Chapter 9
Kat
The kettle whistles angrily and even as I hear it, I don’t.
The heavy feel of that gun in my hand consumes my thoughts until I snap out of it. It’s been hours, but the tension lingers.
It always seems like a good idea to go back to the kitchen.
You can count on things there. Even when life seems unstable, most kitchens have the basics.
A sink, a countertop, and a humming fridge.
That’s where I go when we get back to the house.
It helps that there’s usually alcohol in the kitchen too.
It’s been silent between us since we left. Apart from him kissing my hair and the occasional touches, he hasn’t done anything but think. I can practically see the thoughts that wind in his head.
There’s a rat. Someone tipped them off and I don’t know what exactly the tip was, but I know I could have lost Cill again. All over a fucking gun. All over the fucking club.
Biting down on my lip, I check my phone again.
He didn’t say a word to Reed and neither did I when the cops said we were free to leave, much to their chagrin after hours of searching. The expression on Reed’s face haunts me and the fact that he didn’t respond to my text only makes me worry more.
All I asked him was if he was okay. I know he saw the text, but he hasn’t answered.
As I pour the boiling water into the mug, eager for a cup of mint tea to calm my nerves, Cill gets up abruptly, leaving the wooden legs of the kitchen chair to scratch against the floor as he does. He goes upstairs, his footsteps heavy.
“You all right?” I call after him.
“Fine, I’ll be back,” he answers.
His footsteps keep going. I listen to every one of them. My chest is tight with emotion. He’s anything but fine. All of this is fucked. Hating all of it, every last bit of today, I lean against the counter next to the stove and pull out my phone to text Lydia.
Kat: We went to the club. There was a raid.
She texts back right away. Thank God.
Lydia: Oh my god. The cops came?
Kat: Yeah.
Lydia: Are you guys okay? What the hell happened.
Kat: Yeah. As good as we can be. I almost tell her wrong place, wrong time jokingly, but I can’t do it. I can’t make light of what happened.
The cops came, and this time, they didn’t take Cill.
Kat: It all feels like a lie.
Lydia: What lie?
Kat: That it was ever safe. That I ever belonged. That I was ever a part of it, a real part. I thought Cill was part of it too. I never thought they’d let him take the fall like that.
With a shaky hand, I put down my phone and breathe deep. The tea is next. I focus on it even as the phone beeps with another text. I harbor so much anger toward all of them. Even to his father who’s long gone. Cill never should have taken the fall.
Inhaling the calming tea, I pray for all of them to get what they deserve. After a moment, I’m able to check my phone again.
Lydia: I never thought it was right.
I’m too wrapped up in my thoughts to hear Cill come back down, so he’s able to catch me off guard as his arms fold around me the next second.
“Hey, Hellcat.” His tone is calmer than it’s been all day, which instantly soothes me. It doesn’t go unnoticed that we were tense around each other earlier, but after what happened at Cavanaugh Crest, he hasn’t stopped touching me.
I couldn’t be more grateful. I need him to be steady for me.
“You okay?”
“No,” I admit. The back of my throat is tight.
I’m not on the verge of breaking down, but I’m angry.
“There’s so much that’s just fucking wrong.
” The bitterness lingers after the words are spoken.
A part of me expects him to deny the reality, like my father used to do, but he doesn’t and that’s all the more shocking.
“I know,” he answers in a whisper. He adds, “I’m going to make it all right. I promise,” and I wish he wouldn’t.
How could he promise such a thing? It’s all fucked. I catch my bottom lip between my teeth before it trembles and Cill looks me in the eye, the comfort changing to something else. Something darker and something more sinful.
“You’re going to need a safe word, Kat.”
My head tilts immediately to the floor, thinking of the phrase my father gave me and hating it, hating him.
The rage is instantly subdued as Cill grabs my chin between his thumb and forefinger, bringing my attention back to him as he tells me, “So when I whip your ass for taking my gun, I’ll know if I’m going too hard on you. ”
“Cillian,” I murmur, my eyes widening with shock but my body heating with anticipation.
“Word, my little hellcat,” he commands, his voice still soothing even as the threat of punishment looms.
“Mulberry,” I speak without thinking. Mulberry is the street where an old pizzeria used to sit on the corner. Cillian first “punished” me behind that pizzeria.
It wasn’t much of a punishment if you ask me, getting fucked raw while he played with my ass. A tingle heats my skin at the memory.
He smirks at the word, maybe knowing exactly why I picked it, but it falls as quickly as it came to grace his lips. “You aren’t going to do that again, do you understand?”
“Yes.” Although the answer is instant, my internal agreement is not. For him, I’d do it all again. If I can protect him in any way, I will.
There’s no way I could stand by and watch like I did before. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.
“I mean it, Kat,” he murmurs and I wonder if he knows what I’m thinking. “If they took you away, I … I don’t know what I would do.” His voice is tight with emotion.
Cill holds me tighter and kisses my cheek, then my lips. It’s far softer than he’s been with me since he’s come home.
As he pulls me in closer, my front to his, I can feel how hard he is. It ignites every nerve ending instantly.
“Being apart from you has been hell,” he murmurs against my lips before kissing me again. My hands slip up his shirt to his bare shoulders, eager to touch him.
He lets his hands roam over my body, and when I don’t pull away, he starts pulling at my clothes. One by one he strips them off until I’m naked. The chill of the air dancing along my skin as if it’s part of the foreplay.
“Stay facing the counter,” he says, his hands reaching down to unbuckle his belt.
I obey, the warmth between my thighs clenching with a new heat and desire.
In the reflection of the kitchen window, which thankfully faces an empty field that leads to woods so it’s all shades of dark moss and sage, I watch as he pulls his shirt over his head, his muscles rippling. Then he steps closer to me again and arranges my hands on the sides of the counter.
The leather of his belt sings as it’s pulled through the loops of his jeans. A shiver rolls down my shoulders and it’s immediately halted by Cill’s strong grip. His thumb travels in a soothing stroke up to the base of my neck and back down with each word.
“If I ever scare you, I want you to tell me.”
His somber tone is unexpected, given the predicament.
“I’m not scared of you, I’m scared of …” I start to say as his expression reaches mine in the reflection, “… losing you, but also everything that comes with being with you again.”
“But you are with me.”
“Yes,” I answer eagerly. It’s only then that I realize how deeply I mean it. Even if he doesn’t know what happened. Maybe I’ll never have to tell him. It doesn’t matter, does it? If I love him like this. If I’m willing to do whatever he wants?
“Good because I can’t lose you again,” he says and then his head falls to the crook of my neck. His grip on my shoulder loosens as he plants a kiss on the tender spot below my ear. My eyes close and my nipples pebble as he drags the edge of the leather down the curve of my side.
“Then don’t leave me,” I beg him.
“I won’t leave you, so long as you don’t leave me.”
“I won’t. I promise,” I tell him in a desperate rush.
Brushing my hair to the side, he kisses my neck and whispers, “That’s my good girl” before pulling back, leaving only his left hand gripping my shoulder.
“You need to obey, though, my little hellcat,” he says as his tone darkens and I nod, knowing what’s coming.
“Count to three for me,” he says and before I can agree, the first lash lands across my ass.
I hiss in a breath, seething as he massages the mark with the palm of his hand, kneading my heated flesh.
“Count,” he reminds me, his lips at my ear and then he kisses my cheek as I breathe out the word, “One.”
“Good girl.”
Two and three come back-to-back, leaving my lips parted as the stinging pain makes my toes curl. Before I can even exhale, his fingers find my clit and he rubs ruthless circles.
“Two and three,” I murmur as I bend over the sink, holding on to it to keep me upright.
“Good girl,” he says, complimenting me again in that deep, soothing tone of his.
I love it. I love this.
Cill eases my feet apart with one of his and strokes between my legs. Ruthlessly and demanding my desire. As I moan, his left hand grips the globe of my ass, bringing a heated sensation of pain that heightens the pleasure.
With my teeth sinking into my bottom lip, I give in to the need to mewl as the waves threaten to crash around me, drowning me in the sinful need.
The sensation pulls tight in the pit of my stomach and then rages outward, paralyzing me and all the while, Cill plays with my body, kissing along my exposed neck and plucking my nipples at a whim.
Once my orgasm has peaked, he pulls my hips toward him so that he can angle himself to my opening and push inside. I let out another soft moan, reaching for something to grip as he fucks me deeply and without mercy.
“Damn, you feel like fucking heaven,” he says low into my ear. “You feel just like I remember. My first and only.”
His words force me to tense. I’m not how I always was.
And he’s no longer my only. Cill’s not the only one I’ve been with.
I wish we’d had the kind of life where we could have stayed together.
I wish I wasn’t carrying around this guilt.
He fucks me with even strokes while that horrible guilt fills up my lungs.
“It’s all right, Hellcat,” he says like he already knows.
My voice is thick with unspoken secrets. “I don’t know if it is, Cill.” Does he know? Please, let him know. Let him know and still love me regardless. Please still love me.
He doesn’t stop. Instead he reaches around in front of me and circles my clit with a fingertip.
“You can tell me whatever you want,” he says gruffly.
Pleasure builds between my legs. My head thrashes with the undeniable heat.
“How am I supposed to tell you things if—if they’ll ruin this moment?”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out, pulling nearly all the way out and then slamming back into me, my hips butting against the edge of the counter, nearly bruising.
“I’m inside you,” he says finally. “It’s where I wanted to be every goddamn day for the last four years. You can tell me whatever the fuck you want, and it won’t ruin a damn thing.” He doesn’t stop and the pleasure doesn’t let up. Neither does the burning secret begging to spill from me.
He thrusts into me slowly as he tells me, “I want you and I’ll never stop wanting you.”
Kisses greet my side, his hands roaming along my sensitized skin. It’s all too much. His touch is gentle and it strips down the boundaries I’ve been holding around myself. I can’t tell him the whole story. I’m not ready, and neither is he.
“I’ll ask you questions,” he says, stroking in and out of me steadily. “How about that?”
I’m barely able to utter a word, but I agree, nodding my head as the pleasure rises. He grips my ass as he thrusts in deeper and harder.
“How many men were you with while I was away?” he questions and my eyes open wide, my heart thumping in fear of being torn to shreds. “Don’t lie to me, Hellcat.”
Only a moment passes. All the while, he keeps up his pace. With my breath unsteady I answer him. “One,” I say.
He swallows hard, so hard I can hear it, and I think he might drop it until he asks, “Did he treat you right?”
Every thrust forces my hips to hit the counter and heat engulfs me as I nod.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the tears falling, the pleasure and the pain intertwined. “I’m sorry, Cill.”
He pulls out of me and I almost crumple across the countertop.
No. No, please. Don’t leave me. The words are trapped at the back of my throat, and they’re kept there by Cill’s bruising kiss.
He turns me to face him and lifts me up to perch on the edge of the counter.
Then he thrusts himself inside of me and braces my back with his forearms as he fucks me like he always has.
Possessively and with a passion that’s undeniable.
I bury my head in the crook of his neck, my warm breath suffocating me as I realize what I’ve just told him.
“Look at me, Hellcat.”
Sharp blue eyes pierce through me and hold me in place as he takes from me. It’s a punishing fuck, hard and deep.
All the while, I struggle between the push and pull of pleasure and pain, praying he doesn’t ask me who.