14. CHAPTER 14
MOON
I shouldn’t have come. And yet my feet kept moving.
The winter rose garden was freezing. Frost clung to the black thorns. My breath fogged in front of me as I slipped through the fractured glass door, the cold biting straight through my hoodie. Moonlight cut through the misted glass in sharp lines. Every step cracked my control wider.
I kissed him. Third time. I really needed better impulse control. Midnight anyway, heart trying to punch through my ribs. A Blood Writ on me, for fuck’s sake. I barely recognized myself around him anymore.
The door hadn’t even clicked shut before hands grabbed me. Cillian shoved me back against the cold glass. The shock burned through my hoodie. His body pinned me there. His mouth crashed into mine, swallowing the words.
I bit him back harder. He groaned into my mouth, hips grinding forward until I felt him thick and ready. My cock answered instantly, traitor.
“Missed you,” he rasped, hands shoving under my hoodie, rough palms scalding bare skin.
“Shut the fuck up,” I said through my teeth, dragging his mouth back.
His hand slid down, palming me through my sweats. I jerked into the touch. So much for restraint.
“You’re dripping for me.” He sounded cruel. “Tell me Zara gets you this hard.”
“Shut up.” My hips rolled anyway.
I shoved at his chest, trying to flip us. He didn’t budge, pinning me harder.
“Cute.” Malice dripped from his voice. “Keep fighting. I love how fucking pretty you look losing to me instead of playing house with her.”
I caught his wrist, nails digging in. “You’re too fucking cocky.”
Cillian’s eyes dropped to my mouth. A cruel little smile tugged at his lips. “Then take control, Moonshine,” he taunted. “Show me you don’t need her. Show me you’re still fucking mine.”
I shoved him back. He let me, only to laugh and spin us again, slamming my spine against a cold stone pillar wrapped in winter roses. Thorns bit through my hoodie.
Our bodies crashed together, rough and frantic. I grappled for the upper hand, pride screaming at me to pin him down. My cock throbbed harder, calling me a liar.
One part of me wanted to shove him to his knees and use his mouth. The darker part wanted him to overpower me completely. I tried to shove that part down.
“You think I’m just going to let you?” I hissed. I held his stare, fingers flexing on his wrist. Then I released him.
Cillian dropped to his knees on the cold stone without hesitation. My breath fractured.
Cillian looked up like he’d already decided how the night would end. “You gonna feed me that cock, prince? Or do I have to beg for it like a good boy?”
“What are you—”
He yanked my sweats down, pulled me out, already leaking, and took me in one slow, wet, greedy slide. My head cracked back against the pillar. “Fuck—”
The rough scrape of his stubble was overwhelming. He took me deeper, throat fluttering tight, moaning like he was starving for me. Every vibration rolled straight through my cock.
I fisted his hair, controlling the pace.
He let me. For three strokes. Then his hands clamped around my hips and he took over, fucking his own throat with my cock like he was the one using me.
The realization hit like ice water down my spine.
My own pulse betrayed me, loud in my ears.
Not after everything. Not after I’d let myself believe him for one stupid second.
What if this is still the Writ?
But then he moaned around my cock, the vibration shooting straight to my balls, and my mind went white. Even on his knees, Cillian still dominated. One of his hands slid back. A slick finger pressed against my entrance, circling, teasing. My entire body locked.
“No.” I yanked his hair harder, wrenching him off with a wet pop. “Don’t.”
Cillian froze, lips shiny and swollen, eyes feral on mine. He didn’t back off. He caught my wrist, dragged my hand to his mouth, and kissed the ring like a claim. Then he sucked the finger in, tongue hot, filthy, and bit down just hard enough to spike my pulse.
“Wearing my ring and still telling me no,” he murmured against my skin. “Fucking liar, Moonshine. You’ve wanted this since Saint Lucia. I see it every time you look at me like you’re two seconds from breaking.”
“I decide when you get inside me,” I said. “Not you.”
He smiled against my finger, teeth grazing the ring again. “You do. But we both know how this ends. I’m going to finger this tight hole open, then I’m going to fuck you until you forget every reason you’re pretending you don’t want it. And you’re going to let me because you’re already mine.”
His free hand slid back, spreading me, circling my entrance with deliberate pressure. Heat flared up my spine. I opened my mouth, okay, just slow, but the words died in my throat.
Cillian’s eyes stayed locked on mine, reading every fucking thing I wouldn’t say.
“I will,” he said, quiet.
He lifted one of my legs over his shoulder, spreading me obscenely wide. The new angle left me completely exposed under the dim garden lights. More dangerous than I could stand.
Cillian kissed the inside of my thigh, then dragged his mouth back to the crown of my cock. He licked the leaking slit with a filthy groan, tasting me, before swallowing me down again. At the same time, his slick finger pushed inside me.
I twisted, eyes raking the corridor. Empty. For now. If a guard turned the corner I’d walk off the nearest cliff. I jerked the edge of my hoodie up and bit down hard on the thick fabric, muffling my moan.
Cillian pulled off, one finger still fucking me slowly. “Eyes on me, Moonshine. No one’s coming. Keep your eyes right here.” He sank his mouth back down around my cock and pushed a second finger inside me.
“Mmf—” Pain flared sharp and bright. I bit harder into the hoodie, gripping his hair like I could punish him for it. Full. Too full. Pleasure slammed in right after, vicious. I hated how much I liked his fingers in me, how much he clearly fucking loved wrecking me like this.
Those two fingers curled, dragging that spot until my thighs shook. Spit slicked his chin. He sucked harder.
I couldn’t hold it.
“Fuck—” The word came out garbled and desperate against the fabric. My hole clenched greedily around his fingers as the pressure coiled impossibly tighter.
Pleasure slammed through me. I came hard down his throat, a strangled sound tearing out. Thighs shaking, fingers gripping his hair. Cillian took every drop, swallowing around me, milking me through the aftershocks with his tongue and those two fingers still buried deep.
For one blinding second nothing else existed. No Writ. No Patronage Seat. No reputation that would burn if anyone saw me like this, legs spread, begging with every shake of my thighs.
Then he pulled off. Lips shiny. Eyes wrecked with something too soft. I wanted to drown in that look. I wanted to punch him until it disappeared. My fist tightened in his hair instead. One more second, and I would have let him. One more second, and the Writ would have stopped mattering.
I yanked him up and crushed my mouth to his.
Tasting myself on his tongue made my insides cramp violently.
I swallowed the taste anyway, hating the low, helpless sound I made into his mouth.
Our mouths moved messy and desperate, tongues sliding, teeth clashing.
His hands gripped my waist under the hoodie.
I shoved a thigh between his legs, he was still so hard.
I pushed forward; Cillian turned us. He lifted me and pressed my back against the glass.
My legs wrapped around his waist on instinct.
His cock was already free, hot and heavy as he dragged the blunt head along my hole, teasing, pressing just enough to make heat spike through me.
“Fuck…” My hips answered immediately, cock twitching against my stomach, hole clenching around nothing. For one fucked-up moment I wanted it. Wanted him to push inside and wreck me right here.
Then reality crashed back in.
“I don’t know if I want it like this,” I whispered, shoving at his shoulders. My legs stayed locked around him. “Not here. Not against the glass where anyone could see me getting railed like some desperate slut.”
Cillian’s dark chuckle vibrated against my throat. He thrust his hips, rubbing the thick, leaking head of his cock against my entrance again. “Cute.” His voice dropped lower. “Or should I bend you over, spread this tight hole open slow until you’re clenching and begging for every thick inch?”
I turned my head anyway, as if that could hide what my body was already begging for. “Don’t twist my words, you asshole.”
Cillian grinned, eyes glittering with desire. He kept me pinned, every muscle coiled like he could take what he wanted in a heartbeat.
But he didn’t.
“Fine, fine,” he murmured, lips dragging against my ear, breath still hot. “No railing you against the glass tonight. Next time I’ll do the full Aster thing, silk sheets, rose petals, me buried so fucking deep you’ll be clenching around nothing in the middle of your precious lectures.”
“You couldn’t manage romance if your empire depended on it.”
He sank his teeth into my shoulder, harder than necessary. A sharp shiver ripped through me, cock twitching uselessly against my thigh even though I’d just come. “Good thing my life’s never depended on romance.”
Footsteps. Sharp. Echoing. Closer.
A flashlight beam sliced through the dark. Panic slammed into me. I went rigid against him. Cillian felt it instantly. His grip shifted. He lowered me to the ground in one smooth motion, shielding me with his body.
“Easy, Moonshine,” he murmured as he tucked himself away.
I fumbled my own clothes back into place with shaking fingers.
He grabbed the front of my hoodie and pulled me in for one deep, possessive kiss, tongue sliding against mine like he was still savoring the almost. When he pulled back, his forehead touched mine.
“See you soon, love.”
He let me go.
I stumbled back, legs shaky, and fumbled to fix my sweats before slipping out through the side path. Behind me, Cillian’s low voice intercepted the guards. A quick lie. A laugh. Footsteps shifted away.
God help me. I was gone.
Halfway across the courtyard my steps slowed. A figure stepped out from the shadows near the abandoned west wing. Rope coiled over one shoulder. Leonid Korolev—tall, the jagged scar cutting through his eyebrow catching the moonlight, expression unreadable.
Fuck.
“Professor Korolev,” I said evenly, even as my pulse hammered. “Good evening.”
Korolev’s cold eyes flicked over me. Hair mussed. Mouth swollen. Collar sitting wrong over the mark on my throat. He didn’t smile.
“I saw nothing tonight,” he said quietly, accent thick. “You will do the same.”
My insides went cold. He knew?
“Yes, sir.”
“Get back to Aster Court, boy. Before you make yourself more interesting than you already are.”
I nodded once and kept walking, legs still unsteady.
Fuck. Had he seen us in the gallery? The ring still circled my finger. I slid it off. Moonlight caught the engraving. A chroi. What the fuck did that mean? I slid it back on before I could think.