. I had never felt something so unconditional. Not since I lost my family. And now, here he was - my constant star, never wavering, never dimming.

I couldn’t give this up again. I’d never be able to leave him.

And our son would pay the price. My poor, sweet Cillian.

Then he lightly bumped his nose against mine, a small smirk on his lips. I couldn’t help but return his expression, as an unfamiliar joy swept over me. Contentment. Hope. Love.

Things that I had not thought could ever be mine.

“Then tell me, darling,” he said, quietly, “why do you know how to shoot the way you do?”