24. CHAPTER 24
CILLIAN
I woke up with Moon’s hair in my mouth. Fuck.
He was still here. I stayed perfectly still.
His face looked soft in sleep. No tight jaw.
No sharp calculations spinning behind those pretty eyes.
Guilt sat heavy in my chest, right next to the need to keep him.
I brushed my fingers over the marks on his hip. Fingerprints. Teeth.
I stroked through his hair, barely brushing his temple. “Saranghae.” This morning I would fix it. Take care of him. Feed him.
The cabin stayed quiet. Wind shoved against the glass. Gray light leaked through the curtains. Right now, with him pressed against me, it felt possible.
I knew it the second I saw him again in the cathedral. Ronan Carrick was one problem. Moon’s father was the real one. The entire academy already watched us like the main event.
But with his body warm against mine and my ring catching against his skin, it felt real. Like it could last.
He shifted, thighs clearly aching.
My hand stayed on his lower back, thumb pressing slow circles into one of the darker bruises I’d left on his hip.
“Ugh, why the fuck are you touching me like I’m dying?” Moon snapped, still groggy.
I didn’t stop.
“Checking.”
“For what?”
“Damage.” My thumb traced the bruise. “Making sure I didn’t break what’s mine last night.”
Moon’s face burned. “Fuck you, Cillian. Stop pretending you feel guilty when we both know you loved marking me up like a fucking animal.”
I smiled against the back of his neck.
“Yeah?” I dragged my hand lower, palming his ass, fingers digging into the tender flesh. “You’re right. I did. And you let me. You begged for it, Moonshine. Remember?”
He shivered and buried his face in the pillow, groaning.
“Shut up,” he hissed, muffled. He pressed back against my hand.
I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. If I did, I’d fuck him again. All fucking day. I got up, naked, and turned the shower on hot. Steam filled the small bathroom.
Moon was still sprawled on the bed, watching me with narrowed eyes. I didn’t give him a chance to argue. I flipped him onto his back, grabbed his thighs, and yanked his legs off the edge of the bed.
“What the fuck, Cillian—”
I didn’t let him finish. I hauled him forward by the hips, dragged him off the edge of the bed, and lifted. His legs locked around my waist on instinct. Half-hard cock pressed hot against my stomach, bare skin sliding against mine.
His breath caught against my neck. “No fucking way.” His hands shoved at my shoulders. “Don’t carry me. Put me down. I’m not some fucking damsel you need to haul around.”
I carried him straight into the shower. Hot water hit us. I pinned him to the tile, chest to chest. His legs locked around my waist. Heels dug into my lower back. The tremor in his thighs gave him away.
“Put me down.” His fingers dug into my shoulders, nails biting. Half push, half cling.
“No,” I said. “You’re sore. I did that. So I fix it.”
Moon’s forehead dropped to my shoulder. “You never listen.” He still didn’t let go.
I set him down and turned him so his back hit my chest. His ass settled against my cock. I locked one arm around his waist.
I reached for the shampoo, poured some into my palm, and started washing his hair. Slow. Thorough. My fingers worked through the strands, massaging his scalp.
Moon groaned against my chest. “Fuck… that feels good.” He sounded pissed at himself for saying it. His head tilted under my hands. He tensed when I moved lower.
I paused. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s fine.” Moon’s spine went rigid.
I slid my hand down his spine, gentle but firm. “Let me see.”
Moon’s eyes widened. “What the fuck. No. You are not doing that.”
I pressed his chest to the tiled wall, and dropped to my knees behind him.
“Cillian, what the fuck,” he hissed, forehead pressed against the wet tile. “Get up. You are not doing this.”
I kissed the darkest bruise on his ass.
“Don’t.” His voice cracked. “You don’t get to put those marks on me and then kiss them like they hurt you too.”
I stood slowly, turned him to face me, and pulled him flush against my chest under the hot spray. My arms locked tight around him.
“They do,” I murmured against his wet hair.
Moon stayed quiet, then exhaled. "Ugh… I’m starving.”
I smiled against his shoulder and bit down. “Alright.” I licked a slow stripe over the mark I’d left on his shoulder. “Finish up. I’ll make you a proper Irish breakfast. Pretty sure you’ve never had one.”
“No,” he muttered, still pressed tight against me. “I haven’t.”
***
The pan was sizzling when Moon finally emerged from the bedroom.
He was drowning in my clothes. My black sweater hung off his frame.
Sleeves too long, cuffs bunched up around his wrists.
The hem barely reached mid-thigh, leaving the rest of his legs completely bare except for the black socks sliding down his ankles.
No pants. Just my sweater and those marks I’d left all over his thighs. My gut pulled tight. I almost burned the rashers. He looked like he’d always lived here. In my life. Moon noticed me staring. His cheeks flushed.
“It’s not my fault your clothes are too big,” he said defensively, crossing his arms. “You’re taller. And built like a fucking tank. I’m a fencer, not a heavyweight. Stop giving me that look."
I broke eye contact, gripping the edge of the counter hard enough to turn my knuckles white. If I kept looking at him standing there in nothing but one of my sweaters, damp hair and marked-up thighs, I was going to bend him over this fucking table and take him again.
So I focused on the pan like it was the only thing keeping me sane.
Moon’s eyes traced the ink across my back. “You have so many tattoos...”
I shrugged, flipping the rashers. “Old family thing.”
Moon’s throat worked. “Doesn’t seem like nothing.”
I met his eyes over my shoulder. “Breakfast is ready. Eat before it gets cold.”
He eventually pulled the sleeves of my sweater over his hands and sat down, looking small and dangerous in my clothes.
I plated the food and set it in front of him. “You need this after last night.”
We ate in comfortable silence. I made him put on a pair of my sweatpants before we went out. When we finally stepped outside…
The air was crisp, a light snow drifting lazily through the gray Highland afternoon. Wet grass soaked my boots.
For the first time since this all started, no one was watching us.
Moon walked beside me. The tension in his shoulders had eased a fraction. The isolation was doing something to him. I’d forgotten life could feel this quiet.
“Cold?” I asked.
He shot me a look. “Freezing. Why are we out here?”
I grinned, already pulling my sweater over my head. “Because I want to swim.”
Moon’s eyes widened. “You’re insane. It’s winter.”
“Exactly.”
I stripped down completely, naked under the cold sky, and walked toward the small lake behind the cabin. Black water. Thin ice rimmed the edges. Gray Highland hills closing in on every side. I didn’t hesitate, just dove in.
The shock was brutal. Freezing water closed over my head. My lungs seized. My skin screamed. I came up laughing. Real laughter. The kind that tore out of my chest and echoed across the hills. Moon stood on the bank, staring like I’d lost my mind.
“Come on, prince,” I called, grinning through chattering teeth. “Strip. Get in.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” he muttered, but he was already pulling off the sweater, then the sweatpants, standing naked in the cold air.
He stepped in slowly, then shrieked the second the water hit his thighs. “Fuck! Cillian, it’s freezing! Holy shit—”
He lunged forward, half falling, half diving, and came up gasping, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes wide with shock. I laughed again, the sound cracking open something in my chest I didn’t know was locked.
Moon stared at me. “You’re beautiful like this,” he said, almost accusingly. Water dripped from his lashes. His lips were already turning blue. “Laughing. Wild. Like you don’t give a fuck about anything.”
I yanked him closer under the water and dragged us both down. His legs wrapped around me. His mouth crashed into mine. Under the surface we kissed like idiots, freezing, laughing into each other, tongues deep and greedy. I gripped his ass hard, pulling him tighter against me.
I lifted him out of the water afterward, both of us shivering violently, and carried him back to the dock. I grabbed the massive towel and wrapped it tight around his shivering body, rubbing his arms hard.
Moon pressed his face into my neck, teeth chattering hard. “We’re going to get pneumonia,” he muttered against my skin.
I laughed against his wet hair and pulled him closer, rubbing his back through the towel. “Worth it,” I said, grinning. “You, me, and hypothermia. Not a bad way to go.”
He made a weak, frustrated sound but stayed plastered against me.
I kept the towel locked around him and steered us back inside, my arm banded tight across his shoulders the whole way. By then, the snow had turned to rain.
The fire had burned low, nothing but glowing embers and the occasional soft crack of dying wood. Rain drummed steadily against the cabin roof. The sofa was old leather, cold at the edges.
I’d talked him into it with a straight face. Skin to skin, Moonshine. Best way to avoid pneumonia. You said it yourself. He’d rolled his eyes but went along with it. Now we were tangled completely naked under a thick blanket on the sofa, his bare skin pressed flush against mine.
Moon was sprawled half-asleep on my chest, his slow breaths brushing my collarbone. My hand stayed buried in his dark hair, fingers stroking lazily through the strands.
I was reading an old book I’d found on the shelf, but the words had stopped making sense twenty minutes ago. All I could focus on was the weight of him. The way his leg was thrown over mine. The steady thump of his heart against my ribs.
I turned a page anyway, just to have something to do with my hands that wasn’t pulling him even closer.
“Do you ever want to get married, Hyun?” I asked quietly.
Moon lifted his head, staring like I’d grown a second head. “Woah. Did you just call me Hyun?”
“That is your name, right? Or am I thinking of the wrong Saint Lucia boy… fuck, I feel used.”
Moon blinked. “It was Betty White, you idiot. And I’m not marrying the asshole who turned my life into a scandal and then fucked me until I couldn’t walk.”
“So timing’s the issue?”
He dropped his forehead against my chest. “You’re actually unhinged.”
I dragged him flush against me, skin burning.
“Besides,” he hissed, eyes averted, “I like control. I’m so far gone from that now it’s embarrassing.”
“You want it the other way around, then?”
Moon froze. “What?”
I grinned.
His eyes narrowed.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I dug my fingers into his ass. “You keep saying you don’t want to marry me, but you’re the one who likes control. So marry me and fuck me instead. I’d let you.”
Moon breathed shallow against my neck. Then, barely a whisper, “I… I wanted you to fuck me. Ever since Saint Lucia.”
I curled my hand around the nape of his neck. “Fuck. The Prince of Aster. The control freak running half the academy… wants the Irish mafia idiot to own him?”
Moon’s face burned. He slammed a hand over my mouth. “Shut up. I didn’t say own.”
I licked his palm, slow.
“Gross.” He ripped his hand back, but his cock twitched hard against me. “You’re fucking disgusting.”
I caught his wrist and pressed his palm flat over my heart. “I’m yours.”
His fingers dug in, nails biting.
“Besides,” I said, putting the book down, “you’re already wearing my ring. I’d get you a better one though. Gold.”
“You are deeply unwell,” he muttered into my chest.
“Yeah.” I smiled against his hair. “Still thinking gold.”
Moon stayed quiet after that, arms tightening around my waist. The rain kept falling outside. The fire kept dying.
And for one terrifying second, with his warm weight pressed all over me and my ring still on his finger, I let the thought form. I could keep him here. Forever. He’d stop fighting eventually.
The idea didn’t feel like a fantasy. It felt like the only plan that made sense. And that was the most dangerous thing of all.