Chapter 19 Ciara
Ciara
Itake it.
I take everything he has to give, and I give it back until I’m aching and my pussy is raw.
Hours later, I crawl from the bed, needing to pee, needing to soak in a hot bath, needing space from my new husband, who, true to his word, has replaced the booze with fucking me.
The thought is a bitter pill, but I accept it. It’s why I’m here after all. Why I was sold to Connor O’Neill’s youngest son.
His hand clamps down on my wrist, stopping me. “Not done with you yet,” he mumbles, half asleep.
“I need a break,” I say.
His eyes open fully, crystal clear as I deny him. “I’m still awake,” he says.
“So close your eyes and go to sleep.”
“Or get up and take my chances with Conner’s men outside.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“And? Do you need a reminder who you married?”
“Sean…” It slips out more of a plea than I’d have liked. This is his chance to prove to me that he isn’t a sadistic arsehole only interested in himself. This is a chance to show he is thinking about me too.
He tries to mask it behind his tough exterior, but I see what I need to.
He lets me go, and I slip off the bed, closing the door to the en-suite behind me and moving straight to the tub.
I fill it with hot water and nothing else, mostly because there is nothing else to use.
This is his space, and tough mafia men don’t take scented bubble baths, apparently.
I pee, wincing at the sting, wiping and flushing before I lower myself into the steaming hot tub with a groan that echoes my satisfaction back at me in the tiled space.
Leaning back, I close my eyes, letting the heat seep into my tired muscles.
The door opens, I hear him pee, flush and wash his hands. His presence hovers until I open my eyes to see him standing over me. I sit up, wordlessly offering him what he won’t ask for.
He hesitates for a second, but then he climbs in behind me, wrapping his arms around me as I lean back against him.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
He scoffs. “What for? Treating you like a cum dumpster, so I don’t drink? Don’t thank me for that, Ciara. I’m a fucking animal.” He sighs. It’s world-weary, and it breaks my heart.
“You’re only an animal if you choose to be,” I counter, tracing the ink of the tattoo that covers his arms and chest. He is a god, and he knows it. Or maybe he has forgotten and needs someone to remind him. “And right now, you’re just a man in a bathtub with his wife.”
He grunts, a vibration against my spine, but he doesn’t push me away. In fact, his grip tightens just a fraction, pulling me flush against his hard chest.
“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me, Ciara,” he warns, his voice rough with exhaustion. “I used you. Plain and simple.”
“And I let you.” I turn my head slightly. “We used each other, Sean. That’s the deal. That’s the marriage.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and damp. It feels fragile. He rests his chin on the top of my head, a gesture so domesticated it almost makes me laugh. We are a paradox. Violent enemies one minute, naked and entangled the next, seeking refuge in the same porcelain trench.
“If I start shaking again,” he whispers, the admission tearing out of him like a jagged confession, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Then we go again,” I say simply, closing my eyes and leaning my full weight into him. “Until you stop.”
He doesn’t answer, but his hand moves, splaying flat over my stomach, holding me there. Anchoring himself. But it’s not enough, and we both know it.
Pulling away from him, I turn in the water, not caring about the surface sloshing dangerously close to the edge. I grip his cock tightly and slowly jerk him off under the water.
“Ciara,” he almost whimpers. “Keep going.”
I crawl onto his lap, rubbing the head of his cock against my clit. It’s swollen, sensitive and aching, but he needs this. I need to give it to him. This is my choice. I know I could stop and walk away, sleep in the guest room, and he wouldn’t follow me.
But I won’t do that to him.
Not tonight.
I sink down, impaling myself on him inch by slow inch.
The water rises, sloshing over the porcelain rim to puddle on the floor, but neither of us cares.
He is huge, stretching me beyond what should be comfortable, especially after the marathon we’ve just run, but the burn is a grounding force. It’s reality.
He groans, his head falling back against the tiles, eyes squeezing shut as if in pain.
His hands grip my waist, thumbs digging into my skin, bruising me.
I don’t mind the marks. They are proof of life.
Proof that he is focusing on me, on the friction and the heat, and not the screaming void inside his head where the whisky used to live.
I set a slow, rolling rhythm, using the buoyancy of the water to ease the movement. “Eyes on me,” I command softly.
His eyes fly open. There is no softness, only a raw, starving desperation that reflects the storm outside.
He thrusts up to meet me, shattering my control, driving into me with a force that splashes water against my chest. We move together in the cooling bath, a desperate, silent coupling meant to stave off the darkness for just a few minutes more.
If this is what it takes to keep the monster at bay, then I will let him use me until the sun comes up.
He wraps his arms around me, rising with me in his arms, his dick still inside me. Somehow, he climbs out of the tub without slipping and killing us both. I giggle, and he smiles before he presses me against the cool wall and thrusts deeper.
My climax is a whimper in the storm of his need. But he feels it and allows himself to detonate inside me with a grunt. He presses his forehead against mine as he unloads, his breath ragged.
“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs.
“Don’t say that.” I place my fingers over his lips.
“Thank you, Ciara. For not abandoning me.” Tears prick his eyes, and he closes them.
I couldn’t now even if I wanted to. “I’m here, Sean. For better or for worse.”
“You shouldn’t want to stay. I will ruin you.”
“I’m stronger than you think.”
“Even after all this, even after fucking you, I need a fucking drink.”
“I know.” I cup his face. “But one day, you won’t, and that is all we can work towards.”
He drops me gently to my feet. I wince when he slips out of me.
“I’ll make us some tea,” I say and move away to the kitchen. He follows me like a lost puppy, sliding naked and wet behind me, as I put the kettle on. “Go to bed, I won’t be long,” I say as he hinders me from getting to the mugs.
He shakes his head. “If I leave you, I will fail.”
“Then stay, but let me get the mugs.”
He reaches over, opens the cupboard, grabs two, and places them down without moving his body away from mine.
“Must be nice,” I murmur.
“What?”
“Being so tall.” I smile at him over my shoulder.
He chuckles. “Never really thought about it.”
The kettle reaches boiling point, and I make us the tea, handing him a mug. He moves away, taking my hand and leading me to the sofa, where he places a blanket down before we curl up, just being for the moment.
The silence in the penthouse is heavy, but for the first time since I walked through that door, it doesn’t feel like a weapon.
It feels like a truce. The steam from the mug warms my face, contrasting with the cool air of the room, but the real heat comes from the massive, tattooed wall of muscle pressed against my side.
Sean stares into the dark liquid of his tea as if he can divine a future where he isn’t clawing at his own skin to get out.
His hand trembles. Just a fraction. A minute vibration that travels through the ceramic mug and into the blanket we share. He’s white-knuckling through the urge, fighting a war in his own head while I sit here as the collateral damage he decided to keep.
“It’s quiet,” he rasps, his voice wrecked from the screaming and the groaning.
“It is,” I agree, leaning my head on his shoulder. The smell of his soap and the faint, lingering scent of our sex clings to him. It’s raw and honest.
He takes a sip, grimacing as if the tea is poison simply because it isn’t eighty-proof. “This is shit.”
“It’s hot, and it’s wet,” I counter softly. “It’ll do.”
We sit there as the city lights flicker on below us, two naked strangers bound by ink, blood, and a desperate need to survive the night.
I know this peace is fragile. I know the monster is just catching its breath.
But as his breathing syncs with mine, I meant what I said in the bath.
I’m not going anywhere, and not just because it is my duty to stay.
“Back to bed,” he says, standing up and placing the tea on the coffee table.
I nod, but he must sense my hesitation.
“To sleep,” he adds. “I think I can now.”
I let him pull me to my feet, the blanket pooling on the floor to leave us exposed to the cool air and the sprawling city lights beyond the glass.
We walk back to the bedroom in silence, moving like ghosts through a life neither of us chose.
The sheets are still tangled, a chaotic testament to the violence of our earlier fucking, but neither of us cares enough to straighten them.
We just crawl in, bodies heavy and aching, seeking oblivion.
Sean settles on his back, staring up at the darkness for a long moment before he turns onto his side, dragging me against his chest with a heavy, possessive arm.
He feels like granite and heat, a solid wall between me and the rest of the world.
His grip isn’t gentle, but it isn’t cruel anymore either; it’s just necessary.
“Is this okay?” he whispers against my shoulder.
“Yes, it’s okay,” I reply.
His breathing evens out almost immediately, the fight finally draining out of him as sleep claims the ground he was defending. I lay there, wide awake. Today was a battlefield, but we survived it. Tomorrow is waiting with its teeth bared.
I close my eyes. I promised to stay. I promised for better or worse. I just hope it doesn’t kill us both before we get used to each other.