41. Maeve
Maeve
The granite counter is cold against the backs of my thighs, but everything else is pure, consuming heat.
Keaton’s hand is a steady weight between my legs, his fingers warm and incredibly precise where they brush against my skin. For the first time in years, I don't feel like I'm being managed. I don't feel like a piece of property being handled to suit someone else’s timeline.
I am the one setting the pace. He is waiting on me.
"Keaton," I gasp, my hands gripping the fabric of his black t-shirt as he shifts his weight closer.
He doesn't push. He doesn't just take. He leans in, his face inches from mine, those thick black-rimmed glasses framing eyes that are completely, terrifyingly dark with hunger. He’s watching my face like a map, tracking the exact second my breath catches.
"Like this?" he murmurs, his thumb moving in a slow, deliberate circle.
A sharp arch of my hips is my only answer. The sensation travels straight to the center of my chest, melting away the cold, numb armor I’ve worn for months.
"Tell me, Maeve," he whispers against my jaw, his breathing just as ragged as mine. "I need to hear you say it."
"Yes. Right there. Please, Keaton."
He lets out a low, gravelly sound—almost feral—at the permission.
His fingers adjust, finding a rhythm so perfect it feels intentional, like he’s decoding exactly what my body needs before I even know it myself.
Every whimpering breath I let out only makes him press closer, his heavy tactical pants rough against my bare skin, a constant reminder of how solid he is. How safe he is.
I’m unraveling. Fast.
The control my husband used to bind me with feels meaningless now. This is my choice. This is the man I want.
"Keaton, please," I beg, my legs tightening around his waist, pulling him flush against me. The ache inside me is turning into a desperate, empty void that only he can fill. I don't want to wait. I don't want parameters. "I want you. Now. Please."
He pauses, his chest heaving against mine, his forehead resting against my temple for one agonizing second. "You're sure? Look at me and tell me you're sure."
I open my eyes, locking onto his behind the lenses of his glasses. "I’ve never been more sure of anything. Please."
The last bit of his calculated restraint snaps. He reaches down, the sharp sound of a zipper echoing in the quiet kitchen, and then he aligns himself against me. When he finally sinks into me, stretching me open and filling the ache, a loud, broken sob of pure relief tears out of my throat.
He catches the sound with his mouth, kissing me deeply, fiercely, devouring my cries as he begins to move.
****
I have no idea how we ended up on the couch.
There are pieces of the last hour that have become permanently embedded in my memory, moments I suspect I'll be able to recall with humiliating clarity when I'm eighty years old, and then there are entire stretches that seem to have disappeared beneath the haze that settled over my brain somewhere between Keaton kissing me in the kitchen and carrying me into the living room.
Now my head is in his lap. One of his hands rests absently against my hair while the other holds his phone above me, his thumb moving across the screen with surprising speed.
I watch him type. I don't know why. There's nothing particularly fascinating about watching someone send a text message, but I'm comfortable and warm, and every few seconds his fingers drift through the ends of my hair without him seeming to realize he's doing it.
My eyes trace the thick black frames sitting on his face.
The glasses shouldn't make such a difference. They do. They make him look—I don't know. Like Taibhse.
Which makes absolutely no sense because I had no idea what Taibhse looked like until yesterday.
But the man staring intently at his phone while frowning at whatever he's reading looks exactly like the person who would send me a three-paragraph explanation about why my question wasn't specific enough to answer properly.
"You keep staring at me." His attention doesn't leave his phone.
I smile. "How do you know?"
"I can see you."
"You're looking at your phone."
"I have peripheral vision."
"Maybe I'm looking at the ceiling."
"You're not."
I study his face. His mouth twitches.
"How long have you needed glasses?"
That gets his attention.
Keaton looks down at me. "Since I was nine."
"Really?"
"Yes."
I reach up before thinking better of it and touch one side of the frame. His eyes follow my fingers.
"I like them."
Something changes in his expression. Only for a second. Then he looks back at his phone. "They're corrective lenses."
A laugh bubbles out of me. "I know what glasses are, Keaton."
"Then I'm not sure what response you're looking for."
"I'm not looking for a response. I was giving you a compliment."
"Oh."
I wait. He continues typing.
I laugh again. "You're supposed to say thank you."
His thumb stops. "Thank you."
"That sounded painful."
"It wasn't."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"You are."
He looks down at me again. "I don't know what you want me to say. I've worn glasses for most of my life. No one has ever seemed particularly excited about it."
My smile fades into something softer. "Well, I am."
He stares at me. I stare back. Then his phone vibrates in his hand.
Keaton closes his eyes.
I bite my lip. "Is that your boss again?"
"No."
Another vibration. He opens his eyes and looks at the screen. Then another one comes through.
"Are you sure?"
"Unfortunately."
"Who is it?"
He sighs. "Rachel."
I immediately sit up. The movement is so quick that his hand, which had been resting in my hair, hangs suspended in the air for a second before falling to his lap.
"Rachel?"
"Yes."
"Is something wrong?"
"No." He looks at his phone. "She is, however, becoming increasingly aggressive."
I hold out my hand. "Let me see."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because she's threatening me."
I blink. "Why is she threatening you?"
"Because you didn't text her."
My mouth falls open. Keaton angles the screen away from me when I try to look. "What does that have to do with you?"
"Apparently, I'm responsible for you not responding."
"You are?"
"No." His phone vibrates again. He reads the message. His eyebrows lift. "She disagrees."
I can't help laughing. "What is she saying?"
"Nothing relevant."
"Keaton."
"She would like proof of life."
My laughter stops. "Oh my God. I forgot."
"Yes."
"She told me to text her when I woke up."
"I'm aware."
I stare at him. "How?"
He turns the phone toward me just enough that I can see a screen filled with messages.
I can't read all of them before he pulls it back, but I catch my name several times.
"She's been texting you all morning?"
"Not all morning." Another message arrives. Keaton looks at the time. "Forty-three minutes."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"You were busy."
Heat climbs into my face. His expression doesn't change. I narrow my eyes. "Was that a joke?"
"No."
"It sounded like a joke."
"It was an objective statement."
I cover my face with both hands. I hear him laugh. Actually laugh. I lower my hands and glare at him. "You did that on purpose."
"There's no evidence to support that accusation."
"Oh, I hate you."
His smile disappears. Completely. The change is so immediate that my own smile falters.
"I didn't mean—"
"I know." He says it quickly, but something about the way his hand tightens around his phone makes me think the words affected him anyway.
Before I can figure out what to say, he sets his phone on the coffee table.
His entire demeanor changes. Not drastically.
Keaton doesn't seem to do anything drastically unless he's illegally removing someone from their home.
But his shoulders straighten, and the teasing warmth that had been in his eyes disappears beneath something more serious.
My stomach tightens. "What?"
"We need to talk about today."
The lightness inside me begins to retreat. I look toward the windows. Morning sunlight is streaming through them now, illuminating a world that kept moving around me.
"Okay."
Keaton shifts on the couch until he's facing me fully. "You need to decide where you want to go." My fingers curl against my thighs. He notices. "I don't mean right this second."
"Then why are you asking me right this second?"
He frowns. "That's a valid point."
Despite myself, my mouth twitches.
He doesn't smile. "I need you to understand your options."
I look down at my hands. "What are they?"
"Anything."
I lift my eyes.
Keaton's expression is serious. "That's not an option."
"Technically, it encompasses all available options."
"Maeve."
"Right."
He pushes his glasses higher on his nose. "You can stay here. I have other places we can go if you don't want to stay here. You can go to your parents. Rachel has already offered her and Matt's house."
I stare at him. "She did?"
"Yes."
"She barely knows me."
"Rachel is like that." There's affection in his voice.
That strange little twist moves through my chest again. I don't like it any more this morning than I did last night.
"And..." Keaton pauses.
I already know. The warmth from a few minutes ago disappears. "And I can go back to Ronan."
His jaw tightens. "Yes." The answer sounds like it physically hurts him. I don't know why that makes it easier to breathe. "If that's what you choose, I'll take you."
I study his face. He means it. He'll hate it.
I can see that even behind the thick black frames of his glasses. His expression has gone carefully blank, but there's a muscle ticking near his jaw. Still, he'll do it. Because I asked.
I think that might be the most dangerous thing about Keaton. He keeps giving me choices. And I have absolutely no idea what to do with them.
"What if I stay here?"
The tension in his shoulders eases so slightly that I almost miss it. "Then you stay here."
"With you?"
His gaze holds mine. "If that's what you want."
The answer makes warmth crawl beneath my skin, but before I can decide what to do with that, his expression becomes serious again.
"If you choose to stay with me, I need to tell your father where you are." My entire body stiffens. Keaton sees it. "I'm not telling him the location."
"Then what are you telling him?"
"That you're safe."
My throat tightens. "Why?"
"Because he'll be worried about you."
A laugh escapes me. It sounds wrong even to my own ears. Keaton's brow furrows. I look away from him. The sunlight coming through the window catches dust floating in the air, and I focus on that instead of the man beside me.
Instead of the ache beginning to form behind my ribs.
"You don't know my father."
"No."
I pick at a loose thread near the knee of my leggings. "He cares about the family. The alliances. His responsibilities."
Keaton doesn't say anything. I force a shrug I don't feel. "I don't think he'd really be that worried about me.”