Chapter 18 Sean
Sean
She’s planning something. I don’t know what, but I can see the tension in her shoulders. She didn’t get the flask behind the Monet. I know she didn’t. I can feel it in my soul that there is a drink five minutes away.
The car slows as we approach the building, sidewalk side closer to her, and the air inside grows so thick it could choke a man. My eyes flick to her. She’s staring straight ahead, but her mind is ticking over. She’s actually going to try it. She thinks she can outrun me to my own front door.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn, my hand hovering over the door handle, my muscles bunched and ready to spring.
“Think about what?” she asks, the picture of innocence, though her body is coiled tight as a watch spring.
The moment the wheels stop rolling, I shove the door open.
But she’s faster. Or maybe just more desperate to control me.
In a swift move, she has grabbed her clutch from the floor of the car, and then she launches herself out onto the sidewalk and, with a rip that takes a strength I know she possesses from seeing her in the gym, the buttons on the back of the dress tear away.
With a violent shrug of her shoulders, the white silk and lace collapse around her ankles as she moves.
She kicks it away, barefoot, and runs. Before my brain can fully process it, my wife is completely fucking naked and running towards Finn, whose eyebrows have nearly shot off his head.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathe, half-stunned by the sight of her pale back and perfect arse sprinting toward the lobby.
Then the thirst kicks me in the teeth. The Monet. The whisky.
I scramble after her. She’s already at the elevator, jamming her thumb against the button, unbothered by the cold air puckering her nipples or the lustful look on the doorman’s face. She’s insane. She’s magnificent. And she is not getting to that bottle before I do.
That is, until Finn’s gaze drops to her pussy, and then all bets are fucking off.
With a growl that echoes around the pristine lobby, I grab Finn by the scruff of his neck as the elevator doors slide open, spinning him around and punching him in the face for daring to look at my woman.
Ciara is panting, her face flushed, her tits jiggling, her pussy on show for everyone to see as she backs into the elevator with a wicked smile. She slams her hand on the button for the penthouse level, gripping her clutch tightly.
Finn hits the ground, and I step over him, but it’s too late. The doors slide shut, and she’s won.
Or so she thinks.
With a smile, I straighten my cuffs and turn towards the building door.
I’m free.
She thinks she’s played a blinder. She thinks locking herself in my fortress with the prize means she’s won the war. She’s so focused on the bottle behind the Monet that she forgot the entire city of Dublin is outside these doors, and it’s teeming with pubs.
I look down at Finn, who is clutching his nose, blood leaking between his fingers onto the pristine marble. “If you ever even breathe near her again, I will cut your eyes out of your head and ram them up your arse,” I state, walking away from him.
I push through the heavy glass doors and back out onto the street.
The Rolls is gone, the driver likely terrified of the domestic dispute he just witnessed.
I don’t care. The cool, damp air hits my face, and for the first time in just less than a week, the tightness in my chest loosens.
Not because of peace, but because of possibility.
Ciara is upstairs, naked and triumphant, guarding an empty apartment while I walk straight into the arms of the one mistress who never says no.
“Checkmate, wife,” I mutter, a dark laugh bubbling up in my throat. I loosen my tie as I walk to the nearest bar. I have maybe twenty minutes before she realizes I’m not coming up the stairs, before she calls Liam or my father. Twenty minutes is enough. It has to be.
I turn the corner and hear the familiar click before the cool metal is pressed to my forehead.
“Liam,” I say as my brother looms in front of me.
“Turn around, Sean. Don’t make me that guy.”
“Which guy? The one who lets his adult brother do whatever the fuck he wants?”
“The brother who shoots his idiot sibling in the head for being a total dick. Turn around, go upstairs. Fuck your wife until it exorcises the demons out of your soul, brother. Connor is not messing about.”
Dammit. I should’ve known he would have us followed.
And by Liam, no less. The heir. The perfect fucking son. I stare at Liam. He looks bored, which is worse than angry. He’d pull the trigger and go home to his dinner without missing a beat.
“Fine,” I spit, holding my hands up in mock surrender. “You win. The heir always fucking wins.”
I spin on my heel, the rage vibrating in my teeth.
It’s a bitter pill, swallowing my own escape plan, but a bullet in the brain tends to dampen the thirst. I stalk back into the lobby with him tailing me.
Finn is still on the floor, clutching his nose, a crimson smear ruining the expensive marble.
He looks up, terror widening his eyes, but I step over him, unconcerned.
He looked at her. He saw her naked. She is in just as much trouble as he is, and I’m going to enjoy punishing her.
“Not a word,” I warn him.
I slam my hand against the elevator button. The doors slide open, mocking me with their slow efficiency.
“Get in,” Liam says. “And don’t think about trying it again. There are men stationed where you won’t see them shoot to kill.”
“Fuck. You.” I give him the finger as I step into the penthouse elevator. I’m trapped. My own fucking brother has trapped me because if I’m dead, I can’t drink. If I’m alive, there is a chance I can still ease the itch under my skin.
Liam keeps his gun level as the doors slide shut. I glare at the panel, which only stops on one floor. I could get out, use the fire stairs to come back down, and go out the back. But that’s too obvious. Connor’s men will be waiting.
The doors ping open.
The apartment door is wide open. I step out and immediately see the guard stationed in the corner. I close my eyes and shake my head. He saw her too. My tired mind tries to figure out a way out of this, but there isn’t one. Not yet.
So, I focus on the one thing I can control.
Her.
Slamming the door of the penthouse behind me, I stride down the hall, my blood running hot. I round the corner into the living room just in time to see her standing in the middle of the living room, still naked, still glorious as a fucking goddess, a smug look on her face.
“It’s gone. And nice try, arsehole. Did you really think Connor would just let you leave?”
“Bitch,” I snarl, striding towards her.
She doesn’t back down. She lifts her chin defiantly, daring me to touch her.
I grip her upper arm and haul her closer, looming over her, trying to intimidate her.
It doesn’t work.
Her eyes flash with a challenge. One that I’m not prepared to see through. But that doesn’t mean she gets away with it.
I spin her roughly and bend her over the back of the sofa, keeping her pinned with my hand in the small of her back. Raising my free hand, I spank her.
Hard.
Hard enough that she yelps in surprise before she clamps her lips shut. That is the only sound she will give me.
It’s enough.
I spank her again. “That is for showing Finn what only I am allowed to see.”
I bring my hand down again. The sound cracks through the silent apartment like a gunshot.
Her flesh quivers under my palm, a stark crimson bloom spreading across the pale curve of her arse.
She grips the leather of the sofa, her knuckles white, but she refuses to give me another sound.
“That is for the guard outside who saw it all as well.”
“And this,” I growl, bringing my hand down for a final time, harder than the first three combined, “is for thinking you can control me.”
The spank echoes, loud and vicious. Her body jerks, an involuntary reflex, but she doesn’t cry out. She takes it like a soldier, head turned to the side, breathing raggedly through her nose. She’s stubborn as a mule and twice as dangerous. I hate that I admire it.
My palm stings, vibrating with the force of the smack. The skin of her arse is a vivid, angry red against the white leather couch. It’s a fucking masterpiece of defiance and consequence.
I lean in close, pressing my hands onto the sofa back, on either side of her, trapping her completely.
The rage is still there, hot and suffocating, but it’s twisting now, morphing into something darker, hungrier.
The whisky is gone. The escape route is blocked by my brother’s gun. All I have left is this. Her.
“You think you won because you poured it down the drain?” I whisper. “You didn’t win shit, Ciara. You just locked yourself in a cage with a starving animal, and since you deprived me of my vice, wife, you’re going to replace it.”
The ragged gasp that my words tear from her throat is all the victory I need.
I unzip my pants and pull my dick out, stiff and ready after this foreplay.
I nudge her legs apart, gripping her hips tightly as I guide my cock into her hot, wet pussy.
She is as turned on as I am as I sink into her cunt, balls deep with a low groan.
Maybe Liam is right.
Maybe I can fuck my wife until the demons are exorcised.
Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t.
But I’m going to use her until I can’t fucking think straight, until I collapse from sheer exhaustion. Until her body is the only thing stopping me from lying awake with withdrawals, suffering and sweating.
I slam into her, the rhythm purely instinctual, violent. She takes it, gripping the leather until her knuckles are white, refusing to beg for mercy or pleasure. That stubbornness is going to be the death of us, but right now, it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
Every thrust is a punishment and a prayer.
I hate that this works. I hate that the friction of her tight, wet cunt is actually dulling the razor-sharp edge of my need for a drink.
I yank the hairband from her hair and grab a handful of her hair as it cascades around her shoulders, pulling her head back until her back arches.
She doesn’t fight me, but she doesn’t yield either. She rides out the storm I’m inflicting on her body with a terrifying grace.
“You wanted this,” I snarl, driving deep. “Every fucking inch.”
She trembles, her inner walls clamping down on me, telling me all I need to know.
“Scream for me, wife. Scream so fucking loudly that the guard outside will get a hard dick thinking of you coming all over mine.”
She doesn’t give me the scream. Not yet.
Instead, she stifles the noise, refusing to give the guard—or me—the satisfaction.
Her defiance only pours gasoline on the fire raging in my blood.
I withdraw almost all the way, feeling her shudder, before I slam back home, hilt-deep, jarring a ragged moan from her throat that she can’t suppress.
“There,” I grunt, wrapping my fist around her hair and pulling roughly. “That’s it.”
My hand leaves her hair to grip her hip, my fingers digging into her soft flesh, leaving bruises that will match the red handprint on her arse.
She’s tight, clamping down on me like a vice, wringing every drop of sanity I have left.
This is a war of attrition, and for the first time in days, the craving for the bottle is drowned out by the roar of blood in my ears.
Her nails scratch against the leather as she finally unravels.
A cry, loud and broken, rips through the apartment, shattering the silence.
It’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
I chase her over the edge, pouring my rage, my lust, and my darkness straight into her, marking her as mine, as I unload into her, my body shuddering uncontrollably as my cock jerks violently inside her.