Chapter 21
Samantha
When I open my eyes and see Killian has moved in front of me, his arms caging me in, every rational thought flies from my brain.
My heartbeat thumps in my ears. There’s a mixture of terror and curiosity.
It’s a miracle I haven’t kneed him in the balls.
I don’t because I feel… safe. How is that possible?
“Killian…” I whisper. I don’t know if I’m begging him to back off or kiss me.
I’m teetering on the edge of hysterics. Being trapped.
Not having control or say over what happens to my body.
It’s my living nightmare. But… I’m not feeling that.
I feel like he’s giving me a choice. And I know if I told him to back off right now he would.
“Aye?” he says, his green eyes locked on mine like he’s searching for something.
“What are you doing?” I’m breathless, surrounded by his lethal energy, his large body, his focus. He’s blocking out the entire world.
There’s a slight rise of his brow, then hunger darkens his expression. “I’m waiting for you to ask me to ruin you, Sam.”
And there it is. He’s waiting for my permission.
Dear God in heaven. Yes, ruin me.
A whimper sneaks up my throat and that’s apparently all the permission he needs.
He presses his lips against mine softly, hesitantly at first, coaxing my mouth open with the tip of his tongue.
He tastes like champagne and dangerous promises.
I can’t even pretend to resist. And when his tongue slides in, and I feel that piercing stroking my own tongue, a burst of need jolts my core like a live wire.
“Mmm,” he moans as he wraps his strong fingers around the back of my neck and devours my mouth like a man starving.
I get lost. I feel nothing except pure physical pleasure as his eager lips move down my neck, as his teeth sink into my collarbone.
As his hot mouth sucks my skin. I am on fire with need.
“Come here.” He tugs me into his arms, against his firm, warm chest. My breaths are short and choppy.
I hear a tiny voice saying, pull away. He’s not for you.
But I’m too far over the cliff. I’m freefalling, out of control and completely at the mercy of this man.
I wrap my hands around the back of his neck.
He’s stroking the mounds of my cleavage. When his finger slips in and brushes my nipple, another jolt of need hits my core, my inner muscles contract.
“Do ya know how long I’ve ached to touch these?” His voice is a low, raspy growl full of promise and barely concealed lust.
“Tell me,” I say, already breathless.
“Since I first laid eyes on you at Sandro’s penthouse.”
My forehead is pressed against his, watching his talented fingers so I barely register what he just said. Somewhere in the lizard brain that has highjacked all rational thought, though, I feel a spark of satisfaction that he did want me back then.
He whispers, “You and those sexy bleedin’ sundresses.”
My blurry gaze is locked on his hand as he massages my tit, plucking my nipple with his thumb. He’s taking his time, watching my reaction. A pulse begins between my legs. I could come just from this touch.
When he dips his head and takes my mouth again, unclasping my bra and removing it, I take the opportunity to press myself against his hard pecs, and wrap my legs around him.
I moan into his mouth as his thick length rubs against my clit through my underwear.
Then press into him, trying to get more friction.
I know I’m being needy, but I don’t have the capacity to care.
I’ve never felt pleasure like this and it’s making me reckless.
A man has never lit me on fire from the inside, never stoked an inferno in my body that I just want to feed and feed until it explodes and consumes us both.
He suddenly pulls back. His eyes are wild, and his chest is heaving. His expression looks like he’s either pissed off or in pain.
“Feck,” he growls. “I need to taste you, Vixen.” He grabs me by the waist. I squeal as he lifts me from the water like I weigh nothing, and deposits me on the edge of the hot tub.
A warm, salty breeze caresses my steaming, wet body.
I’m staring down at him as he grabs my ankles and rests my feet on the cushion edge, opening me up to him.
His gaze is locked on my soaked underwear, but when his thumb brushes over the thick scar on my ankle, he stills.
He rubs a thumb over the raised skin, and his eyes lift to mine, fury flaring like a lightning strike.
“You will tell me how you got this.” It’s a statement, not a question.
He leans forward and kisses the scar. Then he gives me a wicked smile.
“But first, you’re going to come on my tongue.
” With that, he begins to kiss, suck and nibble his way up the inside of my calf and inner thigh.
He alternates soft sweeps of his lips and tongue with feral love bites.
I squirm with both pleasure and anxiety. I should stop him. I’ve never had a man go down on me before. What if I hate it? Pleasure and fear are at war within me.
Pleasure wins as the press of his palms opens me wider, his sinful mouth right at the edge of my underwear. He sinks his teeth into my flesh, then sucks gently. His pierced tongue begins to probe beneath the edge of my panties. I whimper, my walls contracting.
Don’t come. Don’t come.
As if he can read my body, his eyes lift to meet mine. They glow with starlight and lust. So beautiful, there’s a catch in my breath.
“Do not come yet, Vixen.” He pushes himself out of the water, locking his elbows so we’re eye to eye.
A rumble climbs up his throat as he leans forward, sinks his teeth into my bottom lip and tugs, dragging his teeth roughly before releasing me.
He runs his tongue over my throbbing lip.
It matches the beat of the throbbing between my legs.
“Your mouth should be bloody illegal,” he whispers. Then he squeezes his eyes closed for a moment before he lowers himself back into the bubbling water.
He starts at the other ankle, kissing and biting his way up my left calve and inner thigh. The pause has given my arousal a few moments to come down in intensity.
But, his hot mouth greedily sucking my inner thigh has the intensity shooting up sky high again. I dig my fingers into his scalp. “Killian, please…you’re torturing me,” I moan.
He chuckles and runs a knuckle along the fabric over my clit, causing me to jerk forward. “So responsive,” he muses. Then he tugs my underwear aside, and I feel the air one second before he seals his hot mouth over me.
“Oh, God.” I once again dig my fingers into his scalp and stop breathing as he alternates a hard sucking motion and circling my clit with his wicked tongue. The tongue piercing puts just the right amount of pressure on the bundle of nerves. My walls are contracting and the emptiness is painful.
“OhGodKillianpleasefuckplease,” I cry on a sudden exhale. I need him inside me. His tongue. His fingers. His cock. I don’t care at this point.
His fingers spread me wider and his tongue slides down, circling my opening with intensifying pressure.
Again… that piercing. Holy fuck. I know this area has the second highest concentration of nerve endings, and that tiny ball of metal is working every last one.
A gush of fluid has him lapping at me with a flattened tongue.
“This pussy,” he hums. “Fuckin’ delicious.” His words cause me to glance down at him. He looks up, his lips glistening. “You say my name when you come, yeah?”
I nod, starry-eyed and at his mercy. I would jump off a building right now if he told me to.
He returns to using his fingers to spread my lips, his gaze and tongue fixated on my pussy.
I watch in a daze as he finally pushes his tongue deep inside me, lifting it to press his piercing against my top wall, right on my G-spot.
He finds a rhythm, licking, sucking, fucking me deep with his tongue.
It’s too much. The need he’s building in me is maddening.
My thighs try to clamp together. I stifle a scream, my breathing coming in such short gasps I may hyperventilate. He pushes in deeper, his tongue moving in faster strokes. He hums in pleasure as my legs begin to shake, and I feel the vibration against my flesh.
I have zero control of my body as I grind against his mouth, all thoughts gone. My hips buck. He pins my thighs down with his arm. I throw my head back and cry out as the release hits, blowing me back to stardust. “Killian!”
He slips two fingers inside me, giving my spasming muscles something to contract around. I push into his hand, his name still echoing in my brain. Nonsensical noises and whimpers escaping my throat.
“Such a good girl, love,” he says, sliding his fingers in and out slowly while I come down from outer space.
I let my head fall against the white cushion behind me. I’m Jell-O. Complete mush. I can only lie here, breathing, staring up at the star-filled sky. “Give me a sec,” I whisper as I feel Killian push himself out of the water and sit beside me.
Briefly I think about returning the favor, but I’m not ready for that. And luckily, he doesn’t seem inclined to ask or demand. I feel so free though. I want to scream a big fuck you to Michael. You didn’t win, you fucking psychopath. I can still feel pleasure from a man.
After my breathing evens out, Killian’s voice floats on the breeze. There’s a hint of concern. “You all right?”
I let out a sigh, not sure if I am or not. “My grandma once told me that sometimes life is standing over your mom’s grave, leaking tears into the dirt. And sometimes it’s the stars twinkling above you while a man works his magic tongue between your legs.”
Killian’s laughter is sharp and high. “She did not.”
I turn and grin at him. “Not quite in those words.” Then I feel the weight of my past come crashing back down like a ton of bricks. “I think her point was life is a contradiction, and you have to take the bad with the good. It was nice to forget the bad for a while. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, love.” He gently lifts my bare leg and wraps his palm around my scarred ankle. “Now tell me about this.”
It must be the exhaustion, or how he’s cracked me open and lowered my guard. Because I hear myself say, “From when I was chained in hell by the devil.”
And then I’m back there. In the bedroom that would become my prison for the next thirteen months. Coming out of a drug-induced haze, trying to fight as Michael clamped a metal cuff around my ankle.
“What are you doing, Michael?” Tears blurred my vision but not enough to miss the cruel set of his jaw, the satisfied tilt of his smile. He grabbed my other ankle as I kicked out at him. His dark eyes narrowed on me.
“This will go much easier for you if you just accept that I own you now.” He raked his gaze down my body, and I was suddenly aware of the cold air.
Oh my God, I’m naked. I wrapped my arms around my bare breasts as a sob escaped. This couldn’t be happening. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
He dropped my leg and unbuckled his belt. “Just making lemonade out of lemons, Samantha. You shouldn’t have been so nosey.” Once he has his belt in his hand, he folds it in half. “The choice was to kill you or find a way to control you. You should thank me. I spared your life.”
I screamed as the belt cane down like fire on my stomach.
He grabbed my hands and jerked them over my head, bringing the belt down hard across my breasts.
One blow after another rained down on my body in a violent assault.
My throat was raw from screaming. I was trembling and sweating by the time he removed the rest of his clothes and climbed on top of me.
“Please… don’t…” I sobbed. But I saw the excitement in his eyes, felt the hard length of it pressed between my legs. And knew that my nightmare had just begun.
I’m not sure how much time has gone by when I tune back in to Killian’s voice.
“Sam, you’re safe. Wherever you just went, you’re not there.
” Then I feel a cold sensation in my palm.
Slowly I look down. He’s pressing ice from the champagne bucket into my palm, closing my fingers around it. “Can you feel that?”
I nod slowly, blinking, disconnected and far away.
He curses under his breath. “Tell me three things you smell, yeah.”
His voice is a gentle command, so I obey. “Chlorine, saltwater,” I blink, the world drawing closer as I bring my gaze up to meet his. “Your cologne. It’s nice. New.”
He opens my palm and lets the melted ice fall. “Good girl. Welcome back.”
Shit. I dissociated. A shiver wracks my body.
He reaches out like he wants to hold me but hesitates. “Will you at least talk to Lennon about it?”
Is that who he learned the ice trick from, and the tell-me-three-things-you-smell one, to get someone grounded?
I sit up, feeling the panic set in. I shake my head. “I won’t put her in danger. I need to go. It’s late.” Pushing myself to standing, I glance around for my bra.
Killian stands, too, then moves in front of me. “Hang on a minute, Sam.”
I raise my chin and meet his eyes, clocking the shifting emotions. Concern. Rage. Empathy. “This devil… is that who you’re running from?” When I open my mouth then quickly close it, he sighs. “You can at least tell me that, yeah.”
I’m wrecked. Exhausted. Confused. Scared.
“Yes,” I say, sounding exasperated to my own ears.
I have to go before I say too much. But I don’t want him to think I don’t appreciate our time together tonight.
Because I do. It’s the first time a man has touched me since Michael.
The first time I’ve wanted a man to touch me.
It’s a breakthrough. A little bit of healing. And now a memory of sex being good.
I find and reclasp my wet bra, then walk back to stand in front of him. Looking up into his now guarded expression, I make sure he can see the sincerity in mine. “Thank you for tonight.” I lift up on my toes and press a soft kiss to his mouth.
He reaches out and runs a warm palm down my arm. “Let me give you a ride home.”
I shake my head and fight the need to step into him. My priority has to be getting Rona out of Florida. I can’t get distracted by this man, as much as I want to. “I’m good. I have my car.”
He doesn’t reach out for me. Just accepts my decision and lets me walk away.