5. Ciara #2
He keeps milking me with his mouth while his fingers work lower, circling, teasing, never quite giving me what I want.
The two sensations together are almost too much: every suck matched by the slow drag of his fingers, the wet sound of him drinking filling the quiet room.
My body is trembling. The ache has turned into something sharper, hungrier.
“You’re sure,” he says one more time, forehead pressed to mine, fingers still moving between my legs, mouth still wet from my milk.
“I’m sure.”
Only then does he shift, settling between my thighs.
He moves slow when he finally pushes inside me, giving me time to adjust, his jaw tight with the effort of holding himself back.
It hurts for a second, sharp and unfamiliar, and he stills immediately, murmuring something soft against my temple, waiting until my breathing evens out before he moves again.
“Ciara.” My name again, wrecked this time, like it’s being pulled out of him. “Look at me.”
I do. His eyes are dark, focused entirely on my face, watching for every flicker of discomfort, every sign I need him to slow down. He doesn’t look away once.
“Everything in my life was chosen for me,” he says, voice thick, moving inside me with a slowness that feels like devotion.
“My name. My future. Every single thing Declan’s ever handed me.
” His hand finds mine, fingers lacing tight against the sheets.
“You’re the first thing I’ve ever chosen for myself. ”
Everything in me gives way at once, bigger than every touch, every kiss, every moment leading up to this. I pull him closer, wrap my legs around him, and he groans against my throat, picking up a deeper rhythm that has both of us gasping within minutes.
“Cillian—” I don’t even know what I’m asking for anymore. More. Deeper. Him. All of him.
He gives it to me. Every slow, deliberate thrust builds something enormous low in my belly, and when his hand finds my breast again, working me there while he moves inside me, the two sensations tangle until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Milk spills between us. I’m shaking, right at the edge of something I don’t have a name for.
The rhythm changes, deepens. His control finally slips.
His forehead drops to mine, breath ragged against my mouth.
Every place our bodies meet feels like a small, devastating confession.
I hold onto him like he’s the only steady thing left in a world that stopped making sense the second I stepped out of that car.
“Come for me,” he breathes. “I’ve got you. All of you.”
I do. I shatter completely, his name breaking out of me in a sound I’ve never made before. I feel him follow right after, groaning low against my throat, his whole body going rigid as he comes deep inside me. He collapses carefully over me, still buried to the hilt, both of us breathing hard.
For a long moment neither of us moves. I can feel his heart hammering against mine, both of us slick with sweat, tangled so tightly it feels like we might actually come apart if we separate.
“Ciara.” He finally lifts his head, brushing damp hair back from my face with a tenderness that undoes me almost as much as everything before it. “You okay?”
“More than okay.” I mean it completely. I’ve never felt this light or this content in my entire life.
He eases us both onto our sides, pulling me against his chest, and I let myself sink into him, soft and spent. His hand traces slow lines down my spine, unhurried, like he’s not in any rush to stop touching me now that he’s finally allowed himself to start.
“You don’t have anything to hide from me,” he says quietly into my hair. “Not tonight. Not ever. I mean that, Ciara.”
I don’t answer right away. I just breathe him in, let the words settle into all the places I’ve spent my whole life keeping guarded. Something that’s been tight in my chest for years finally loosens.
“Can I tell you something?” I say eventually, my voice small against his chest.
“Of course.”
“I’ve never let anyone see me like this.
Not just tonight. Any of it. The crying, the panic, the milk, all of it.
” I press my palm flat against his sternum, feeling his heartbeat slow under my hand.
“I spent my whole life making sure nobody got close enough to see the parts of me I couldn’t control.
And you’ve seen almost all of them in such a short time. ”
“I’m glad.” He presses his lips to the top of my head. “I’m not going anywhere, Ciara. Whatever you’re still hiding, whatever’s left. Every old and new part of you—I want it too.”
Something about the way he says it, plain and certain, without a single trace of performance, makes my throat go tight.
I’ve had people tell me they love me before.
My mother. A friend. A boyfriend who never lasted past the first real argument.
None of them ever said anything that felt this solid. This real.
His phone buzzes somewhere on the nightstand.
I feel him go tense against me, just slightly, the same way he did in the boathouse.
For one second something colder flickers behind his eyes.
That other version of him I still don’t fully understand.
He reaches over, glances at the screen, and silences it without a word.
Then he sets it face down and pulls me right back against his chest like nothing happened at all.
“You don’t have to do that,” I murmur. “If you need to take it.”
“I don’t need to do anything right now except this.” His arms tighten around me, certain and unshakable. “Whatever that is, it can wait.”
I want to ask more. I want to know what could possibly matter enough to buzz at this hour and still lose to me.
But his hand keeps moving along my spine, slow and steady, and the exhaustion finally catches up with me all at once.
My eyes grow heavy despite everything my mind is still trying to work through.
“Sleep,” he murmurs. He reaches up, tucking the loose hair from my face behind my ear with quiet, practiced gentleness. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
He stays exactly where he is, one arm locked around my waist, the other hand moving slowly up and down my back in long, steady strokes. He doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t shift or check the time. He just holds me while my breathing slowly evens out against his chest.
After a while he reaches for the soft throw at the end of the bed and pulls it over both of us, tucking it carefully around my shoulders so the cool night air can’t touch my skin.
His fingers brush the marks he left on my throat and the underside of my breasts, checking them with quiet attention, making sure nothing hurts more than it should.
“You did so well,” he murmurs against my hair. “Rest now. There’s nothing else that matters.”
He presses a kiss to my temple, then another to the top of my head, lingering there. I feel the steady rise and fall of his chest under my cheek and the solid heat of him surrounding me.
I gave him everything tonight. My body. My fear. The truth I’ve spent my whole life hiding from everyone who ever claimed to love me.
He didn’t flinch once.
I fall asleep like that, wrapped in him, fully aware of what I’ve just done, and for the first time in so long, not feeling even a trace of shame about it.
Whatever this costs us later, whatever Declan or my mother or the rest of this family would say if they knew, I can’t bring myself to regret a single second of tonight.
Not the tea. Not the boathouse. Not any of it.
For the first time since I arrived in Ireland, I fall asleep without bracing for morning.