Chapter 19 Red, Resung #2
I smooth my skirt, inhale once, twice. I have news. Big news. Beautiful news. The kind that changes timelines and plans and entire futures. And I want him to hear it from my lips, in this place where everything ended… and began again. I lift my hand to knock.
“Cill?” I call softly, peeking my head inside.
His office smells like cedar, ink, and him — that dangerous, steady heat that settles low in my stomach. He’s standing behind his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms, his tie loosened like he’s been negotiating with half of Dublin.
When he looks up and sees me, the transformation is instant. The Devil flickers… then melts — softening in a way only I’ve ever had the power to command.
“Dove,” he says, voice sinking an octave. A warning. A welcome. A promise.
Before I can take a full step inside, he’s already crossing the room. His hands find my waist like they’re starved. His mouth brushes my jaw, slow, teasing, entirely improper for someone who just had three meetings with the heads of the Five Borough Families.
I giggle — an actual giggle — because he’s impossible and infuriating and mine. “Cillian,” I laugh, trying to push at his shoulders, “I have news—”
“Later,” he murmurs against my neck, lifting me with an ease that should be illegal. His hands slide lower, squeezing like he’s been waiting hours for this. “It’s been a long morning, a stór. Let me say hello.”
My back hits the door as he kisses me, slow but hungry, like he’s savoring something he almost lost. My fingers tangle in his hair. He groans — that deep, sinful, quiet sound I feel between my ribs.
I breathlessly try again, “Cill, I really— I mean it, I have something to—”
He pulls back just enough to look at me. Those eyes… God, they undo me every time.
“What is it, mo chroí?” he whispers, thumb brushing my lower lip.
“That tone is unfair,” I mutter, breathless.
He smirks — wicked, knowing, devastating. “That tone gets me everything I want.”
“And what is it you want?” I ask, narrowing my eyes, though my heart’s already sprinting.
“You,” he says simply, kissing the corner of my mouth. “Always you.”
I swallow hard, trying not to dissolve into him again. “I got an offer,” I say quietly. “A big one.”
He stills. Hands on my waist. Eyes sharp.
“And?”
“And… I want to tell you everything,” I whisper, “but not while you’re trying to undress me with your mind.”
His grin is pure sin. “I don’t use my mind for that, dove.”
I draw in a breath, steadying myself. “It’s from New York,” I say, smoothing my fingers along the collar of his shirt as if that will anchor me.
“The Philharmonic. They… want me to come back. One performance. A formal apology performance, they said. Not publicly—though it will be public—but… personal. For me.”
His hands tighten on my hips. Not harsh—just that subtle possessive flex he doesn’t even realize he does. “For everything?” he murmurs.
“Yes.” My voice cracks. “For the conductor. For his wife taking money from Darragh and feeding the tabloids. For letting that man walk away without consequences. For how they spoke about me. For how they—”
His mouth brushes my cheek, cutting the words off with maddening gentleness. That’s when I notice it. He’s grinning. Not big. Not obvious. Just that smug, barely-there curl at one corner of his mouth that means one thing: He knows more than he’s letting on.
My eyes narrow instantly. “Cillian.”
“Hm?” He feigns innocence terribly, kissing down to the corner of my jaw, guiding me backward—slow, deliberate—until the edge of his desk hits the back of my thighs.
“You’re smiling.”
“A tragic flaw, I know.” He nips lightly at my throat, hands sliding from my waist to the backs of my thighs. “Terribly unprofessional.”
“Cill…” Suspicion rises like a tide. “Do you… know something about this?”
His smirk deepens. A man who has sinned, fully enjoyed it, and plans to do so again immediately.
Instead of answering, he lifts me effortlessly—like I weigh nothing but the music he worships—and settles into his chair, pulling me down onto his lap.
My skirt flares, my breath hitches, and he exhales like I’ve just ended a famine.
“Tell me everything, a chroí,” he murmurs, palms spreading warm and wide up my spine. “Use that sweet voice while you sit right where I want you.”
“You’re distracting me on purpose,” I accuse, though my fingers curl into his shirt because God, he’s warm and solid and mine.
His mouth finds my throat again. “And you love it.”
I do. I really, really do.
But I still press my palm to his chest and lean back enough to meet his eyes. “Cillian O’Dwyer, what did you do?”
His grin turns feral, delighted—caught red-handed and not the least bit apologetic.
“Nothing I regret,” he says.
I narrow my eyes, leaning in just enough that my breath brushes his cheek. “Mm. That sounds like something a guilty man would say.”
His palms tighten on my hips. “Sounds like something a man in love would say. Especially when his fiancée is sittin’ on him like this.”
“Cillian.” I draw out every syllable, letting my lips ghost over the edge of his jaw. “What. Did. You. Do?”
He inhales sharply—God, that sound—and tilts his head just enough for my mouth to skim his throat. Victory. “You’re going to distract me,” he warns, but it comes out hoarse, his accent deepening.
“That’s the point,” I whisper, rolling my hips just a little—barely enough to be indecent, but enough that he curses under his breath.
His hands fly to my waist, grip tightening. “Mo chroí, if you keep that up, I’ll forget how to speak entirely.”
“Good.” I kiss the corner of his mouth, slow and taunting. “Maybe then you’ll talk.”
“That’s backwards,” he mutters, but his voice is gone, dissolved in the heat between us. “You—sweet Christ—are trouble.”
I smirk and kiss him again, deeper this time, stealing whatever composure he has left. His mouth opens under mine—hungry, claiming—but I pull back just when he tries to deepen it. He growls. Actually growls.
“Tell me,” I whisper against his lower lip. “Or I stop.”
His eyes snap open, blazing dark heat and frustration. “That’s cruel.”
“Mm-hm. And effective.” I brush my nose against his. “Start talking, Devil.”
He drags a palm up my back, slow and reverent, like he’s mapping every inch he owns. “Fine,” he breathes. “I may have… encouraged certain institutions to correct their mistakes.”
I blink. “Encouraged?”
His smirk returns—wolfish, sinful, entirely too proud of himself. “Let’s call it… persuading. Firmly.”
“Cillian.”
“And maybe I spoke with the conductor’s board.”
“CILLIAN.”
He shrugs like this is nothing. “And perhaps his wife received compensation. And a warning.”
My jaw drops. “A warning?”
“A polite one,” he lies shamelessly, sliding one hand up to cradle my face. “Very polite. I even said please.”
I stare at him. “You threatened the New York Philharmonic.”
“Only a little.”
“Cillian!”
His grin is pure wicked satisfaction. “They destroyed your name. They owed you blood or apology. I chose apology. Be grateful I’m trying to be civilized these days.”
I press my forehead to his chest, laughter spilling out of me—breathless, disbelieving, stupidly in love. “You’re impossible.”
He tips my chin up with two fingers, eyes softening in that dangerous, devastating way that turns my bones to dust. “And you’re mine. I fix what hurts you.”
My heart punches my ribs.
He brushes his mouth against my cheek, then lower, whisper-soft along my jaw, each kiss a confession. “Tell me you’re not pleased,” he murmurs. “Tell me you don’t love that I’d burn cities for you.”
I swallow hard. “I never said I didn’t love it.”
His answering groan vibrates through me—low, hungry. “Then stop teasing me, a chroí. Or I swear to God—”
He doesn’t finish. Because I kiss him. Fully, hungrily, with every ounce of gratitude and want and adoration I can pour into one breathless moment. His hands seize my waist. His chair groans. His self-control snaps. And Dublin’s Devil melts under me like I’m the first miracle he’s ever believed in.
His breath stutters against my mouth when I pull back only enough to look at him. Really look at him. Flushed. Ravenous. Wrecked in the way only I get to see.
“Cill…” I murmur, brushing my thumb across his lower lip. “You threatened an entire orchestra for me.”
He exhales a harsh laugh against my cheek. “I didn’t threaten the whole orchestra.” A beat. “Just the people who needed it.”
I glare — only to gasp when his hands grip my waist, rough and possessive and grateful all at once. “You’re impossible,” I whisper.
“Is liomsa tú,1” he murmurs — softly, reverently, the way he rarely ever says it.
And Christ, that goes straight through me.
His lips drag down my throat, slow and consuming, like every inch of me is something he plans to memorize before he lets me speak again.
My fingers slide into his hair, tugging just enough to make him groan — that deep, sinful sound that vibrates through my spine.
“Cill…” I breathe. “I’m supposed to be giving you news.”
“You did.” His mouth finds the hollow of my shoulder. “And I handled it.”
“You handled it,” I echo, rolling my hips once — slow, teasing — just to hear his breath catch. “You mean you marched in there like the Dublin Devil and scared half the classical world into repenting.”
He tilts his head back, eyes dark, lips parted. “Say it with a little more gratitude, a chroí.”
I laugh — breathless, taunting — and trace his jaw with the tip of my finger. “Maybe if you behave.”
A dangerous, delighted growl curls out of him. “God save me,” he mutters, hands sliding up the back of my thighs, “my fiancée thinks she’s in charge.”
“Thinks?” I push his shoulders back into the chair and climb fully into his lap, straddling him, skirts bunching around us like a throne of silk. “Love, I know I am.”
His eyes flare — hunger, devotion, surrender — all tangled together.
“Siobhán.” A prayer. A warning. A vow.