Chapter 9
CILLIAN
The view from the floor is a revelation of ruin.
She looks like a vengeful saint, hair a dark silk curtain framing a face that finally matches the fire in her eyes.
I’ve spent years mastering the art of the cold, planned strike, but here, under the weight of her knees and the heat of her gaze, the shadows I inhabit are beginning to burn.
She wraps her hand around me, and the ensuing jolt is about as sweet as heaven. I’m a man of infinite patience, a man who knows the value of the slow bleed, but the way she looks at me is testing everything I know about waiting it out.
Then she leans down.
The first touch of her tongue is a wet, searing brand.
I choke on a breath that tastes like her name, my fingers tangling in her hair with a desperation I despise and crave in equal measure.
She doesn't hesitate. She takes me into the humid heat of her mouth, a slow, sliding pull that drains the very gravity from the room.
It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt—a dark, liquid gold pouring through my veins, melting the ice I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating.
She doesn’t let up, her tongue swirling with a pressure that has my hips bucking off the floor, my heels digging into the rug.
The sound she makes, that low, vibrating hum of satisfaction against my skin, is the sweetest violence I’ve ever endured.
My control doesn't just fray. It vaporizes.
I reach out, my hands finding her waist, and I don't ask. I haul her upward, the transition from the floor to the air a blurred rush of heat and friction. I’m on my feet before she can even gasp, my strength a sudden, dark tide she can't stem.
I slam her back against the wall. Her legs wrap around my waist instinctively, her eyes blown wide, dark with the shock of my sudden reclamation.
"You want to play the predator?" I rasp, my voice a growl against her ear. "Then learn what it feels like to be hunted."
I hook one hand under her thigh, hoisting her higher until she’s pinned between the cold plaster and my burning chest. My other hand slides down, a heavy, authoritative weight that parts her legs with a brutal, beautiful efficiency.
I find her again—damp, swollen, and pulsing with the aftershocks of the table—and I drive two fingers inside her with a sudden, deep thrust that makes her back arch and her head hit the wall.
I don’t give her the mercy of a pause. My fingers are an invasion, driving into her with a dark, punishing speed that turns her gasps into ragged sobs. I watch the color climb her chest, the way her eyes roll back, the fine tremors taking hold of her limbs as she reaches that ledge once more.
The moment her walls tighten around my hand in a frantic, pulsing clench, I withdraw.
Before she can even draw the breath to protest the loss, I replace my fingers with the heavy, blunt heat of myself. I don't slide in—I drive. One deep, devastating thrust that pins her against the wall and hammers the air right out of her lungs.
The friction is a riot. The sensation of being buried deep in her searing, liquid heat is so intense, it threatens to end me right there.
"Look at me," I growl, my hands sliding up to frame her face, forcing her to see the dark, unhinged ruin she’s made of my composure.
I pull back, nearly all the way, until only the tip of me lingers in her heat, and then I surge forward again.
The sound of our skin meeting is the only thing that exists in the world.
I’m a man possessed, a creature of shadow finally finding the sun.
Each stroke is a heavy, deliberate claim, my hips hitting hers with a force that makes the wall groan behind her.
"Tell me," I rasp, my teeth grazing her ear as I pick up the pace, the friction turning from warmth to a scorching, beautiful burn. "Tell me who owns this."
She’s a mess of tangled hair and flushed skin, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her nails drawing blood through the tension of my muscles.
She doesn't answer with words. She answers by wrapping her legs tighter around my waist, pulling me in deeper, demanding every ounce of the violence I’m offering.
The pace turns frantic. I can feel the pressure building at the base of my spine, a dark, heavy tide that’s about to break the last of my dams. I bury my face in the crook of her neck, my breath hot against her skin, as I lose the ability to do anything but move.
The wall is a cold, static ghost behind her, but the heat between us is a living, devouring thing. I have her pinned, my weight a heavy anchor, and for a moment, I think I’ve finally found the bottom of her defiance.
I’m wrong.
Just as I prepare to drive into her again, she finds purchase against the wall with her heels. With a sudden, lithe strength that catches me mid-breath, she shoves. I’m forced to step back to keep my balance, and in that split second of instability, she’s down, sliding out from under me like smoke.
I turn, my blood singing a dark tune, but she’s already moving. She doesn’t retreat. She lunges, her hands flat against my chest as she maneuvers me back toward the heavy velvet armchair in the corner.
"You think because you’re louder, you’re in charge?" she pants, her eyes glowing like embers.
She shoves me into the chair. I hit the leather with a soft huff of air, my legs falling apart, completely exposed. Before I can even think of rising, she’s over me. She straddles my lap, her knees locking me into the deep cushions, her weight a sudden, glorious pressure against my thighs.
She reaches down, her fingers cool and steady as she guides me back inside her.
She doesn't rush. She lowers herself inch by agonizing inch, her eyes locked on mine, watching the way my jaw tightens until the bone threatens to snap.
The sensation of her taking all of me on her own terms is a different kind of torture—a slow, silk-lined drowning.
Once she’s seated fully, she leans forward, her damp skin pressing against my chest, her hair veiling us both. She doesn't move. She just stays there, buried deep, letting the pulse of her body mock my desperate need for rhythm.
"Don't move," she whispers.
"You’re playing with fire," I rasp, my hands hovering over her hips, itching to take back the pace, to flip her over and finish this the way I started it. My control is a thin glass thread, vibrating with the effort of not bucking upward.
"I'm the one holding the match," she counters.
She begins to move in a slow, grinding circle of her hips that makes my vision go white at the edges. It’s an agonizingly delicious friction, hitting every nerve ending with a precision that’s almost cruel. She’s milking the breath from my lungs.
I reach up, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her waist, trying to urge her faster, but she bats my hands away. She leans back, her spine arching, her breasts high and proud as she continues that torturous, slow grind.
"I didn't say you could touch," she murmurs, her voice a low, lush vibration that hits me harder than the physical contact.
I’m a man of shadows, but right now, I’m burning up in her light. I can feel the pressure coiling in my gut, a heavy, molten weight that’s becoming impossible to contain. Every time she slides up, nearly losing me, only to sink back down with a wet, heavy thud, I lose another piece of my mind.
I’ve had enough of her games. The thread finally snaps.
I reach up and seize her waist. Heaving her upward, I flip her in one fluid motion, the world spinning for a heartbeat before she’s facedown against the back of the velvet chair, her weight supported by the plush fabric and her own trembling hands.
I’m on her in an instant, a dark shadow reclaiming its territory. I don't wait for her to settle. I drive into her from behind.
"You want to hold the match?" I growl, my voice hot against the back of her neck. I wrap one hand into the mess of her hair, pulling just enough to arch her spine, while my other hand reaches around to find the slick, sensitive heat of her center. "Then watch it burn."
I set a pace that is pure, unadulterated wreck.
The chair groans under the slap of skin on skin, and the sound and the sight of her drives me on.
I can feel her fighting for breath, her fingers clawing at the velvet, but she isn't pulling away. She’s pushing back, her hips meeting mine with a frantic, desperate hunger that tells me she’s loving every second of the ruin I'm wreaking.
"Please," she sobs, the word a shattered thing. "Yes—just like that. More."
Her plea is the final spark. I pick up the speed, my movements becoming a blur of friction and heat.
I’m buried so deep, I can feel the frantic thrum of her pulse against me.
I reach down, my thumb finding that hardened, electric peak and moving in a fast circle that matches the heavy thud of my hips.
She breaks first.
I feel the first tremor start deep inside her as she lets out a long, high-pitched moan, her head falling forward as her body gives up its last defense, shattering into a thousand shards of pure pleasure.
The sensation of her coming around me is the end of my world.
The dark, heavy tide I’ve been holding back for an eternity finally bursts the dam. I let out a low, guttural roar, my eyes slamming shut as I drive into her one last, final time, burying myself to the hilt. Everything turns to white noise and molten gold.
I collapse against her back, my heart a dying bird against my ribs, our skin slick and fused together in the cooling air.
I don’t move for a few seconds, just letting my pulse settle so I don’t treat her like an opponent when this part is done. She’s breathing hard, hair everywhere, skin flushed. I reach for the blanket on the arm of the chair and pull it over her shoulders. “You okay?” I ask.
She nods once. “Yeah.”
I brush her hair off her face with the back of my fingers and check her eyes. She looks satisfied. I grab the bottle of water from the table and hand it to her.
“You’re quiet,” she says after a minute.
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
I sit back on the edge of the chair and rest my elbows on my knees. “About whether this is smart.”
She studies me instead of reacting. “And?” she asks.
“It isn’t,” I say honestly.
She smiles and takes a sip, and I immediately notice that her hands aren’t shaking. She’s not nervous about any of this, especially considering the fact that I know she’s hiding something, and there’s more to her than just a pretty face with a killer body and even better brains.
I stand and walk to the window, then back again. She watches me from where she is, almost like a cat. Some things that I’ve noticed—she reacts half a second before I speak sometimes, she asks questions that are too precise, and she holds her ground like someone trained to.
I sit beside her and rest my hand on her thigh. She doesn’t flinch. “I like fucking you,” I say plainly.
Her lips curve. “I gathered.”
“I like your body. I like how you move. I like how you don’t try to shrink in a room.”
She tilts her head slightly.
“And your mind,” I add with a dry smile. “That’s what complicates it.”
She nods. “You think I’m hiding something,” she says.
I consider the question momentarily. “I think everyone is.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me.”
That makes her laugh softly. I lean closer and brush my nose lightly against her hairline. “I don’t do chaos,” I whisper. “I think predictability is what keeps men like me alive.”
She angles her head toward me. “And I’m not predictable?”
“No.”
Silence settles between us. I could push her, corner her with questions, dig until something cracks. But for the first time, I’m enjoying this game, relishing the prospect of hunting down her secrets and watching her fold beneath me, literally and otherwise.
“I’m taking a chance,” I say.
Her eyes flick up. “On?”
“You.”
She doesn’t respond immediately.
“That’s new for you, isn’t it?” she asks finally.
“Yes.”
I run my hand through her hair and tuck it behind her ear. “You want to know why?” I ask.
She nods once.
“Because I’m tired of being only one thing.”
She studies my face like she’s trying to see if I’m serious.
“I’ve been running this city since I was barely old enough to drink,” I continue. “Every move calculated, decision measured, relationship strategic.”
She cocks a brow at me. “And this isn’t strategic?”
“It might be,” I admit. “But it doesn’t feel like it.”
She shifts closer without thinking about it, and her shoulder presses against mine. I stand and offer her my hand. She takes it. “You’re coming to lunch tomorrow.”
I pause briefly. “To meet my family.”
For the first time since she’s come here, I think I see a hint of surprise in her eyes. I chuckle inwardly because she’s pretty quick at hiding it. “You have family dinners?” she asks.
“Every Sunday. Howth. My mother’s house. My uncle still works the old dock repair yard near the harbor. My sister teaches at St. Brigid’s primary. We eat at one table. No business. No guards inside.”
She absorbs that. “Okay.”
I lean down to kiss her mouth again. When I pull back, I study her face.
There’s still something there. Something she’s holding back. “Don’t make me regret this,” I say quietly.
She runs her thumb along my collarbone and her lower lip quivers a little. “I’m going to do my very best to try.”