16. Sabrina
— ? —
Sabrina
The Driftway Club had been decorated by someone who thought “understated elegance” meant drowning everything in white roses and fairy lights.
I stood at the edge of the ballroom with a glass of sparkling water I was pretending was champagne and watched the island’s wealthiest families parade around in their summer finery.
The annual charity auction was one of those events everyone complained about and everyone attended, a peculiar Nantucket ritual that involved too much money changing hands for increasingly absurd items.
This year, apparently, they were auctioning dates.
“I can’t believe they’re actually doing this,” Tessa muttered beside me. “It’s so retrograde. So objectifying.”
“It’s for charity.”
“It’s still weird. Who thought this was a good idea?”
“Josie’s mother is on the committee this year. I think she saw it in a romcom.”
“That tracks.”
The auctioneer, a silver-haired man with the practiced charm of someone who’d spent his life separating rich people from their money, stepped up to the microphone.
Behind him, a row of chairs held the evening’s offerings: men in tuxedos looking varying degrees of uncomfortable with being put on display.
Killian was among them.
He caught my eye from across the room and gave me a small, uncertain smile.
He was wearing the navy suit I’d always loved on him, the one that made his shoulders look impossibly broad and his eyes look darker than they actually were.
His hair was slightly disheveled, probably from running his hands through it the way he did when he was nervous.
I looked away before my face could betray anything.
“You okay?” Tessa asked.
“Fine.”
“You’ve been staring at him.”
“I was looking in that direction. He happened to be there.”
“Sure. That’s definitely what was happening.”
The auction began. The first man up was someone I vaguely recognized from the yacht club, and the bidding was polite and restrained.
The second was a hedge fund manager whose wife sat in the front row looking amused while other women drove up the price of dinner with him.
The third was Sully, who handled the whole thing with his characteristic ease, winking at the crowd and making self-deprecating jokes until someone paid a frankly absurd amount for the privilege of his company.
Then it was Killian’s turn.
The auctioneer launched into his introduction, talking about Kerrington Labs and Killian’s innovations and his “unique position at the intersection of adaptive robotics and human-interface AI.” It was the language that made my eyes glaze over, but the crowd seemed interested.
This wasn’t just a date; this was access.
Networking. The chance to pitch ideas to someone with the resources to make them happen.
“We’ll start the bidding at five thousand dollars,” the auctioneer said.
A paddle went up near the front of the room.
Then another.
Then a voice I recognized cut through the polite murmur of the crowd.
“Ten thousand.”
Cordelia was standing near the bar, her paddle raised, her smile sharp and triumphant. She was wearing something gold and clingy that had been chosen to be seen from across a room, and she looked directly at me as she spoke.
“Do I hear twelve?” the auctioneer asked.
“Fifteen,” someone else called.
“Twenty,” Cordelia countered immediately.
The bidding continued, climbing steadily, but Cordelia matched every offer with barely a pause. Her eyes kept finding mine, a challenge in every glance.
“Thirty thousand,” she said, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “Killian’s worth at least that, don’t you think?”
I felt my jaw clench.
Tessa closed a hand around my wrist. “Don’t let her bait you.”
“I’m not baited.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“My face is fine.”
“Thirty-five?” the auctioneer asked hopefully.
Cordelia smiled. “Forty.”
The room had gone quiet. People were watching now, sensing the undercurrent of tension, scenting drama. This was better than any of the actual auction items.
I should have stayed quiet. I should have let her win, let her have her pathetic victory, let her spend forty thousand dollars on a date that would never happen because Killian would find some excuse to cancel.
Instead, I heard myself say, “Fifty.”
Every head in the room turned toward me.
Cordelia’s smile faltered for just a moment before she recovered. “Sixty.”
“Seventy.”
“Eighty.”
“One hundred thousand dollars.”
The gasp that went through the crowd was audible. Tessa grabbed my arm hard enough to hurt.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“I don’t know.”
“You just bid a hundred thousand dollars on your own husband.”
“I’m aware.”
Two spots of color climbed Cordelia’s throat.
“One hundred and fifty,” she said, her voice less steady now.
“Two hundred.”
“Two fifty.”
“Three hundred thousand dollars.”
The room was absolutely silent. I could feel my heart pounding in my ears, could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. This was insane. This was completely, certifiably insane. I was bidding money I didn’t have on a man who was technically still my husband in front of everyone we knew.
Cordelia hesitated. She looked at Killian, then at me, then back at Killian. Her paddle lowered slightly.
And then Killian stood up.
“If I may,” he said, his voice carrying across the silent ballroom. “I’d like to make a bid of my own.”
The auctioneer blinked. “Sir, you’re the item being auctioned. You can’t bid on yourself.”
“I’m not bidding on myself.” Killian walked to the edge of the stage and looked directly at me. “I’m bidding on a date with my wife.”
The murmurs started immediately, confused and curious.
“One million dollars,” Killian said. “For the privilege of taking Sabrina Kerrington to dinner. Because she’s mine, in every way that matters, and I’m hers. And if anyone in this room is confused about my marital status or my intentions, they can take a look at this.”
He reached up and undid the top buttons of his shirt.
There, across his chest, in bold black letters, was my name.
SAbrINA.
The tattoo was fresh, the skin around it still slightly pink. The letters were large and clear and absolutely unmistakable, permanent ink declaring his devotion to anyone who cared to look.
The room erupted.
People were gasping, laughing, pulling out their phones to capture the moment. Someone near the back actually cheered. Cordelia had gone white, her paddle hanging forgotten at her side.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I stood there staring at my name written on his skin and felt every emotion I’d been suppressing for weeks crash over me at once.
“Do I hear any other bids?” the auctioneer asked, clearly delighted by the turn of events. “No? Then the date with Killian Kerrington goes to… Killian Kerrington, for one million dollars, to be donated to this evening’s charity. And the date is with his wife.”
He banged the gavel. The crowd applauded.
I moved without thinking.
Somehow I was crossing the ballroom, weaving through the crowd of people trying to congratulate us or take pictures or simply gawk at the spectacle. I climbed the steps to the stage where Killian was still standing with his shirt half-unbuttoned and my name blazing across his chest.
I grabbed his tie and pulled him down to my level.
“We’re leaving,” I said. “Now.”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer. I just dragged him off the stage and through the crowd, ignoring the whistles and catcalls and someone yelling “Get it, girl!” as we passed. Killian followed without resistance, letting me lead him through the maze of tables and out into the hallway beyond.
The club library was empty and dark, a small room off the main corridor that was probably used for private meetings during events. I shoved the door open and pulled him inside, then turned to face him.
“What the fuck,” I said.
“Sabrina-”
“What the actual fuck, Killian. You got a tattoo. Of my name. On your chest.”
“I wanted something permanent.”
“A tattoo is permanent. A tattoo is extremely permanent. A tattoo of my name across your entire chest is the most permanent thing I can imagine.”
“That was the point.”
“Why?”
He stepped closer. The door swung shut behind him, plunging us into dim light filtered through heavy curtains.
“Because I needed you to know,” he said quietly. “I needed everyone to know. You’re not a phase, Sabrina. You’re not someone I’m going to move on from. You’re written on my skin now, and that’s exactly where you belong.”
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
“You’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met.”
“I’ve been told.”
“I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you stood up in front of the entire island and showed everyone that you got my name tattooed on your body.”
“Do you hate it?”
I stared at him. His shirt was still half-open, the letters of my name visible in the dim light. The skin around them was slightly red, evidence of how recently he’d done this, how quickly he’d acted on the impulse.
My eyes wouldn’t behave. They kept dragging down: the ink, then the flat plane of his stomach, the trail of hair below his navel, the cut of muscle disappearing into his waistband where his shirt hung open.
Some feral, unsupervised part of my brain was already three steps ahead, calculating the fastest way to get him out of the rest of that shirt.
I should walk out of this room, it said, in the same breath it said get on him.
I stopped arguing with myself. I was so tired of arguing with myself.
“No,” I said. “I don’t hate it.”
I kissed him.
I kissed him like I’d been waiting all night for an excuse, because I had, and every feeling I’d been sitting on came up at once and took me over. I fisted my hands in his shirt and pulled him against me, and he responded immediately, his arms coming around my waist to lift me off my feet.
“This is insane,” I gasped against his mouth.
“I know.”
“We’re in the club library. Anyone could walk in.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should care. I should care. We should both care.”
“Do you want to stop?”
I answered by biting his lower lip hard enough to make him groan.
He spun us around and pressed me against the bookshelves, the spines of leather-bound volumes digging into my back. I didn’t care. I was beyond caring about anything except his hands and his mouth and the slick, insistent throb between my legs.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, rough against my ear. “And say it properly. None of your polite-wife voice.”
“I want you to stop talking.”
“Make me.”
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to mine, kissing him with all the desperate, furious need that had been building for weeks. His hands found the hem of my dress and pushed it up, and I felt the cool air of the library against my thighs.
“Turn around,” I said.
He pulled back, surprise flickering in his eyes. “What?”
“You heard me. Turn me around.”
Understanding dawned. He spun me gently but firmly, pressing my front against the bookshelf. The smell of old leather and paper filled my nose, and I heard him draw in a sharp breath behind me.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Now stop asking questions.”
His hands slid up my thighs, bunching my dress around my waist, and when his knuckles brushed the soaked cotton between my legs he made a low, wrecked sound against the back of my neck, undone by the sheer wet proof of how much I wanted this.
He hooked his fingers in my underwear and dragged them down, and the vulnerability of the position, bent over club-library first editions in my good dress, dripping for him, sent a thrill of electricity straight to my core.
“Christ, feel that,” he said against my neck, one hand fisting in my hair to tip my head back. “Soaked through your underwear in a room full of people who think you’re a lady. You want me to fuck you right here against these books, don’t you. Say it.”
“Yes.” My voice came out ruined. “Right here. Now.”
“That’s my girl.” His teeth caught my earlobe. “Ask me for it. I’m not moving until you do.”
I heard him undoing his belt, heard the rustle of fabric, and then he was pressed against me, hot and hard and ready.
“Fuck me, Killian. Right now, before I change my mind.”
He buried himself in me with one hard snap of his hips, and I bit down on my forearm to keep from crying out. The angle was deep and punishing, and I braced my hands against the shelves as he started to move.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Soaked, and shaking, and pretending all night you weren’t going to let me do this. Look at you now.”
I couldn’t respond. I could only push back against him, meeting his rhythm, chasing the pleasure building inside me. Books rattled with every thrust, and somewhere in the back of my mind I registered the absurdity of having sex against a shelf of first editions in the Driftway Club library.
I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything except the way he filled me, the way his hands gripped my hips, the way his breath came hot and fast against my neck.
“Harder,” I gasped.
He gave it to me, hips snapping, driving the breath out of me in ragged little pushes. His hand slid around to my front and found me exactly where I was aching, working me in tight circles, and I clamped my lips shut and swallowed every sound clawing to get out.
“That’s it,” he gritted out, barely holding on. “Come on my cock. I want to feel you drip down my thighs when you do.”
It tore through me hard and fast, and my knees went out from under me. He caught me one-armed and fucked me through it without slowing, and then he was there too, cursing low into my hair, hips stuttering as he buried himself as deep as he could go.
We stood there for a long moment, breathing hard, still connected.
Then he turned me around to face him, his hands gentle now where they’d been demanding before. He brushed my hair back from my face and looked at me with those dark eyes, full of tenderness and a deeper claim I couldn’t put a name to.
“I love you,” he said again.
I kissed him once, soft and brief.
Then I pulled away, smoothed down my dress, and walked out of the library without a single word.