Chapter 9
NINE
Devlin
I woke with a start, peeling my eyes open and immediately regretting it as they burned. I rubbed my eyes and buried my face in the pillow, struggling for a moment to remember where I was. There was no bare bulb overhead, no stiff cot beneath me.
My eyes were dry. My throat was stiff. I swallowed and winced.
A clattering drew my attention, and I peered blearily around the room.
Oh right. I was in Cian’s apartment on a damn dog bed, which was surprisingly comfortable—especially after I’d basically performed acrobatics to grip his blankets with my toes and steal some bedding.
Cian stood at the other end of the apartment, coffee mug in hand while he stared out the window over his sink. His apartment was essentially one large room, with the bedroom and bathroom taking up about a third of the space. The rest was an open living area with a couch, TV, and full kitchen.
I rubbed at my eyes again as I struggled to sit up. That’s when I realized my hands weren’t bound. My cuffs lay on the floor beside me, the chain still attached to the toilet base.
When I glanced up, Cian was watching me.
He wore a pair of low-slung grey sweatpants and nothing else, putting his broad shoulders and massive chest on full display.
I’d seen plenty of big, muscular men. Tons.
Most of them had been lean, shredded fighting machines.
But Cian was a brute, with pectorals I could motorboat and a slightly rounded stomach like a strongman competitor. He was all muscle and mass.
I rose to my feet, stumbling a little as he eyed me over the rim of his mug and took a sip. My breathing was rough, likely from the smoke I’d inhaled, and my throat felt bruised, definitely from the dick I’d swallowed.
I realized someone had intentionally set that fire to kill me, but standing in Cian’s apartment with the morning sun streaming through the windows, scent of coffee in the air, and all his gorgeous skin on display, I almost wanted to thank whoever was responsible for my attempted murder.
Because this change of scenery was a fucking dream.
I sauntered toward Cian, and his blue eyes tracked me the entire way. I stopped beside him and casually leaned against the refrigerator. “So. Why’d you take the cuffs off?”
“You kept rattling them in your sleep,” he grumbled.
“For your own comfort, huh? Not mine at all?”
His eyes narrowed. “Exactly.” He poured coffee into a second mug and pushed it toward me. “Here.”
“Do you have—?”
“Drink it black, or not at all,” he snapped.
I bit back a smile and took a sip of the absolutely terrible coffee. I’d endured hours of being interviewed in police stations and still hadn’t encountered anything quite like this.
He pointed to a container of already-peeled boiled eggs on the counter. “There’s breakfast. If you don’t like it, I don’t fucking care.” He started to turn away, then hesitated. “Are you allergic to eggs?”
He cared if I died from anaphylactic shock? How romantic. I grabbed an egg and took a bite. “Deathly,” I said around the mouthful.
He rolled his eyes and stepped away to put a few mugs in the overhead cabinets. A block of kitchen knives sat within my reach. I should have grabbed one just to remind him who he was dealing with, but I didn’t. And I wasn’t really sure why.
“Why are you being nice to me?” I asked.
His eyebrows lifted. “This is nice?”
“Nice for you.”
He didn’t respond, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that either. Maybe he really didn’t know why. I changed the subject. “How’d last night go?”
He turned to face me with a hip propped against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. It pushed his massive pecs together, creating a valley I would happily suffocate in. “Which part?”
“The part where you went downstairs to deal with my attack.” I accented the last word with air quotes.
Cian made a pinched face, like he wanted to sock me in the eye. “Rank—the guy whose ear you mauled—got mouthy. I put him in his place.”
Well, that sounded exciting. I pushed away from the refrigerator and straightened. “How?”
“Smashed his head into the bar, stepped on his face, then told him I didn’t want to see him for five days.”
It wasn’t the violence that made my cock thicken—it was Cian exerting his power. And okay, maybe the violence had something to do with it too. I bit back a moan and shifted my feet, but Cian caught my reaction anyway.
He blew out a harsh breath. “You’re not who I expected.” Then his eyes skittered away, like he was surprised by his own admission.
“Is that so?”
He didn’t answer, only shook his head. “Maybe I should’ve known. The devil is all about temptation, after all.”
I let out a delighted gasp. “You think I’m a temptation?”
“Why do you take everything I say as a compliment?”
“It’s a gift.” I shrugged.
He curled his lip. “Nothing you say or do will stop me from killing you.”
“Oh, I know. You’re going to kill me, and I’m going to let you do whatever you want to me first.”
Cian flared his nostrils, but I couldn’t tell if it was in anger or arousal. “You should be scared,” he growled.
I shrugged. “Always knew I was gonna die young. I just figured it would be at the hands of some loser. So excuse me for being a little giddy that it’s you instead.”
He stared at me like I had three heads. “What is wrong with you?”
“A lot.”
He shook his head again and turned away from me. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all. I wanted my lion king’s attention, wanted to tear down every boundary he tried to set up between us.
“Use me,” I blurted out. “That’s all I’m good for, right? Being your fuck toy?”
Cian slowly turned back around, then stepped right into my space. “And what do you get out of it?”
Nothing. I got nothing, and that’s exactly what I wanted.
Sweet, blissful nothing. When Cian put me on my knees, my mind went blank.
The demons that constantly taunted me went quiet, and my regrets faded.
I wanted more. I wanted to know what it felt like to have his big, pierced dick claiming my ass.
I bet I’d break apart and float away. I wouldn’t have to feel a thing.
I wasn’t about to tell Cian that. He could have my body, but the wreckage in my mind was too ugly to expose. I answered his question with another question. “What does it matter? You still get what you want. You get to kill the man who killed your father.”
My evasiveness was blood in the water, and Cian locked onto it instantly.
His gaze burned with something that hadn’t been there twenty-four hours ago, and I felt it like claws in my skin.
My breath caught in my throat as his expression shifted into a dangerous combination of anger, loathing, and possession.
All three turned me the fuck on.
A cruel glint shone in his eyes as he threaded his fingers through my hair and tugged my head back. I gasped, caught off guard, and my eyes fluttered as he glared down at me.
“Is this what you offered other men to get what you want?”
Bristling, I jerked in his hold. “I’ve never kneeled for anyone else.”
His piercing blue eyes searched mine, like he was performing some kind of human lie detector test. “Then how’d you drop to your knees so perfectly for me?”
“I knew I would. I wanted to as soon as I saw the lion on your throat. It was just a feeling.”
His fingers gradually loosened, then let go of my hair. “Maybe you’re just easy.”
I glared at him. “I’d rather have every one of my limbs cut off one by one while I’m wide awake than get on my knees and suck the dick of a man who isn’t worthy.”
“Oh. You think your mouth is special, huh?” he sneered. “A man has to be worthy of it?”
“Power makes me hard. And I’d never met a man who had any. Not until you walked into that shed.”
“So that makes me special?” His voice was low, a little softer.
“Yeah,” I answered honestly. “You are.”
Cian tilted his head thoughtfully, then reached out and caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re telling me that my cock is the only one you’ve ever had in your mouth?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
Something shifted behind his eyes, and burning embers seemed to ignite the blue until they were nearly translucent.
He let go of my chin, then slid his hand down my back and along my crease.
A thick finger pressed against my hole through my sweatpants, and I swayed against Cian’s chest, bracing my hands on his hard stomach.
Blood filled my cock in a rush, making me dizzy as he swirled his finger.
“And here?” His tone was nothing but a guttural rasp.
I slid my hands up his torso, sifting through his dark chest hair before digging my fingers into his pecs. “No one.”
His face darkened, and his hand left me in an instant before fingers wrapped around my throat and squeezed. “Don’t lie to me,” he snarled.
I stared straight into his eyes. “I’m not lying. I’ve never been fucked, and I’ve never fucked anyone else. I was saving…” I swallowed roughly. “I know it sounds fucking crazy, but I was saving myself for someone.”
His lips curled into something darker. “Who?” A single word, wrenched straight from his gut.
“Someone who didn’t exist until I met you.”
Cian
I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do more: snap Devlin’s neck or bend him over the counter and show him what it meant to be owned. Knowing I was the only one to have Devlin on his knees, that I would be the only one to have his virgin hole, made the beast inside me roar in victory.
My entire plan, the one I’d made before ever laying eyes on Devlin, had now gone up in smoke.
Literally. Devlin was mine. I’d never had a single thing that was just mine.
I’d always shared—my mother with my father, my father with his crew, my brother with Rhys.
But I didn’t have to share Devlin. And I wouldn’t.