Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ADA
I can’t do this. I can’t let this happen. I cannot stand here and allow him to leave and I can’t stop him either.
Tears well in my eyes and it’s all I can do to keep them from falling. Every part of me wants to dissolve into a messy puddle on the floor so that this won’t hurt as badly as it does. Why is it that I just keep feeling helpless? Does he get some sick pleasure from making me feel utterly useless? For a man who claims to want to help me retake my power -- he just keeps taking it away.
“Tell me that I heard him wrong.” I demand the moment that we are alone together. “Tell me that you aren’t planning on killing Jeremy Rizzo!”
Kieran doesn’t answer me. Somehow that’s a million times worse than if he had just confirmed it.
“Why?!” I shout, the tears threatening to fall all over again. “I’ve known him since childhood, Kieran! He’s my friend! ”
It’s not a word that I use lightly. I don’t just call anybody that. Clearly, Kieran is well aware of how much the people in my life matter to me.
Not only that, he’s the sole heir of the Rizzo empire. His father has a business empire in New York City and is one of my brother’s closest allies in Cosa Nostra. He’s a good man.
I don’t care about any of the shady dealings that he and my brother might have executed behind closed doors - he’s gentle and soft spoken. He’s a kind soul who doesn’t deserve to be killed. He won’t just be another casualty of war. I will not allow it.
The tension in Kieran’s shoulders seems to grow tighter. He stands at his full height, his chin slightly raised like he doesn’t have to answer to me or explain himself.
Why bother with everything that happened between us this morning if he is just going to stand there and insist that I'm nothing more than a pawn for him to use. The emotional whiplash is crippling me!
I move closer to him, standing between him and the door and I shake my head.
“No.” I say as firmly as I possibly can. “I won’t allow you to do this. I won’t let you hurt him.” My chin dimples as I scream at him. I don’t know how I’m going to stop him but I desperately need to figure something out. Quickly.
I glance around us to see if there is somehow something that I can use to hurt him, or to stop him from walking out of this place.
Kieran’s head tilts to the side, his gaze almost one of pity. When he speaks, it’s almost a whisper. “You can’t stop me.”
It would have hurt less if he had hit me.
Just those simple words shatter something in my chest. My knees feel weak, like I’m standing on jelly. “So I’m just supposed to sit here, and you’re going to go and kill my friend? I will know that you have Jeremy’s blood on your hands!”
Kieran doesn’t say anything at all.
“Please don’t do this. I’m already here.” I plead. My pride is taking a hell of a blow but if it will make him reconsider what he’s about to do to my friend, then it will be more than worth it. “Please, Kieran. I’m all the leverage you’re going to need.”
I reach forward and take his hand. I pull it into my chest and hold it there with both hands.
The damned tears start to fall.
“Please, please do not hurt him. Please, he doesn’t deserve this. I-” I hate that I’m begging. “I will do anything.”
Kieran’s face hardens. It’s like my words aren’t even touching him. He’s not hearing me. Or, if he’s hearing me, then he just doesn’t care. The only thing that I can see in his eyes is steely cold resolve.
My heart breaks just a little more when he pulls his hand out of mine.
“Orders are orders, Ada.” His jaw tenses, like he wants to say something else and then changes his mind. He refuses to make eye contact with me. “Disobedience isn’t an option.”
With that, he turns on his heel and heads toward the door after Liam. I try to hurry after him. I grab at the back of his shirt, a last desperate attempt to make him stop, even though I know that it’s not going to do any good. I have to try. I just have to.
“Tell me what deal you need!” I beg. “What do you need from his family? I can do it! Let me go, I can talk to him. We can reach an agreement. I know him. Please, Kieran!”
Kieran snaps, his answer to my begging is swift and brutal. He grabs me by my upper arm and pulls me close.
“You’re hurting me,” I gasp, knowing that his fingers are going to leave marks on my skin. His face is only inches from mine, but that thrill that I’ve gotten used to having when he’s this close to me isn’t there now.
A shiver runs down my spine, and something primal in me knows not to fight him, not now. I don’t dare trigger him when I’m this vulnerable.
I don’t expect for him to kiss me.
It’s a fierce, primal sort of reaction. The kiss is hard, and punishing. I cannot name the emotions his body is screaming at me, but I’m powerless to resist them. I don’t want to. He scoops me up, my legs wrapped around his waist before I even realize that I’m moving. He has the shirt up and over my head before I can breathe. If it means that I have enough control over this situation to make him stay, then I will do whatever I need to do in order to make sure that happens.
I know that he’s using this to show me that he’s the one who is in control. I know that he is trying to prove to me that what he says goes and that there’s nothing that I can do to stop this from happening.
I want to prove the opposite.
I’ve allowed him to do what he wants until now. I’ve allowed him to move me, and fuck me, and have his way with my body and I’ve even enjoyed it. I might not have any experience in taking control, but I’m determined to do so.
I roll my body against his, locking my feet behind his back and pushing my fingers up into his hair. I pull firmly, the way that I’ve learned to do from him. I bite his bottom lip the same way he does. Does it make his toes curl the way that it does mine?
Kieran chuckles, a rich and husky sound as he breaks our kiss. Try as I might, I’m not changing things. I’m only challenging him to hold me tighter, to undress himself faster. I feel him jostling with his pants, and the zip of his black jeans right before we collide with the wall. He hefts me higher, his body pinning me against the drywall so that he has the freedom to touch me anywhere he wishes. He takes advantage of that fact, tracing my soft curves, trailing his knuckles along the underside of my breast before cupping it in his hand. The difference of soft touches and the firm way I’m pinned, it’s dizzying in the best possible way.
All thoughts of attempting to control the situation fly out of my mind the moment that Kieran’s teeth sink into the side of my neck. There’s no gentle admiration or trailing of his lips over my skin to shift the sensation. No, this is hard and claiming. He sucks the skin hard enough that I know there’s going to be a bruise there tomorrow, or a love bite.
It shouldn’t turn me on to think about him marking me in a way that other people can see.
I’ve spent my whole life obsessed with my physical image that wanting to be marked by him goes against every one of my rules. I’ve had panic attacks about scraped knees or accidental bruises because I didn’t want them to show on camera or on the runway. What the hell is this man doing to my brain?
My head falls back and hits the wall with a soft thump as he does it again, lower. Protests stop registering in my mind as I turn to putty in his hands. I wantonly roll myself against him - he can’t be inside me fast enough. If he stays here, inside me, I win anyway.
I push again, rolling against the fabric he’s trying to remove. Then he’s there, the heat of him hard against my entrance only makes me wetter. I want the stretch of him filling me. It’s a craving that I don’t think I can ever properly fulfill.
He rubs himself along my slit, teasing me despite my near desperate attempts to lower myself onto him. He refuses, the sadistic bastard.
“Kieran, please.” I breathe, and he shifts his hand to cover my mouth.
One inch, and he stops. My gaze locks on his, frantic and desperate for more despite the completely controlled look on his face.
Maybe I’m not winning this after all.
Holding eye contact, I don’t dare look away as he drops me on his cock. He slips inside the warm heat all at once and it’s almost painful. I try to kiss him again but he pulls away.
“Eyes on me, princess.” He growls in a low voice. I love when I can tell that his focus is cracking. I’m getting under his skin, little by little. I do as he ask, even though I’m having trouble keeping my eyes from rolling into the back of my head as he starts to move in and out of me. Each snap of his hips knocks the breath from my chest.
When he knows that I’m not going to look away, he hooks his hands under the backs of my knees, lifting into an uncomfortable position like he’s trying to force my knees to hit the wall on either side of my body - picking up speed all the time.
All I can do is hold on. The angle that he’s at makes him brush right up against the spot inside of me that makes me see stars with each and every thrust. This isn’t about my pleasure, this is him needing to prove something to me, and I’m thundering toward my climax all the same. Higher and higher, my throat feels raw from how loud he’s making me scream. I can’t seem to stop it and I don’t dare to look away.
Utterly helpless and at his mercy, and I think I like it. More than like it.
“Please, please, please.” I mutter, wanting the release so bad that it hurts.
Kieran grins. “You take me so well, Princess.”
I nod, my forehead falling against his. I won’t last much longer.
“Do you want to cum for me, princess?” Kieran asks, his voice almost taunting. He wants to show that he controls my pleasure, that he controls my whole life now and it doesn’t occur to me in this moment to feel offended.
“Please, Kieran, please I need to–”
I can’t even finish my pleading as my orgasm comes over me. Liquid fire surges forward through my veins, igniting something in my chest.
“Shit, Princess.” Kieran growls, and I feel him surging inside of me as my walls grip him tighter, pulling out every last drop that I can.
Naked, boneless and overheated I don’t realize where he’s carrying me as the shudders of my orgasm ripple through me. I want more. I want to go again. I want to win.
Kieran drops me on the threadbare mattress on the ground. I didn’t even realize that he had brought me into the room where I first woke up.
He has managed to keep me thoroughly distracted. I failed. I scramble to get up off of the mattress, knowing what’s coming next. My fucking legs won’t work!
I try to stand, and when that fails I fall off the mattress onto the floor awkwardly as Kieran tucks himself back into his pants. I don’t think that he’s even finished. I don’t feel the tell-tale heat dripping down my legs.
Kieran slams the door behind him, and I know that my fate is sealed the moment the lock clicks into place.
“No!” I scream, finally finding my way to my feet and practically falling into the closed door. My fists hit against door futilely. It’s not like he’s going to come back in here and let me out. It’s over. I failed. The sense of betrayal nearly crushes me as I hit the door again and again.
Just when I was thinking that I could make a difference, that I could actually accomplish something, that he might give a damn about me…
I’m trapped again.