24. Valentina #3
His mouth is on mine almost violently, and I meet him with equal desperation. There’s no sweetness in it—just raw, unrestrained need, as if we’re trying to anchor ourselves in each other. His hands slide over my body, rough and possessive, claiming every inch of me.
“I need you,” he growls against my neck, his voice ragged. His words send a shiver through me, igniting something deep inside. I can feel it—he needs me just as much as I need him.
My hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss, matching his urgency.
His leg rests between my legs and my body arches in response when it brushes against my heated core.
We don’t wait.
There’s no gentleness, no softness—just the frantic need to hold onto each other, to assure ourselves that we’re alive, that we survived this. He presses me harder against the wall, his body a furnace against mine.
I can feel his pulse, fast and frantic, matching my own. The world outside doesn’t exist in this moment. Only him. Only us.
Our mouths clash again, forceful and claiming. Cillian’s hands slide up my body to plunge underneath my sweater, grasping my breast. He groans. “Are you seriously not wearing a bra?”
His thumb flicks over my peaked nipple. “You’re asking the wrong question,” I gasp, arching into his touch.
“Hmm.” Cillian thumbs my other nipple and pure pleasure shoots through me. “And what question should I be asking?”
“Whether I’m wearing panties,” I manage to say.
Cillian’s curse is loud and filthy and I can’t help but laugh at that. Something about pregnancy has made my skin super sensitive and undergarments just aren’t cutting it right now.
He works my breasts, his fingers kneading them softly until I grind my hips against his leg still in between mine.
Cillian growls and presses his body flush against mine, the hard length of him pressing into my stomach.
I try to move my hand in between us to touch him through his pants, but he grabs my wrists and pins them over my head.
“I don’t think so,” he murmurs into my collar bone.
He uses one of his hands to continue to pin my wrists while the other yanks my leggings down.
He pulls back to look down and a strangled groan falls from his lips.
“Fuck me, you weren’t lying,” he murmurs as he kneels down before me, hands on both of my thighs.
With a wink at me, he spreads my legs and licks me.
A loan moan rips from my chest at the feeling of his tongue against my heat. He circles the apex of my thighs, his teeth scraping slightly, and huffs a laugh against me when my hips buck and yet another moan escapes me.
“I’ll never get sick of hearing you make those noises,” he says before continuing.
My fingers grip his hair as his tongue works me in long strokes.
He slips a finger into me and I whimper, biting my lip in an effort to be quiet.
He adds a second finger and I feel the heat pooling in my stomach, begging for release.
I grip his hair harder when his fingers begin pumping faster inside me, sensing how close I am.
Cillian sucks my clit, and I look down at him on his knees before me. The sight of him undoes me and I arch off the wall as my orgasm rocks through me, my legs quivering.
He stands up, his lips shiny, and his hands go to my hips to support me while I finish coming down from my orgasm.
My lips crash against his and I can taste myself on him.
He groans deeply into my mouth as he pushes me back up against the wall, a hand coming between us to undo his pants.
I pull them down myself and they pool around his ankles, the full length of him springing free.
I can feel my slickness against my thighs and I place my hands around his neck as he lifts me up, his strong hands gripping either thigh.
My legs wrap around his waist as he slides into me. I cry out as he hisses through his teeth at how wet I am before he begins moving slowly inside me.
“Faster,” I whimper, unable to handle just how good this feels. Holding his face in my hands, I kiss him as I start to move against him, wanting to feel that delicious friction.
I meet him thrust for thrust as he slides a hand up to squeeze my breast, rolling my sensitive nipple between his fingers.
My head falls back against the wall and a moan escapes me before I can stop myself.
The sound seems to spur Cillian on because he thrusts rougher into me, his hips smacking into mine.
His breath comes in huffs as he adjusts his grip on my hips and pounds deeper into me.
His lips crash against mine to devour my moan as release shudders through me, my walls clenching and squeezing him as he spills into me.
Cillian continues thrusting, his movements wild and unrestrained as we both come down from our high.
His hips finally slow before he buries his face in the crook of my neck, his breaths coming in pants.
I brush his hair off his sweaty forehead and kiss the top of his head.
“Bed?” I remark, my legs shaking.
“Bed,” he agrees.
We end up tangled together in the dark, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my shoulder.
His heartbeat is steady under my cheek.
The city hums outside.
I’m half asleep and warm all the way through for the first time in months.
“I was thinking,” I say sleepily.
A large arm sweeps up my arm. “Mmm. That’s dangerous.”
I pinch his side. He doesn’t flinch, which is annoying. “I was thinking we should go somewhere. Before the baby comes. Just the two of us, out of the city, somewhere that isn’t—” I gesture vaguely at the general concept of our life. “This.”
Cillian stops stroking my arm and I frown, pushing my arm toward him in a silent demand for him to keep going. He chuckles but resumes. “Like a babymoon?”
I lift my head and look at him, wrinkling my nose. “Don’t ever say that word again.”
“Why? That’s what it’s called.”
“Well, it’s a dumb word and I won’t have it.” I put my head back down. “I just think it would be good for us. To get out. Away from Connor and Leo and the investigation and all of it. Somewhere we can just—” I pause, searching for the right word. “Relax.”
Cillian is quiet for a moment, his fingers still blessedly moving on my skin. “Where would you want to go? Paris? Rome?”
“Ugh, no. I’ve been there too many times.” I wrinkle my nose.
Cillian’s chest rumbles with amusement. “Okay, so no big city. What about camping? We can go out west.”
Who the fuck does he think I am? “Me? Roughing it?” I am horrified. “Cillian, a Marriott hotel is roughing it for me. Do you really think I could handle sleeping in a tent and pissing and shitting in a hole in the ground?”
My husband snorts. “We’d be in a campground—”
“Oh god,” I moan. “I’d have to use a communal bathroom?”
This time Cillian lets out a bark of laughter. “There’s that Santoro princess I know and love,” he teases and my heart leaps when he says and love. I’ll never get sick of it. “Fine. No camping. No Paris and Rome. Where do you want to go?”
I think about it, my hand on his bare stomach, tracing his abs and smiling slightly as he sucks in a breath. Someone’s ticklish. “Somewhere quiet and beautiful.” I pause. “Somewhere no one knows us.”
“So definitely not a staycation.”
“Definitely not.”
He presses his lips to the top of my head. “Okay. Let’s do it. I’ll talk to Connor, make sure there’s nothing urgent. We’ll go somewhere for a week, just us.”
Warmth spreads through me and I put my hand on the curve of my stomach.
I swear I’ve been able to feel the baby move. Cillian’s hand finds mine there in the dark without either of us saying anything about it.
We survived it.
The lies and the distance and the carefully engineered attempt to take us apart.
We came out the other side battered and paranoid and closer than we’ve ever been, which is not the outcome whoever hired “Claire Murphy” was going for. I find a sick sense of satisfaction in that.
They’re still out there. Some nights it’s all I can think about.
But Cillian’s heartbeat is steady under my cheek and his hand is warm over mine and we’re having a baby. That’s going to have to be enough.
It is enough.