Chapter 10 Deirdre
Deirdre
“Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?” Edgar Allan Poe
“Ihate to break up the party, but I have to go get ready for work.” Gabe looks at me, slightly concerned. “D, you good?”
I nod. “I’m okay. Thank you for dinner.”
He grabs his keys off the desk, and Claire follows him to the door.
“I’m going to walk him down,” she says over her shoulder as they exit the room.
The second the door closes behind Claire and Gabe, the air in the room shifts. It’s quieter, almost too quiet, and heavy with things neither of us has said yet.
Kieran doesn’t move at first. He stands near my desk, one hand resting against the edge like he’s anchoring himself there. His eyes are on me, intense as usual, and I feel the weight of them all over my skin.
“You okay?” he asks…again.
I nod, but it’s not convincing. “Yeah…just tired of pretending everything’s fine when it’s not. Tired of worrying that Sheridan’s watching us like a hawk.”
His gaze drops for a second before coming back to mine. “You were incredible today,” he says, his voice softer now. “Returning back to this room, facing it the way you did. That takes a kind of strength that amazes me.”
My throat tightens. I want to deflect with some smart-ass comment, but the look in his eyes won’t let me.
“You think I’m strong,” I whisper, “but you didn’t see what it felt like. You didn’t feel how helpless I was.”
Kieran walks toward me slowly, crouching in front of where I sit on the bed. His hands slide gently over my knees, grounding me.
“You weren’t helpless,” he says, voice low and rough. “You survived. And now you’re fighting every damn day to get stronger. That’s not a weakness, Deirdre. That’s resilience.”
I blink, swallowing the hard knot in my throat, trying to blink back tears already pricking at my eyes. His words crack something open in me.
“I hated being in that hospital,” I admit. “And now that I’m home, I won’t get to see you every day. Not with the drug dog sniffing around like he is.”
Kieran’s expression softens even more. He lifts one hand, brushing my hair behind my ear, fingers lingering along my jaw.
“You’ll still see me,” he murmurs. “Every day. I don’t care what Sheridan is trying to prove. I’m not staying away from you.”
“Kieran, we have to be careful,” I breathe, leaning into his touch.
He leans in, his forehead resting against mine. “I love you,” he says, and even though he’s said it before, it hits me like it’s brand new. Like I’ve never heard anything more important.
I close my eyes. “Say it again.”
“I love you,” he whispers, his warm lips brushing my cheek now, trailing toward my mouth. “More than anything.”
When his lips finally meet mine, it’s gentle at first, sweet and slow. Like he’s trying to memorize the taste of me. I melt into it, my hands finding his shoulders, his shirt curling beneath my fingers.
I can feel his hesitancy as our kiss deepens. I part my lips, inviting him in. My pulse stutters when his hand cups the back of my neck, and I feel the ache of wanting him again, every part of me waking up in response to him.
He pulls back only slightly, just enough to look at me.
“You sure you’re up for this?”
I let out a faint hum, “Mmhmm…”
His eyes darken, and for the first time since I came back, I feel like I’ve come home.
Kieran stays close, his hand still resting on my neck, his thumb gently stroking the skin just under my jaw.
It’s like he’s trying to ground me, keep me anchored here, in this moment where everything else falls away.
The rest of the world, Sheridan, the attack, everything, fades into the background.
It’s just him and me, and that’s enough.
His eyes search mine, his brow furrowed in a way that tells me he’s thinking deeply about something.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask, almost afraid of the answer but needing to hear it anyway.
He exhales slowly, like it’s been weighing on him for longer than I realized.
“I hate that I can’t fix this for you. For both of us.
I hate that I’m not enough to just make everything go away, the pain, the fear.
..the anger. I want to be able to give you peace, Deirdre, and I can’t. Not completely.”
I feel the tightness in my chest again. But this time, it’s different. I can’t let him carry this on his own. He’s right about one thing; he can’t fix everything, but together we can.
“You don’t have to fix it,” I say, my voice steady, but it shakes a little at the end.
“You’re doing more than enough just by being here.
Just by loving me. By not walking away when I know how hard this is for you, too.
I’m not the only one who’s hurting. You’re carrying so much, Kieran.
I don’t want you to feel like you have to be the one to make it all better. ”
He looks down for a second, like my words sink in deeper than he expected. When he looks back up, his gaze is intense and vulnerable in a way that he doesn’t let me see often. “I can’t help it. I want to make you whole again. I need to. I can’t stand the thought of you being broken, Deirdre.”
I shake my head. “But I’m not, though. Not anymore. And I won’t let this destroy me. Not with you by my side. It’ll take time, but we’ll heal. Together.”
He smiles, but it’s bittersweet. His hand moves to my cheek, his thumb gently brushing away the faintest trace of tears I didn’t even realize had fallen.
“I wish you knew how much you mean to me. How much I need you.”
My heart beats harder, faster, at the rawness of his words. “You don’t have to say it,” I whisper. “I know, Kieran.”
I lean in, closing the space between us. His lips are soft, almost hesitant at first, like he’s waiting for me to stop him, but I don’t.
When I kiss him again, it’s different. Not desperate or hurried, but slow and deep, full of the emotions that we can finally let go of after the last thirteen days. It’s the kind of kiss that speaks without words, that tells more than anything we could ever say aloud.
I pull back just enough to catch my breath, my forehead resting against his. I can feel his heart beating just as fast as mine.
“We don’t have to be secretive anymore,” he says, his lips brushing mine as he speaks. It’s a plea. He wants everyone to know.
My heart clenches. “You know that’s not true, we do for now. At least until the dust settles. I don’t want to risk either of us losing everything. Not yet.”
Kieran nods, giving in, his hand moving to the small of my back, pulling me closer. “I’ll wait as long as it takes. We’ll do it your way.”
Then, with that same careful, deliberate slowness, his lips meet mine again. This time, I don’t hold back. I open myself to him completely, my hands sliding up to tangle in his hair. The kiss deepens, and everything about it is filled with more hunger, more urgency, more need.
When we finally pull apart, I can feel the heat still radiating between us, the tension that’s been building.
He rests his forehead against mine, his breath ragged.
The air between us crackles like an electric spark, but when I lean in to kiss him again, there’s a hesitation in Kieran’s touch, a kind of restraint that pulls me back to reality. His hands hover just above my body, like he’s afraid to cross some invisible line.
I pull away slightly, looking up into his eyes, searching for the source of the distance between us. His face is conflicted, the raw intensity of his emotions flashing in his eyes.
“You don’t have to hold back,” I whisper. “You can touch me, Kieran.”
He shakes his head slightly, his thumb running over my cheek with the faintest tremor. “I’m just...scared. Scared of pushing you too far. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I can feel the weight of his words. He’s scared of hurting me.
In his eyes, he’s already had to hurt me once, the night he had to bring me back.
He’s scared of crossing a boundary, of somehow making everything worse.
The way he’s looking at me, like he’s torn between wanting to hold me and needing to keep me safe, makes my chest ache with frustration.
But there’s a fire in me, an overwhelming need, and I can’t stop it. I’ve been patient long enough. I’ve been held together by threads of hope and fear, waiting for the day I can finally be fully with him, and now, with him so close, I can’t hold back anymore.
“I need you, Kieran,” I say, my voice rough, my hands moving to pull him closer. “I need you to stop being scared of touching me. I can handle it. I can handle you.”
He doesn’t move, his gaze still fixed on mine, but there’s a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, like he’s waiting for me to pull away, to tell him it’s too much. I want to scream, to force him to understand how much I need him, but instead, I lean in again, my lips brushing his, slow and tender.
For a moment, he responds with the same gentleness, but then something shifts.
A tension coils in him, a sudden urgency in the way he kisses me, as if the restraint he’s holding on to is slipping.
His hand slides down the side of my face, resting on my neck, his thumb grazing the skin there with a possessive edge.
But then, just as I’m about to pull him closer, he breaks the kiss, breathing heavily. “I’m scared, Deirdre. I don’t want to rush this. You may be ready, but your body isn’t.”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to control the frustration bubbling inside me. I’m ready.
Fuck my body that betrayed me. I’m ready.
I can feel every inch of me aching for more of him. But I know this is hard for him, too, and I can’t rush him. I can’t push him to the edge when he’s already on the precipice of something he’s terrified of.
“Kieran,” I say, my voice is a little more forceful than I mean it to be. I pull back to look at him, my eyes boring into his, willing him to understand. “I’m not going to break. I’m not going to shatter.”