20. Avery
AVERY
I wake to buttery soft morning light, the scent of rain and grass, and a heavy arm over my waist.
Kill.
I don’t know what sex is normally like, but seriously, this could be a wellbeing treatment. I’ve never felt so good. There’s a pleasant buzz between my legs, a happy liquidity to all my limbs. I’m content.
My head is partly resting on his bicep, and one of his legs is possessively over mine. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I’m superglued to this bed now.
That thought sparks a concern. Awkwardly, I look up. I can’t see what the time is, but I remember that there are strict rules about how long Kill’s dates are.
Racking my brain, I can’t recall when I should leave.
“Kill,” I whisper.
“Mmm.” He makes a sleepy, rumbling noise and his arm scoops me up and drags me closer. I gasp as the hard length of his cock presses into my bottom. It’s hot, and insistent, and excitement flares from my pussy to my throat and back again as he grinds against me. “Avery. Love.”
Between that endearment and the feel of him, it’s all I can do to not moan in response.
“I need to go,” I whisper reluctantly. “I think the date might have ended at breakfast time, and…”
I stop talking, because he’s slipped his hand down, over my tummy, and is gliding to where I’m still sticky with the results of what happened last night. How he filled me up, over and over. We hardly slept.
Then he’s shifted, and the head of his cock notches at my entrance just as his fingers reach my clit.
“I need you again,” he rasps against my ear as I turn slightly to try to see him.
“Yes.” That can only be what I say, as all thoughts except having Kill inside me fly.
It’s familiar now. The fullness. The closeness. The pleasure. The explosion of the climax he pushes into me.
When we’re both panting and spent, he gathers me into his arms and carries me to the bathroom, setting me down in the shower. And that’s glorious.
Afterwards, we have breakfast in his rooms, looking out over the Irish countryside.
Silky smooth coffee, and he feeds me strawberries, which naturally leads to his fingers in my mouth, and it’s not long before he drags me onto his lap and the clothes we put on are rapidly shoved aside so he can thrust into me. We can’t keep our hands off each other.
It’s only much later, after another wash, that I tell him I really need to get clean clothes from my room.
His brows pinch together, but there’s yet another call to his phone, it’s been buzzing all morning and he’s told me to ignore it each time.
“Take the call, I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, and he frowns but nods.
“Brandon,” he barks into the phone, and his brow is furrowed as he watches me leave his suite.
I do my best to sneak discreetly back to my room. Quick. I just want to put on clean knickers, then return to Kill.
But fate is not on my side, as I take a wrong turn and end up in the kitchen of the guest wing. Sue is at the table drinking coffee with the other girls, some of the Archway men standing guard around them.
“Hi!” I try to seem unbothered, breezy, as I attempt to walk past at almost a run.
“You’ve seen Killian this morning?” Sue says before I can escape.
I pause.
I blush and smile the probably really obvious smile of a girl totally smitten and fucked to within an inch of her life by the man of her dreams. “We had breakfast together, yes.”
Her eyes snap. “Breakfast? Alone? When your date ended last night?”
My feet go heavy, as though I’m caught in a trap and I can’t yet see it.
“He invited me,” I reply pathetically. “He insisted.”
“The rules are very clear. No contact outside of the competition.” Her expression is stone.
I open and shut my mouth like a fish trying to breathe air, my chest seizing up. This can’t be happening. “Last night…”
“Whatever happened last night was within the rules.” She tosses her head with careless elegance that I can only be in awe of, even as I’m breaking apart inside.
“But this morning was not. Breakfast was to be had with the rest of the competitors. You lose your place in the competition immediately. Shane.” With two fingers she beckons to one of the guards.
No. Shit. What??!! Panic rises in me like a relentless tide.
“I need to talk to Kill,” I squawk. It’s my only hope. He’ll fight my corner. Won’t he?
“Absolutely not. Killian will be busy today on his date with Katy.”
Tears prickle behind my eyes. This can’t be over.
One more day. Two. Just to the final decision, so I know that it’s over, and I’ve done everything I can. That it’s truly finished. I can’t lose him now. I’m fracturing, cracking under the pressure.
My fists clench. “I’ll go after I speak with him.”
“This is my competition. My son entrusted me with finding him a wife. If I say you’re leaving, you are.”
“Katy isn’t right for him.” The desperate words are out of me before I can consider.
Sue narrows her eyes. “That’s the way it works, Avery. I set clear rules. It’s his choice, of the women within the competition, and you aren’t anymore. You’re lucky I let you stay at all.”
“But Kill…” I trail off pathetically. He’s nowhere to be seen.
“Killian,” she emphasises his full name, “has never cared about relationships. He doesn’t care about women, or men. He’s dedicated his life to Archway and to this family. If you can’t understand that, you’re not the woman for him.”
And my heart breaks. Because I do know that.
She tilts up her chin in a dismissive gesture and suddenly the bulky man is at my side. I recognise him. I go to dodge away, my thoughts full of getting to Kill, however that’s possible…?
But Shane is there, blocking me, more nimble than a man of his size should be. “Mrs Farrell has told you,” he rumbles. “Don’t make a scene.”
The thought of him putting a hand on me is unbearable. Like it would pollute the feeling still on my skin from Kill’s touch last night.
I sag.
“This way.”
I obey, traipsing out of the house like a teenager on my way to school.
And all I can think of with every step is Kill. How I’m going to miss him. How I’m leaving half of my soul behind. How I’ll never recover from this, because I won’t see him again.
I can’t bear the thought of seeing him with his wife, so I can’t go back and pretend to have a job. I’ve messed this up totally.
The job has been the least of it.
Spending time with Kill, being on his side, him being on mine. His whispered words of affection and being the centre of his attention.
I try not to cry.
But as I get into the back of an SUV I drag my hands through my hair, and tears prickle behind my eyes. I don’t have my phone, or my luggage, but what does it matter? I guess they’ll return it to me eventually.
The pressure builds in my head.
He’ll probably be fine with it. Kill agreed to do this competition to please his mam, and whatever else you might be able to say about his morals, which are very grey at best, he loves his family.
He’d be a great dad.
Tears leak out, and I smear them off my face with my sleeve. The sweater that Kill gave me, and that thought makes more take their place.
I mustn’t cry. He was never for me. I’m too young for him. I’m not part of his world, and I don’t belong. However good our night together was, it doesn’t change the fact that I wandered off the street and stumbled somewhere I had no business being. His mother always knew that.
I can’t stop the tears now. I’m crying in earnest, not just with my eyes but my chest contracting. I try to turn away from the driver, not wanting him to see, but I can’t. So I drop my chin and as silently as I can, cry my stupid heart out.
Maybe he wouldn’t care anyhow.
So that’s how it ends. Not with me clapping and smiling politely as he picks someone more suitable than me. Not with me watching as he refuses to marry altogether.
No, it’s just a sad little journey, on my own, back to London. And away from the only man I’ve ever wanted. The only man I’ve ever loved.