Chapter 22
ROWAN
Imust have drifted off, because when I wake up, moonlight trickles through the trembling curtains. The storm has eased, by the looks of it, but the wind is still there.
For a moment, I’m paralyzed, wrapped in a haze I can’t shake.
Ciaran’s face is buried against the side of my neck, his breaths slow and warm against my skin, one arm draped across my waist.
I can’t believe I let him fuck me.
The thought has barely settled when he shifts against me. His hand slides between my thighs, fingers trailing over sensitive skin before he crooks them just right.
I bite back a moan as my hips jerk from the sensation.
And somehow, terrifyingly, this feels like something I’m never going to walk away from.
Which is probably the dumbest possible thing considering he’s a mafia prince obsessed with dragging every secret out of me while I’ve spent my entire life trying not to give anyone enough pieces to hurt me with.
I don’t get it. It’s not that I never wanted men. I did, in dreams I never let myself look at too closely. I just never gave it room. I’ve always just been…me. Rowan Ashford, scholarship cello student stumbling through Caervast half a step behind everyone else. Poor, forgettable, ordinary.
Once, I kissed a girl because it was late and we were the only ones sitting near the east wall, and she was scared, and I just…
kissed her. I liked it. I mean, it was interesting.
But it was nothing like when Ciaran pinches my chin and angles me exactly the way he wants.
When those brown eyes turn molten and he kisses me like he can’t get enough of me.
I can’t believe I stuck my finger in his ass. It felt so good. So soft. So—like I managed to find a fragile spot in the otherwise untouchable facade that is Ciaran Virel.
And when he pulled me apart for him, when those strong arms wrapped around me and held me close through every slow thrust, it stopped feeling like sex somewhere in the middle of it. It felt like something far more dangerous.
If anyone tried to pull me out of his embrace right now, I don’t think I’d survive it. Being with Ciaran has changed my life in every possible sense of the word. I already want him again.
Murmuring something against my neck, he crooks the finger still inside me and I stifle a moan as another slow pulse of pleasure rolls through my body.
Good Light, I’m a mess.
We’re lying on our sides beneath the tangled sheets, Ciaran pressed against my back, one arm heavy around my waist while his breath drifts warm against the nape of my neck.
I should go before this turns into something worse. Before morning comes. Before I start wanting things I can’t afford to want.
But every few seconds his fingers curl again inside me, slow and absentminded now, like even half asleep he still can’t stop taking me apart piece by piece.
There’s something intoxicating about the weight of him wrapped around me, about the warmth of his chest pressed along my spine, about those long fingers flexing slowly inside me while my mind keeps replaying what it felt like to kiss him, to touch him, to be pinned beneath him while he fucked me deep.
I ease beneath the sheets, meaning to move, but Ciaran tightens his arm around my waist and drags me harder against his chest.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he murmurs against the back of my neck, his voice rough with sleep.
His fingers press deeper inside me at the same time, making my breath hitch.
I glance back over my shoulder, and my stomach twists the second I meet his gaze, those dark brown eyes heavy-lidded and darkened with heat in the dim light.
“I thought I’d be gone before you woke up. I mean—yeah. I need to practice. My Noctis class is tomorrow and I still haven’t—”
Ciaran chuckles without loosening his arm around me, the hot weight of his erection pressing against the back of my thigh. “Your muscles keep clenching around my fingers,” he says. “Feels too fucking good to let you leave yet.”
“Ciaran... we just did this,” I whisper, but the protest sounds weak even to my own ears.
Do I want him to fuck me again? Really, what is he turning me into?
For years, I lived like a pathetic ghost, quiet and careful behind walls no one could climb. Now I’m teasing Ciaran Virel in bed like I’ve been doing it my entire life. And the worst part is that I’m enjoying every second of it.
I lean back against him before my brain catches up. “I thought you were supposed to be terrifying,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
“I am. But I don’t think I’m done wanting you yet, little mouse. You constantly surprise me.” He pulls his finger out of my ass, and I whine at the loss of touch, only for him to pull on my arms. “Roll over. I want to see your face.”
I obey, my movements heavy and uncoordinated as I turn in the tangle of sheets to face him, watching him loom over me, his expression unreadable in the amber light.
He snags the bottle of lube from the nightstand, coating his fingers before sliding one slick finger slowly back inside me.
It isn’t the cold gel that makes me jolt—it’s the second finger sliding in, forcing me open. His other hand grips my hip, opening me further as he works both fingers deep.
“You’re so beautiful.” His breath ghosts against my hairline, triggering a trail of goosebumps across my skin. “Relax now.”
“I… How am I supposed to relax?” I shift closer without meaning to until our chests brush beneath the tangled sheets, my thighs parting around him as I feel the blunt press of his cock against my stomach. “You keep touching me like you already know exactly what it does to me.”
Ciaran pauses, his eyes tracking the way my pulse jumps in my throat. “Yeah, do you feel good, little mouse? Not too sore from last night?”
I bite my lower lip until it stings and shake my head, watching his thumb glide across the shape of my mouth.
“Instead of thinking, just feel my mouth.” His tongue follows his thumb to soothe the skin I just bit. “I can see you spiraling. You’re doing so well, baby.”
He widens his fingers inside me, and my cock pulses against his stomach. It grows harder as he brushes against my walls, and I can feel my body adjusting to him, tightening around his touch, yielding in ways I never thought I was capable of.
A sharp rush of arousal tears through me so fast it makes my thoughts blur at the edges, leaving me reckless enough to thread my fingers through his hair and pull him closer.
“Yes,” he groans, voice rougher now. “Go ahead and kiss me. You know you want to.”
“You’re unbearable,” I whisper, the words collapsing the second they leave my mouth.
“And yet?”
“I still let you touch me.”
My fingers tighten in his hair as my lips crash against his, the slick sound of him moving inside me almost too intimate, too vulnerable. It unravels me in ways I don’t understand, dragging out a side of myself that only Ciaran apparently knows how to reach.
He moans into my mouth, his fingers tangling in my hair while his other hand closes around my throat, holding me there with a possessiveness that makes my pulse stutter. His tongue slides against mine, slow and relentless, turning the kiss into something messy and consuming.
I can’t seem to pull away from him. Maybe I’m becoming obsessed with it—his intoxicating taste, the heat of his mouth, the impossible strength of him pressed against me.
Or maybe it’s the way he seems to soften whenever I touch him, like all that control cracks open for me and me alone.
As if, for both of us, the rest of the world disappears the second we touch.
Ciaran presses another finger deeper inside me, filling me so completely I groan against his lips.
“Light,” I whisper. “That feels…”
“Talk to me,” he says against my mouth, slowing. “Tell me what’s happening in that head of yours, little mouse.”
“I’m aching for you. You know that.”
“I won’t know until you tell me.” He smiles against my mouth. “I want to hear that voice of yours when you’re this wrecked.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.” Using his grip on my waist, he lifts me until my weight sinks fully onto his lap.
My cock brushes against his stomach, the skin there damp with heat while I push up instinctively, unable to look away from him.
Then he shifts me closer and pulls his fingers slowly from inside me, his cock nudging against my hole at the same time.
My breathing stutters as I lick my lips.
His gaze hooks into mine. “There’s something about you, little mouse, that makes me want to keep you.”
The words hit somewhere deep inside me, terrifying enough that my pulse jumps hard against my ribs.
This is really happening. We are doing this again, and I want it. Accepting my attraction to Ciaran was the first step, one I haven’t really come to terms with yet, but letting him hold me like this feels far more dangerous.
Do I want him to keep me? I probably should think about this further, consider the consequences, but I don’t seem to care.
For one ugly second, the memory crashes through me again—the watcher in the library, the feeling of being followed, that horrible sense I’ve carried since childhood that someone might already be closer to the truth than I realize.
Even here in Ciaran’s bed with his hands on my body and his voice pulling me apart piece by piece, I can still feel that instinct clawing beneath my skin.
“Hey.” One hand settles against my hip before his thumb brushes over the medical band around my wrist, the soft vibration against my skin making me realize belatedly that it’s been warning me again.
He shifts beneath me but holds himself at my entrance even though I can feel the effort it’s taking not to push deeper. “Are you okay?”
Heat floods my face at how quickly he notices. “I’m fine. It just does that sometimes when my heart rate spikes.”
I plant one hand against his slick, muscular chest and slide the other down between us until my fingers wrap around his cock before lowering myself onto him.