26. Valentina
Chapter 26
Valentina
I lean heavily back against the couch, tilting my head to regard the ceiling while absorbing the weight of Darragh’s words.
I will marry someone worse. Dario was snivelling, and shitty, and a traitor.
But my papà knows worse men. Crueller men.
Richer men.
The heaviness of my own future feels like it’s crushing me.
I shiver as a calloused touch goes to my throat. Darragh pulls my head back down with surprising gentleness.
Perhaps even more surprising?
He’s not standing anymore.
He’s kneeling in front of the couch.
In front of me.
“We’re more alike than you realize.”
“No, we’re not,” I argue. “I’m not fucking crazy, for one thing.”
But something about that statement rings hollow. Because simply being here with him is already crazy.
The fact that I’ve let him kiss me, buy me tampons, make me come, is crazy.
The fact that his hands are on my leggings-clad thighs now – and that it feels so fucking good, even after he just killed someone – has to be the exact opposite of sanity.
“Maybe not,” Darragh murmurs, and my breath locks up in my throat. My nipples prickle. My thighs jump beneath his touch. “But you’re reckless.”
“Reckless? Please. The most reckless thing I’ve done is being alone with you.”
“That’s true,” he acknowledges without hesitation. He knows how dangerous he is. How dangerous it is for me to get sucked into his malevolent orbit.
His hands inch up my thighs, a slow, demanding roll of velvety touch that makes me simultaneously want to spread my legs and squeeze them together.
“But it goes beyond that,” he says. His hands have reached the waist of the leggings beneath my hoodie. His fingertips kiss the bare skin of my belly, and all thought ceases for a feverish second. His touch grows suddenly harder. He grabs the hem of my leggings in rough fists.
“You went to a club when you didn’t even know who owned the property,” he points out, and there’s something raw, angry, and accusing in his eyes. Like he’s actually pissed about the possibility I might have put myself in danger. “You fell asleep on that tube and let yourself get so far from shore that you could have been drifting for days.” His face tenses, his gaze ripping from my mouth to my eyes and back down again. “And then you waltzed over and practically handed yourself on a platter to the equivalent of a professional fucking frat boy.”
“On a platter? Yeah, right. What happened to you admitting I would have clawed his eyes out?”
“Doesn’t change the fact that it was a stupid fucking thing to do, pet.”
“Stop calling me that.” I want it to come out hard. Forceful. But my voice shakes when Darragh’s thumbs find my hipbones and press there.
“Why should I?” he sneers. “When you need to be taken care of like one? I’ve half a mind to call your daddy. Tell him all the shit that’s gone down so far. Tell him how many times I’ve saved you. Tell him that if he’s not going to take care of you properly...”
His eyes go as dark as the space between stars. In one brutal, efficient movement, he’s ripped down my leggings and underwear and tossed my ankles over his shoulders.
“Then I will .”
He shoves his head between my legs so fast, with such all-encompassing hunger, that I don’t have a hope in hell of reacting with anything but a mangled sort of cry. Before I can gather enough breath into my lungs to ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, his tongue finds my clit, and my whole body goes prismatic with need.
Need that I didn’t even know that I was capable of feeling. Need that feels like it’s hollowing me from the inside out. Emptying me entirely out of myself.
So that there’s only room for him.
Darragh groans, and it’s a broken, feral sound. His back is so fucking tense beneath my legs, muscles contracting and coiled. His hands dig possessively into my thighs. So hard I think there will be bruises.
He circles my clit again and again, until my insides are all pulling shadows and light. A heavy darkness gathers while sparks zip through my veins.
He’s going to make me come again.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it.
And I have to stop it. I know I do. Not because I even want to at this point.
But because I can’t let him keep winning.
“My period,” I gasp, hoping that that will restore some sort of reason.
“Don’t give a fuck,” he grits out against my sensitive flesh. One of his hands dips between us. He nudges the tampon string further out of the way with a ruthless sort of efficiency before he latches onto my clit and gives a long, hot suck.
Oh, God. Dio mio . Help me.
Nothing should feel like this.
Nothing ever has felt like this. Not my fingers, not the handheld showerhead in the bathroom.
Darragh’s mouth could be my undoing.
My fingers bury themselves in his hair, but I don’t even have the fortitude to push him away at this point. I’m so close to coming that if he stops now there’s a very good chance I could break down and weep.
And maybe I should. Maybe I should cry for how weak I have become. In the face of this man, a man who’s been an enemy in so many ways, I am crumbling.
My fingers contract sharply against Darragh’s scalp. My hips shudder upwards, needing and hating the contact that’s going to send me over the brink.
Pleasure turns to glittering pain. Darragh’s got his teeth around my clit. Exerting pressure. My insides constrict, the pressure of his teeth sending strange echoes and pangs through my pelvis. I gasp, and finally try to push him away.
He lets himself be pushed, but only an inch or two.
“That,” he pants, “was for biting me the last time I kissed you.”
He’s stroking me with his fingertips now. My clit throbs, swollen and sore and so fucking needy. His hand dips lower.
He grips the tampon string and pulls.
“Darragh!” I cry as I feel movement inside. The tampon is saturated enough that it begins to slide out easily. I try to crawl backwards and away from him, but he holds me fiercely in place with his other hand.
“When you come tonight,” he tells me, a ragged rush, a dangerous vow, “it’s not going to be on a tampon. It’s going to be on me.”
“You can’t,” I cry. He can’t fuck me. I’m not on birth control. And I have to be a virgin when I marry.
If my papà found out I’d ruined myself, that I’d let his enemy ruin me…
“Can’t what?” Darragh demands as he tugs a little harder. Jesus, I’m so aroused, so close to coming, that even the fullness of the tampon moving through me and out of me makes me feel like I’m about to explode. I give a shaky mewl when he completely pulls it free. He throws it into a wastebin beside the couch, then brings his fingers back to my pussy. There’s no squeamishness in him. He coats his fingers in blood.
“You can’t… can’t fuck me.” I barely get the words out. His fingers are drawing the most exquisite circles against me. I shake with the effort it takes not to grind myself against his touch.
With his other hand, he palms my throat.
“I don’t like being told what I can’t do,” he breathes, his face close to mine. One of his fingers nudges ever so slightly inside me, and I see stars shatter. “But I’m not going to fuck you tonight, pet.”
Tonight. It’s the same way he says, “I won’t kill you tonight.”
Like even if it doesn’t happen now, it could some other time.
And maybe sometime soon.
For the first time, I let myself truly picture it. I imagine Darragh, hot and full and thrusting inside me. I imagine the cage of his body around mine. I imagine myself pinned to the mattress, the wall, the floor. I imagine him playing with my clit, my nipples, while he slowly loses control inside my pussy.
I could make him go even more crazy than he already is.
The thought is so alarmingly arousing that when Darragh slides his finger fully inside me, I’m already coming. He makes a guttural sound of approval as I constrict upon him so hard it almost hurts.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He bites the words off harshly, like every single word cuts him to the bone. “So fucking beautiful when you come.”
He angles his hand, his thumb coming to press against my clit, and I’m mindless with pleasure now. So lost to sensation that I don’t even have the brainpower left to think about what it means that Darragh Gowan just called me beautiful.
I’m still quaking, my blood fizzing like alcohol in my veins, when Darragh pulls his finger from me and stands. I alternate between being limp and my entire body tightening up with exquisite aftershocks of the feeling Darragh just pulled out of me. I breathe hard, my head tilted back on the couch. I watch patterns of leaves formed from shadows rustle, a painting in motion lit by the moon.
Movement, then the pull and click of a belt being undone, has me lifting my head. Darragh’s in my sights. He’s standing between my spread, trembling thighs.
His cock is in his hand.
My breath snags as surely as fabric caught on a hook. My pulse, which had started to slow a moment ago, jumps into jackrabbit quickness.
“Sit up,” Darragh rasps.
“You… You want me to suck it?”
Half of me rebels at that idea. The other half, the half that can’t seem to shake whatever hold he’s got on me, feels a velvety excitement expand.
“Not keen on getting the tip of my dick bitten off, thanks.” He gives himself two quick, hard strokes that make my pussy clench. “Just sit up.”
With some hesitation, I do so, peeling my back from the couch cushions. When my spine is straight, Darragh’s free hand goes to the back of my head. His fingers dive between the strands and grip my scalp, his touch like electricity that lights up my spine.
I’m so close that I could bite him if I wanted to. He starts to grind his fist up and down his shaft, so I can’t see much of that part of him, but I can see flashes of the fat, slick head and the heavy balls beneath.
The tip of his cock looks so smooth. Like satin wrapped over metal-hard flesh. Liquid beads and then seeps from a dark slit, and my insides go hot and twisty at the sight. Without thinking, acting on pure instinct, I reach out to touch him.
My fingers hit his tip, smearing fluid. He’s so hot here. His skin is even smoother than I’d thought it would be.
“Fuck,” Darragh gasps, his fist freezing. And then, the grating command: “Use your nails.”
I swallow, glancing up at him. His face is hidden in shadow, but the heaving of his chest and shoulders with his broken breath tells me how far gone he is. How far he’s fallen into this.
I don’t think he ever wanted this.
I didn’t, either.
So how the hell did we end up here?
Slowly, so slowly, I bend my fingers, doming them over his head until my long nails make contact. His breath hisses, catches, breaks when I gently dig the tips of my nails in.
It’s only the protection of my own hand that keeps Darragh’s come from shooting me in the face. His hand spasms against the back of my head, and then he’s exploding, a guttural groan tearing from his throat as he coats my palm with molten need.
I should be repulsed. I should hate this. Hate him.
But I can’t stop staring at him. Can’t stop marvelling at the heated jump of his flesh beneath my hand as he comes undone. He’s all menace and power and even though he’s standing before me now, in a certain sense I believe that I have brought him to his knees. His whole frame is taut, his hips jerking with muted thrusts. His head hangs forward, his hair falling into his face, but even in the darkness I know that his eyes are on me.
Always on me.
He’s seen more of me than any man ever has.
I wonder if I’ve seen more of him than-
No. What a stupid thought. He isn’t a sheltered virgin like I am, waiting to be married off to the first man rich and powerful enough to tempt my father.
He’s probably fucked dozens of women. Hundreds. Who the hell knows.
He might not even be single for all I know.
What the hell am I doing?
My heart stalls, sinking down into a stomach that now feels like it’s full of nauseating acid. And then I feel even worse, because how terrible of a person am I? The fact that Darragh killed someone tonight didn’t stop me from touching him.
But the fact he might be dating or sleeping with other women while he taunts me does.
Maybe I shouldn’t expect to be anything but a terrible person with genetics like mine.
I release my hand from Darragh’s cock and let it fall, palm-up, into my lap. My palm and fingers glisten with a pearlescent shine that catches strands of moonlight. He looks beautiful on my skin and that makes this all feel so much worse.
I stare at my hand so long that I don’t realize Darragh has left until he returns. His pants are done up once more.
“Stand up,” he says quietly.
Kicking me out already, I guess.
I do so quickly. Too quickly. My legs are noodles, nowhere near capable of holding up my body right now. My knees buckle, but Darragh is there, his viper-quick arm snaking around my waist to hold me steady against the solid heat of his frame.
I breathe out, closing my eyes for a moment.
When was the last time I was held by someone like this? Not a quick, drunken, friendship hug like I’d give to Lucia or Giulia or Deirdre. It doesn’t feel like a hug I’d give to one of my parents.
It feels like safety. And now I know I’m truly fucked. Because how can anyone but the damned feel such sacred shelter in the devil’s arms?
Or, arm, I suppose. Darragh’s got something in his other hand that I didn’t notice before. He nudges it between my thighs, and with a leap of my breath in my throat I realize it’s a warm, damp cloth.
Darragh is wiping me off.
Cruel Darragh, Mad Darragh, the man with a soul so sullied it might not even exist, is trying to make me clean again.
He’s taking care of me.
I’m starting to think, in his own fucked-up way, he’s been taking care of me this entire time. Starting with saving my life on that rooftop.
The cloth glides gently across my agonized flesh, and my chest suddenly seizes with the panicky feeling that I can’t breathe. It’s like a hiccup getting caught somewhere inside me. I don’t know how to release it.
When the breath finally does claw its way out of me, it comes out as a shuddering sob. My eyes well, and salty moisture spills from them.
I’m weeping.
I’m still held tightly against Darragh’s chest, so I feel the tension slice through his body like a guillotine in response. Oh, Jesus. I’m crying in front of Darragh. I have to stop. He’s going to hate this. I should never be so vulnerable in front of him.
Coming is one thing.
Weeping against his chest is entirely another.
I move to pull myself out of his grip, but he won’t let me go. His hand shoots up my back, seizing on the base of my skull. He holds the damp cloth between my legs while he lowers his face close to mine.
“Why are you crying?” The question comes like a stab.
I sniff and try to stop, twisting my head in his grip in an attempt to hide my face.
“Why do you care if I’m crying?” I choke out.
He makes a rough sound in his throat, like a starving wolf about to snap its jaws. His eyes find mine and, like his hands, refuse to let me go.
“Because it fucking shreds me, Valentina,” he bites out. “That’s why.”
He sounds so angry about the admission. Furious, even. Furious that I should make him feel anything but in control. His words from last night come crashing back into my consciousness.
Fuck you , he said. Fuck you for being so fucking flawless.
He blames me for whatever the hell this is. This poisonous push and pull between us.
I inhale hard, then furiously wipe at my face, forgetting this his come is still wet on my hand. I smear it on my skin, his fluids mixing with the moisture on my cheeks.
Even my tears are corrupted by him.
“I have to get away from you.”
It’s a thought that emerges as a tight whisper. I know Darragh hears it when his eyes narrow to dangerous slits and his hand goes painfully tight in my hair.
“Tonight?” he asks, his voice unnervingly emotionless and flat. “Or for good?”
Both. Neither. I have no idea. I want him and want to escape him.
I don’t know which feeling is stronger.
“Well, guess what, pet?” he asks me. His hand begins to move the cloth again between my legs, a demanding rhythm that builds and builds until my clit is screaming and my whole body is on fire. “I should get away from you, too. Get as far from your siren song as humanly fucking possible. But I’m still here with you, aren’t I?” He punctuates the question with an especially hard and rough stroke between my legs, making painful friction lance alongside pleasure. I sob anew, a second, scarring orgasm cresting as Darragh mutters resignedly against my mouth, “I’m still. Fucking. Here.”
I come at the very moment that Darragh kisses me. It’s a raw, demanding crash of his lips against mine. His tongue seeks entrance, shoving inside as the very centre of my being begins to unwind. My scalp hurts, my pussy clenches and burns, my hands grapple against his shoulders for support.
Then they move behind him.
My arms are around his neck. My heart is pounding in a brutal double throb that sounds exactly like the syllables of his name.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Darragh.
His cock is hard again, a piercing stiffness against my belly. He groans into my mouth and I swallow the sound.
But then there’s panic, because it feels like something is changing. In him, in me, in both of us.
If I stay here one more minute, he really will fuck me this time.
And I’m scared that I want to let him.
I tear away from the kiss with a gasp, and it’s like I’m coming up from drowning. Like I’ve been down in his depths for so long that it hurts to breathe normal air again. My mouth and clit both feel bruised after the onslaught as I wrench myself out of Darragh’s grasp.
Thankfully, he lets go of my hair. He watches me, fisting the damp and now bloody cloth as I gather my shit.
And run.