16. CHAPTER 16
MOON
I was inside Thorn Court. Approaching Briar House. Ah, fuck. My ribs slammed once. What if someone saw us? The Gallery was still buzzing. Thanks to Zara, most now believed we were bickering over the Blood Writ.
Either way, I had chosen this. Walked willingly into enemy territory like some lovesick fool. If someone saw us now, I had no explanation. Especially not the hand holding. But I didn’t want to let go. God, I was becoming exactly the kind of idiot I used to judge.
Gothic stone crouched against the Scottish rain. Gargoyles snarled along the roofline. I never came here. No one with a functioning sense of self-preservation did. Yet here I was.
Can’t believe I asked him to fuck me. He was so fucking normal about it. That pissed me off more than anything. I was a wreck, overthinking everything, while he paraded through life unbothered. Meanwhile I was arguing with myself twenty-four hours a day.
I glared up at the gargoyles. Fitting. Very Thorn.
Cillian looked over his shoulder, pulling me closer. “You good?”
“Don't ask me that while you’re sneaking me into a den of criminals,” I hissed.
His mouth curved into that half-feral smile that always made my insides scream. “We’re not just criminals, prince.”
“Criminal adjacent, then.”
“Call us whatever you want.” His grip tightened. “You still came with me.”
I ripped my hand free the second we reached the side entrance.
He glanced at me. Said nothing. Just stared at the empty space between us.
I moved past him, stepping inside. The kitchen reeked of whiskey, fried bread, gun oil, and cologne.
Narrow corridors. Crimson runners worn thin by generations of bloody boots.
Low ceilings. Everything felt older and meaner than Aster.
I stepped deeper into Thorn territory.
Voices crashed from the common room. Loud. Drunk. Feral. Laughter. Glass shattering. A chair breaking. Chaos that would have Aster security swarming like vultures. Here the kitchen staff didn’t even look up.
Cillian didn’t flinch.
“Do you always sound like you’re running a fucking fight club in here?” I muttered.
“Oh, this is nothing. You should be here when it’s not fall break,” he replied, clearly amused.
I exhaled through my nose. “Deeply concerning.”
He grinned and finally let his palm settle on my lower back. My body reacted instantly. A traitorous shiver. Heat curling low and unwanted. I forced distance between us, refusing to melt into him like a fool.
We slipped through a side passage Mikhail had supposedly cleared.
I was now placing my life in the hands of Cillian Ashbourne and Mikhail Lovchy.
A Russian whose smile was too smooth and whose stare suggested he’d killed men for far less inconvenience than escorting an Aster heir through Thorn territory.
Absolutely fucking brilliant.
The grand foyer opened ahead. I stopped. Black wood stairwell. Bloodied Ashbourne ancestors stared down from cracked frames. All pale eyes and weapons. The air smelled of old wood and gun oil.
YIELD NOTHING. BLEED EVERYTHING.
Cillian followed my gaze. “Family values.”
“That explains so much about you.”
He didn’t deny it.
Another roar erupted from the common room. I tensed. Cillian shifted, putting his body between me and the noise.
“We go up the back stairs,” he murmured against my ear. “Straight to my room. No one sees you.”
“If someone does—”
“They won’t.” His hand settled on my lower back again, guiding me up the stairs. “And if they do, I deal with it. You don’t.”
The door barely clicked shut before Cillian crowded me. I slammed my palm against his chest and shoved him back a step, claiming the space first.
He still crashed into me, driving my back against the wood with a dull thud that rattled my ribs. I grunted into his mouth, hands already moving. I yanked fistfuls of wet hair and twisted hard enough to sting.
“Fuck, baby, you’re always so rough with me. Keep going. I fucking love it when you get mean.”
He groaned, the sound dragging down my spine. His thigh shoved between mine anyway, heat bleeding through damp fabric straight against my cock.
I let go of his hair. He spun me, pressed me hard against the door, and kicked my feet aside, spreading them.
I hissed as he smashed me into the door.
His hands clamped my waist, fingers biting like they already owned the bruises they’d leave.
My pulse hammered under the fresh cut on my collarbone.
“Stop manhandling me like one of your thugs, Ashbourne,” I snarled, twisting and pushing him back.
I shoved his soaked shirt up his back. Nails scraped rain-slick muscle, marking territory.
Cillian tore free just long enough to shrug the unbuttoned shirt off and throw it aside. “You’re mine, so if I want to manhandle you, I fucking will. Just like I’m going to ruin you on that bed behind me tonight.”
I didn’t let him finish the taunt. Grabbed the waistband of his boxing shorts, the same black ones from the ring, and stripped him. Fabric dragged down his thighs. Heavy wet slaps hit the floor. My clothes followed.
Cold rain on fevered skin. Hard muscle. The electric first press of bare cock against bare cock. I pushed him backward toward the bed, harder than necessary. He let me, the smug bastard, eyes locked on mine like he was still winning. Aggression. Good. Let him read it that way.
Sex with girls was easy. This wasn’t. Trust sat heavy. So did the not knowing. Would he hurt me? No. He wouldn’t. He was always too fucking preoccupied with making me feel too good. It annoyed me. Really. But it let me relax, just a fraction. I’d rather die than let him know that, though.
My gaze dragged over him hungrily despite myself. Black crosses on his neck. A kiss print near his pulse. Thorned vines. A cracked cathedral window over his heart. And there, near the base of his thumb, small and painfully recent, a black crescent moon.
Oh no.
I was jealous.
That Clare girl in the ring could go fuck herself. Cillian was mine. I shoved him down harder than necessary. He landed with a dark laugh, letting me climb over him, straddling his hips.
The mattress dipped. Rain ticked against the window.
I kissed him again, deeper, grinding down so I could feel exactly how hard he was.
His hands traced my back, my thighs, the curve of my ass.
Thumbs stroking every inch as if I were already his to claim.
My spine arched. Heat pooled low in my gut.
My cock twitched against his stomach, already leaking.
I grabbed his throat. “You want me like that?” I said against his mouth. “Then make me want it first, Ashbourne.”
Cillian’s eyes darkened. He smiled against my mouth. “Trust me, baby. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging for this cock and nothing else.”
I tightened my grip. His pulse hammered under my palm. He groaned, the sound vibrating hot against my skin. His hand left my lower back, fingers sliding up to grip my neck. Tight. Just enough to make my breath hitch. Then he pulled his fingers away and pressed them to my lips.
“Open.”
I parted them. He pushed two fingers inside, rough, sliding them over my tongue until they were slick. Every coherent thought scattered.
He pulled them free with a wet sound and reached between us again. My thighs clenched. The first finger pushed in, and my body welcomed it like the betrayer it was. He wasn’t guessing. He knew exactly what he was doing, and that left me with nowhere to hide.
Cillian let out a low, filthy groan. “That’s it, prince. Let me open you up.” He eased a second finger in, deeper, scissoring. “You’re so fucking tight. So perfect for me.”
My breath fractured. The slide was obscene. My hips rolled forward in shallow, involuntary movements, fucking myself onto his fingers like I couldn’t stop.
“Does it feel good?” Cillian rasped, eyes locked on my face. “Tell me how my fingers feel stretching that tight little hole open. Use your words, baby. I want to hear you admit how much you love getting fucked by me.”
“Mmm—fuck,” I gasped.
He smiled against my lips. “That’s it, prince. Look at you… already fucking yourself on my fingers.”
I tensed. “I’m not—”
Cillian cut me off with a deep kiss, fingers curling hard. “Shh… You’re fighting the wrong battle, prince. I’m not the one you’re trying to convince.”
I should have told him to stop. Instead my hips jerked forward again.
“Sit on my face.”
I hesitated. Pride. Control. The last fraying thread of denial. Breath sawing in my chest. One heartbeat. Two. Then I moved, shifting up his body.
He pulled me lower. His mouth never stopped. Neither did that finger. My body gave in far too fast.
I grabbed the iron bedpost with one hand, the other fisted tight in his damp hair, forcing the rhythm I wanted.
My hips rocked between the wet heat of his mouth and the stretch of his finger.
Fuck. This feels too good. No way I’m lasting.
My thighs shook. My control splintered with every obscene, wet sound he made around my cock.
My breath came faster. I tightened my fist in his hair until he moaned around me, the vibration shooting straight up my spine.
“Fuck—Cillian—” The name tore out.
I came with a choked snarl, spilling down his throat while my hole clenched around his finger like it never wanted to let go. He swallowed every drop, moaning like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Even after I was spent and oversensitive, Cillian kept working me open, scissoring gently, then roughly. I was still gasping, cock twitching against his stomach, when he pulled his fingers out.
My lungs were still recovering; Cillian hooked his hands under my thighs and flipped me onto my back. He settled between my spread legs, cock dragging against my entrance.
“My prince,” he whispered in rough, accented Korean.
I looked up at him. He looked completely lost in it.
He leaned down, lips brushing my ear. “I like the view of this. You spreading your legs for me, letting me fuck you. It’ll be so good, baby. You’ll love my dick inside you.”