Chapter 32 Deirdre
Deirdre
“I could not love except where Death was mingling his with Beauty’s breath.” Edgar Allan Poe
“Kieran,” I whisper, reaching for his sleeve. His arm is iron beneath my hand.
“They don’t know anything,” his voice low and raw. “But they talk like they do. Like you’re…” His teeth click shut, cutting off the rest. His eyes are blazing under the mask, fixed on the space where the professors disappeared.
Before he can act, before he can explode and confirm every poisonous rumor they just fed, I tug insistently at his arm.
“Come with me.”
He resists for half a breath, then lets me pull him away from the glittering chandeliers, away from anyone’s gaze, down the long marble corridor where the music and laughter fade behind us.
My heart hammers, not from the music or the champagne, but from the words still gnawing at my skin. ‘Pathetic…on her knees…risk his reputation’. They weren’t words meant to wound—they were daggers, sharpened and thrown with precision.
I know what people think when they see me standing beside him.
I know the rumors are true, and we’re just dodging them until we can become something viable, something public.
But hearing it out loud, from men who wear the same academic robes and smile with the same self-importance as Sheridan, it cuts deeper than I want to admit.
And, God, Kieran. His silence back there was worse than rage. The way he held his composure, ready to shatter glass just to drown them out. If I hadn’t pulled him, he would’ve gone after them.
And Sheridan would have loved that.
The air cools as we leave the ballroom behind. Our footsteps carry us down a hallway decorated with golden frames that cast heavy shadows against the wall, until finally we stop, breathless.
That’s when I see it.
The painting towers over us: The Meeting on the Turret Stairs. A knight clutching the arm of a woman, her body twisted as if torn between resistance and surrender. Their moment—secret, forbidden, dangerous—immortalized in brushstrokes.
The memory of it hits me like a freight train. It’s the painting that Kieran asked me to interpret on our first date with Gabe and Claire.
Kieran’s breath hisses through clenched teeth as his palm drags down his face, leaving red streaks. “I can’t…” His voice drops to a guttural whisper. “When they talk about you like you’re some piece of ass…”
The tendons in his neck strain against the collar of his suit. His eyes dart wildly, pupils blown wide, as a vein pulses at his temple.
I reach for his trembling hand; it’s burning hot against my palm.
“Look. At. Me.”
His gaze crashes into mine, fractured beneath the hard edge of his mask. I step closer until I can feel the heat radiating off him, until his ragged breath warms my forehead.
“Let them talk,” I whisper, swallowing the tremor threatening to break my voice. “Let them choke on their own poison.”
His fingers interlock with mine, crushing, desperate; the same grip that anchored me to this world when monitors screamed in that sterile hospital room.
Now I’m the lifeline.
I glance back at the painting, at the way the knight clings to her as if he’ll never let go.
“Do you remember what you said when we saw this that night with Claire and Gabe?”
Kieran eyes once over the painting, and his breath hitches as he remembers that evening.
“Not all forbidden love ends in tragedy.”
His thumb brushes against my wrist. “But it’s inevitable, is it not?”
My chest tightens, my pulse thrumming in my ears.
“Kieran, we’ve clawed our way out of hell, bleeding, broken, and bruised. I will not let everything we’ve fought for end in another tragedy.”
We stand there, caught in the shadow of the painting, and for a moment it feels like we’ve stepped inside it. We’re two people who shouldn’t, who can’t, but who will anyway.
Kieran’s hand tightens on mine, then slips higher, up my arm, anchoring me against the wall beneath the painting. The cool marble at my back only intensifies the heat pouring off him. His mask shadows half his face, but nothing could disguise the hunger in his eyes.
“They think you’re a distraction,” he rasps, “when you’re the only thing keeping me sane.”
My breath catches as his body closes the last inches of space, caging me in without touching…yet. My heartbeat is everywhere: in my throat, in my ears, pounding against his palm where he pins me.
“Kieran…”
“Do you know what it does to me?” His lips brush the curve of my cheek, not a kiss, just a ghost of one. “Hearing them talk about you like that? As if you’re…”
He breaks off, jaw clenched. His forehead drops against mine, his restraint unraveling in hot, ragged breaths.
I slide my hand along his chest, feel the sharp rise and fall of each inhale beneath the crisp lines of his tux.
“Then prove them wrong,” I whisper.
That undoes him.
His mouth finds mine, desperate, a kiss that tastes of defiance and need. The world outside falls away. It’s just the two of us, caught in the forbidden moment that the painting immortalizes.
His hand slides to the small of my back, pulling me flush against him, while the other braces me to the wall above my head, a promise that he’ll never let me go.
I gasp into him, my fingers curling in his coat, anchoring myself as he deepens the kiss. It’s reckless, dangerous, intoxicating, and I don’t care.
I don’t care if the whole museum burns down around us.
When he finally breaks away, his lips hover at my ear, his voice a growl threaded with need.
“You’re mine, Deirdre. Not a rumor, not a weapon, not their plaything. You’re the pulse in my veins.”
My lips part, but no sound comes. I can only nod, my pulse bounding.
He tightens his grip on my wrist against the wall. The pressure isn’t harsh, but it’s unrelenting, an anchor that leaves me trembling. His other hand hovers just shy of my waist, fingers splayed, delicately grazing over the lace fabric.
“Kieran…” My voice is barely audible, almost lost under the muffled swell of the string quartet bleeding in from the atrium.
His mouth lowers, brushing the corner of mine, not a kiss but the promise of one. “Tell me to stop.”
I don’t. Instead, I lean into him, and that’s all it takes.
The hand on my hip slides down the curve of my ass, gripping beneath my right thigh and hoisting my leg around his waist. My dress gapes open.
“Someone could walk down this hallway,” I tease, arching into his touch.
He groans deep in my mouth, the vibration igniting sparks along my spine, then crushes his lips to mine again.
I tip my head back, pressing in, craving every inch until the world spins. His lips trail slow fire across my throat while his thumb teases merciless circles around my clit. I clamp my teeth shut to stifle my moan as his fingers brush against me through the thin silk of my underwear.
“Let them,” he whispers, his voice gravelly against my ear.
My hips jerk, chasing the delicious friction.
My free hand fumbles at his belt buckle, breathless to feel him.
He drops his slacks just far enough to free his cock, hard against my thigh.
He pins me to the cold marble wall, his body hot and unyielding.
I lock my leg tighter around him as he slides my panties aside and plunges into me in one brutal, perfect stroke.
The way he stretches my pussy has me crying out, my back arching away from the wall.
“Yes…yes,” I pant, my voice ragged.
“Make those beautiful sounds for me.” His whisper rasps with dark hunger, “Your tight pussy grips my cock so perfectly.”
He picks up a frantic tempo, each thrust harder and faster, like the breaking of waves against rock.
The danger, the risk of discovery, only fans my fire.
I bite my lip until it bleeds, pressing my palm to his shoulders for leverage as my nails dig into the fabric of his shirt.
His powerful hips slam into me again and again, each impact sending jolts of heat through my core.
Kieran’s breath comes in stuttering bursts, his chest heaving against my front as he ruthlessly drives into me.
His grunts thrum through my body, “Your cunt is perfect for me.”
“My.”
Thrust.
“Fucking.”
Thrust.
“Slut.”
“Kieran!” I scream, my voice ricocheting off the silent halls, nearly drowned by the distant museum music. The ache coils low in my belly, and I clamp my leg around him as a slick wave intensifies behind my eyes.
A bead of sweat snakes down his temple as he hammers into me harder.
“That’s it,” he growls.
“That’s it. Let me hear you.”
I dig my nails in deeper, each plunge impaling me on his thick cock.
“Fuck!” I roar, my climax crashing over me in white-hot surges.
He doesn’t let up, sliding in time with the music flowing in the corridor until I’m floating back from the edge, vision clearing.
His hips stutter, breath catching, and with a long, shuddering groan, he pours himself inside me. His thrusts slow to a languid pace as he buries his face in my neck, both of us trembling in the aftermath, our heavy breaths mingling in the stillness of the museum hallway.
His fingertips brush my thigh as he slides the lace back into place, his eyes never leaving mine.
My leg trembles as he guides it down from his waist. The fabric of his jacket rustles as he straightens it, his chest still rising and falling rapidly from his deep breaths.
He adjusts his mask on his face, composing himself.
“We should go,” he whispers, his breath warm against my ear. I steady myself against the wall for a moment, willing my knees to stop quivering.
Together, we step back into the glow of the gala, into chandeliers and champagne and carefully curated laughter, as if nothing had happened in the quiet corridor just a hallway away.
Claire spots me instantly and sweeps in with a grin, handing me another flute. Behind her, Gabe follows, his eyes tracking her every movement.
Time flows strangely at the gala. One moment I’m laughing at something Claire says, then find myself with champagne in hand, no memory of taking it.
String instruments transform pop songs into classical elegance while donors applaud Sheridan’s hollow platitudes.
Through it all, Kieran anchors me with his presence.
A buzz from his pocket draws my attention.
That subtle furrow appears between his eyebrows as he reads his screen. His fingers tap a response, but I glimpse the sender: Vincent.
When the crowd’s attention drifts elsewhere, Kieran’s lips nearly brush my ear.
“Vincent confirmed Bradley International. Two fifteen in the morning. The rental car will be waiting when we land.”
My stomach flips, nerves and excitement tangling together. It feels surreal, knowing that hours from now we’ll be in an airport, leaving all of this behind.
Claire’s nudge pulls me back.
Not even eleven, but her eyes gleam with conspiracy behind her mask.
“Cinderella,” she murmurs, “it’s your midnight. Better vanish before the wicked stepmother spots you.”
I glance at Kieran. He’s already watching me, nodding, waiting for my signal to leave.
And in that moment, I know—I’m ready.