Chapter 35
35
Sybil
The door clicked behind us, and Kieran immediately flipped the dead bolt.
“What is this place?” I’d been so exhausted, I had fallen asleep in the small office, my head dipped to the side in the chair. When I woke up, Kieran’s palm was on my shoulder, shaking me awake, and he told me he had an idea. We’d driven for hours, crossing the border into Minnesota and then winding through the woods until we’d reached this cabin, tucked into the trees along a lake and with a dock it looked as if time had forgotten. We were far enough north that there was still ice on the water.
“It’s Tom’s old fishing cabin. I know it’s not much and it’s cold…” Kieran looked around at the tiny space. “It’s not as nice at that hotel downtown, but I can light a fire, and I know you were so upset with all the attention, I thought being away from everyone might be—”
I didn’t give him time to finish and wrapped my arms around him. The warmth and solidity of his body was all I needed. When his arms fell around me, a palm flat on my back, I melted into him. “It’s exactly what I wanted. This place is perfect.” He pulled me closer, and the pressure was like an added layer of protection. “Five stars. Highly recommend.”
Kieran chuckled and rubbed my back in the cabin’s stillness. The furniture was covered in sheets, and the bulb in the overhead light flickered. “But I do actually need to light a fire or we’re going to freeze.”
“You won’t keep me warm?” I said, letting him pull away and admiring the stretch of his body as he gathered logs from the metal container near the small fireplace.
He chuckled, searching the nearby shelf for matches and kindling. “You told me we should keep things unwarmed,” he said over his shoulder. “I believe you asked me to consider you unfuckable and like my cousin. And, granted, for cousins, we’ve shared a lot of kisses since then.”
“Yeah,” I said, gently unfolding the sheet from the couch and trying to avoid kicking up a mountain of dust. “But when I said to treat me like your cousin, I was probably drunk.”
“You said it stone-cold sober.” He looked over his shoulder, that grin I was coming to love on his face.
“I was carb drunk. Odds are good I’d had, like, three donuts.” I settled on the couch, rubbing my hands over my biceps through the coat. “But you agreed.”
I admired Kieran’s body perched by the fireplace, bent over so he could construct a pyramid made of logs. The match took to the kindling, and the fire rolled before he stepped away, catching sight of me warming myself. Without a word, he took two long steps toward me and dropped onto the couch beside me. “It’ll warm up soon,” he said, pulling me against him and taking over, moving his hands up and down my back.
I let out a little sigh and settled against him, which would have been sexier if we weren’t both still in our winter coats.
“And I never agreed you were unfuckable,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
“Yes, you did,” I protested. “We shook on it.”
“I agreed with your rule that we keep things platonic,” he said.
“So, unfuckable.”
He chuckled. “Those two things aren’t the same.” He pulled his head back to study my face. “Are you warming up?”
I nodded, trying to unzip my coat but fumbling with the thick gloves Kieran had handed me when we hopped in the truck.
“Let me,” he said, taking hold of the zipper and sliding it down. “Platonic means I agree it’s smart to keep this fictional relationship as uncomplicated as possible and not introduce sex into the equation.” He continued the zipper’s path, the teeth audible against the crackling of the fire. “To me, considering you unfuckable isn’t possible.” He slid the coat off my shoulders, sliding his palms down my arms to free them from the sleeves. “It’s just not a sentence that makes sense. You drive me to distraction. You touch your lips sometimes when you talk and you have such amazing lips, and that Joe’s Donuts T-shirt is too small, but I can’t take my eyes off you when you have it on. Really, I can’t ever take my eyes off you. You are so incredibly fuckable.”
I shivered under his slow touch, despite the growing warmth in the small room from the fire. “You’ve never said ‘fuck’ to me so much before,” I said, pulling my arms from the sleeves once the gloves were off. “I kind of like it.”
Kieran’s eyes darkened when I reached for the zipper on his coat, copying his actions and slowly dragging it down. “You like when I say ‘fuck’?”
I slid my palms over both his shoulders, pushing the jacket down his biceps. “Yeah,” I said softly. “It’s a good word, and when you say it, it’s extra special because you don’t swear often.”
“Hm,” he said, shrugging out of the coat. “So when I say…‘fuck the Denver Broncos,’ you get…”
“Hotter than hot,” I said with a chuckle.
“And it’s not heat, it’s the fucking humidity,” he said, mingling his fingers with mine.
I fanned myself as his hand moved back to my waist.
“Or fuck the patriarchy?”
“Stop, I can only get so wet.” We both laughed, and I let my hand move back to his shoulder. “I like the word when you say it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, his fingers still toying with mine. The wood in the fireplace began to crackle, and our fingers stroked along each other’s hands as the light flickered. Kieran’s voice was low and soft when he spoke again. “I like when you say most things.”
The light above us flickered, and he moved a thumb over my palm. “I was glad you were there today,” I said, savoring the slide of his fingers against mine. “I don’t know how I would have handled it…”
“You would have, though.” His body wrapped around me like crushed velvet. “You’re stronger and more capable than you give yourself credit for.”
I looked up, meeting his gaze. “That’s the best compliment anyone has ever paid me.” Above us, the overhead light flickered once more, drawing my eyes to the ceiling.
“It’s true,” he said. “But should I have added a ‘fuck’ to it somehow?”
I giggled, shifting so I could slide my thigh across his, resting in his lap with my knees straddling his thighs. He was solid under me, hands coming to my hips to steady me.
“Fuck,” he murmured as I settled on top of him.
“That’s better.” I dragged a fingertip along his hairline, and he tensed under me, his thigh muscles flexing at my touch and his hips giving a subtle thrust upward. I wanted more. I wanted so much more.
I gave an experimental roll with my hips, finding him hard between us, and I moved one hand to the back of his neck, scratching his nape gently. “What if it was real?”
Kieran’s hands settled at my waist, his thumbs on my waistband and then rolling in circles along my hip bone. “If you and me was real?”
“Yeah.” I rolled my hips again, grinding against him through his jeans and my yoga pants, my body lighting up at the pressure, and months’ worth of touches and looks and fantasies were building to a crescendo. “If we were real and you swept me off my feet to a remote cabin in the woods after I had a horrible day.” I bit my lip as the promise of how good this could be tiptoed through my body. “What would you do?”
Attraction was never an issue, but I’d messed so many things up in the last week, I wasn’t sure I could handle Kieran turning me down, but with the fire, and his roaming hands, I couldn’t stop myself from asking. The “what if we were real?” game was the fantasy I loved to sink into at night alone. But now he was under me, looking at me, and I held my breath when he opened his mouth to speak.
“If we were real…” Kieran’s gaze fell to my lips and then lower to the dipping neckline of my top. “I’d kiss you. I’d kiss your lips and along your throat.” His palms slid up my side and under my T-shirt, moving slowly over my ribs. “Your shoulders and right here along all five freckles.” He touched the space between the tops of my breasts. “And make sure you knew you were the most incredible, irresistible woman I’d ever met.”
“I’d remind you that you tell me that all the time.”
The tips of the fingers on his right hand grazed the underside of my bra, and I shivered. “If this were real,” he said, his fingers against my sensitive skin like a slow-moving trickle of water, inching closer and closer to my nipple, “you’d know I would never stop telling you how much you mean to me.” He diverted the path of his fingers to stroke up the side of my breast, but the groan of frustration I might have let out was interrupted by his lips grazing the base of my throat. “How your voice makes me smile.” His nose moved along my neck as he kissed up. “How I dream of the way you taste when you come.” His lips touched the corner of mine. “How lucky you make me feel.”
“What if tonight it’s real?” My head was spinning and my body was on fire everywhere we connected. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Are you sure?” His hands stilled, but he pulled his head back to meet my eyes, and his gaze was intense and searching. “That’s not why I brought you here. I just wanted to get you away.”
“I know.” I stroked his face, the pressure between my legs maddening. “But…” I rolled against him again. “It doesn’t change what we both want.”
His eyelids fell, the angles of his face highlighted by the flickering shadows, and he was quiet for so long, I doubted my decision until his hand began a slow slide up my back. “No photos.”
“One,” I said with a grin as his palm moved over my bra strap. “Don’t you think our waiting public would want to know?”
“No deal.” He stroked the nape of my neck. “If we’re doing this, it’s not for anyone else.”
“Just us,” I said on a gasp when he pulled my face to his and pumped his hips.
“Fuck.” His lips crashed down on mine, the kiss inelegant and needy, and I was ready when he wrapped his fingers around the back of my head and pulled me in as it deepened. “I’ve wanted this for months,” he said, running kisses down my neck, the bruising kiss of moments before now a series of teasing, soft licks.
“We deserve some fun,” I said on a pant when his wide palm cupped my breast through the thin fabric of my shirt, and a moan escaped my lips. We’d spent so much time pretending, so much time pushing this thing between us to the side, that every part of me craved his touch.
“You deserve everything,” he said, rolling my nipple through my bra, and I ignored the warm sensation that had nothing to do with his straining cock under me and everything to do with how those words curled around my heart. “What do you need right now?” His lips dipped to my throat again, and I rolled my hips faster, seeking more pressure and friction. “I want you to feel so good.”
“I need to see what you’re like when you’re not worried about keeping everything under control, when you don’t have to be responsible and think about other people.”
“What if all I want to think about is you?”
His intense gaze was like a caress up my spine. I reached between us, stroking his length through his jeans. “Do you think about me a lot?”
“Fuck. Yes,” he said against my cheek, his lips moving lower and sucking my nipple into his mouth over my shirt. “You make me want to lose control.”
“Lose it,” I panted, and Kieran rolled me to my back. My yelp caught against his lips when his mouth crashed down on mine again.
Kieran’s fingers skated between us and under the waist of my yoga pants, sliding lower with teasing, sure fingers. “I want to taste you again like I did the first night,” he said, pressing a finger in circles around my clit, the fabric between us simultaneously adding to and robbing me of the full experience. “Do you know how good you taste?”
“And then?”
The light flickered again before cutting out, leaving us in only the firelight, with flickers of shadows playing across his face as he lowered himself from the couch to the rug, tugging me to the edge of the cushion and pulling my yoga pants and underwear down my thighs. “I know some things we could try,” he said, kissing my knee.
“Creativity is important,” I said, letting my knees fall apart. “Fundamental.” My head fell back against the couch when his breath teased my clit.
Kieran slid the flat of his tongue up my slit, and I groaned, immediately needing more, but he kept teasing me with long, languid strokes of his tongue as if in answer.
“Oh, God.” I groaned again when his long, thick middle finger slid into me, curling to just the right spot and making me arch against him.
“It’s been such a long day, just make me forget I made such a mess of everything.” My breath stuttered when he curled his finger again while making tight, fast circles over my clit, interrupting the pattern with a diagonal flick of his tongue that had me crying out.
“You’re perfect. You’re mine,” he said, continuing his finger’s maddening pace. “The only mess you’re making right now will be you coming all over my face.” He swirled his tongue around my clit. “Understood?”
I nodded, my head tipping back.
“Say it,” he said, adding a second finger, holding my waist, his shoulders spreading my thighs wide. “Say you’re perfect.” His breath teased over me, and I needed his mouth. “Admit what I already know,” he said softly, meeting my eyes. He curled his fingers inside me. “Say it.”
“I can’t,” I panted, squirming against him.
“If this was real, I’d spend hours, days, years reminding you that you’re perfect. You’re the perfect version of you, and you are perfect to me.” He dropped a kiss next to my clit. “And I need you to know it.” He teased his tongue just outside where I needed it, making every nerve ending spark in anticipation.
“I’m perfect,” I mewled, pressing my hand over my face as the words left my lips, but there was no time for embarrassment, because his lips and tongue were on me, and there was nothing else in my brain other than the wave after wave of pleasure he was pulling from me. And I felt perfect.
There was something so incredibly hot about him not speaking, not taking a break from my body to offer banter or respond. His mouth was responding, and my pleasure pulled into tight coils low in my belly. His consistent swirling motion had me on the edge. The next swipe of his tongue over my clit broke me, and I bowed off the couch, crying out with the warm air on my bare skin as the rolls of pleasure moved from my center outward.
Finally, Kieran raised his head, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Fuck,” I said with a slow smile.