Chapter Twenty-Nine
TRISSA
I was in Killian’s bed.
He rested his forehead against mine. The air zinged with electricity between us. When he leaned back, his eyes were wild with desire, and something tender and sweet.
Something that looked an awful lot like …
Love.
Holy shit.
That look slayed me. For so long, I had wished Peter would look at me with such ferocity, such naked need etched into every line of his face. But here, in this moment, I realized that no matter how wide Peter grinned or how kindly he gazed upon me, it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even desire.
It was clear to me now that Peter never felt any passion for me. He never gave me a look that told me he’d burn the world to the ground just to have me.
Not even close.
But Killian did.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassured him.
“Fuck, Tink.” So much was conveyed with those two words: That he hadn’t believed this would ever happen. That he still wondered if this was real.
I chuckled softly. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”
He laughed along with me, the sound vibrating through his chest and into mine. His thumb gently stroked my cheek. The now-familiar calluses made my skin sing—a reminder of all the times he’d played guitar for me. His music had always been a balm to my soul.
He spoke low and earnestly. “I need you to be sure.”
The weight of a million rocks hit me with how much I’d hurt him. We were both so damaged. Him, even more than me. Hurt by our pasts, we struggled to believe that what was right in front of us could be real. Forever.
Tears pricked at my eyes. I let them spill down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. That I didn’t see … ”
He gently wiped my tears away with the rough pads of his fingertips. “Tris. I have loved you for so long it’s coded in my DNA. There’s no me without you. These years without you in them were torture.”
His words of love burned into my soul, branding it so that I’d never forget them. He’d told me I deserved more, and now that I removed the blinders that I’d worn for far too long, that was exactly what I was going to get.
More love. More laughter. More friendship. More passion. More of everything I had ever wanted.
I pressed my lips to his. “I wished I had known.”
“I wish I had told you.” His voice cracked with the heavy admission.
“Why didn’t you?”
“You were more than clear on who you wanted.”
“I was a foolish girl. With a foolish heart.” But we both knew that even if he had told me, I might have been incapable of returning his feelings. And that would have pushed him away far faster than my infatuation with Peter.
Back then, I had been raw from the death of my parents, lonely, and feeling unwanted. I latched onto Peter. I knew now that I’d mistaken the safety I felt with him for love, and I’d never been able to let go of it. Until now. “But maybe our time wasn’t then. Maybe we had to go through all this to come out on the other side to make this work. To appreciate what we have. Because now that I know—and my heart knows what it really wants—there’s no chance I’m messing it up.”
The frantic rhythm of his heart under my hand matched my own. We leaned in at the same time, as if drawn together by an invisible thread. His lips found mine and I moaned, wanting more, needing more. It was brutal. It was hot, hard, and deep; messy and filled with longing.
It was us at our most basic level.
I breathed in deeply, savoring the scent that was uniquely Killian—the mix of leather, sandalwood, and something warm and spicy that had always meant ‘home’ to me, was the same as it always was. But now I knew why.
His scruff scraped against my swollen lips. “I want to hear the words.”
My muddled brain slowly processed what he said. Instead of demanding more of his kisses. I asked, “What words?”
“I want to hear you’re done with Peter,” he growled.
I gave him a sassy smile. “Peter who?”
“Tink,” he warned me, his voice rough and low. He clearly did not enjoy my teasing.
Luke’s words replayed in my head that Killian wouldn’t ever believe I’d given up on Peter.
I sobered and let my teasing grin fall so he could see that I was serious. The man in front of me needed this reassurance. There was not a second of hesitation on my part. “I’m over Peter. I wouldn’t be here like this with you otherwise.”
He slid his hand around the side of my neck to keep me still. “If we do this, there’s no going back. You’re mine.”
A whimper escaped my mouth. “Why is it so fucking hot when you do that?”
He grinned, but even through his confidence a flash of vulnerability shone in his eyes.
“You know me better than anyone, Tink, even after all this time,” Killian murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “How could I not fall in love with you?”
He admitted he loved me but we hadn’t made a commitment to each other and I needed him to know it went both ways. “I have always loved you too, Killian. That love is changing now into something deeper and I’m here for all of it. And if I’m yours, you’re mine.”
“My fierce little fairy,” he mumbled against my lips as he placed kiss after kiss at the corners of my mouth, on my cheeks, the tip of my nose. “That’s a given. I’ve always been yours.”
Instead of thinking of all the days we had missed being together, my mind zeroed in on how his hands skimmed my curves, how he groaned with longing as he laid me down in the middle of the bed, and how slick I was with desire for him.
His hands began to explore, his touch going from gentle to rough and demanding. My nipples pulled taut beneath his gaze. “I don’t know if I can be gentle our first time, Tris.”
I brushed my fingers over his cheek, loving how abrasive his scruff was on my tender skin. “Then don’t be.” The tension between us had been building since the start. With one intense, dark look from him, I was ready for anything.
And if his slow-moving hand didn’t hurry up and move to where my body was literally crying for his touch now , I was going to scream.
I must have made some kind of noise, prompting his hooded eyes to rake over me. “Tell me what you want.”
“You. Now. I need you to touch me and fill me with all of you. Make me yours.”
He traced the iridescent lines of the stretch marks across my stomach, gliding down over my plain cotton underwear. I didn’t even have a second to wish I’d worn something sexier. His love, desire, and possessiveness was in every touch, every look, every word he spoke.
I was on sensory overload as my brain tried to process all the tiny ways he showed how much he wanted me.
My hips thrusted upwards, seeking his firm touch to ease the ache building between my legs. I moaned as he teased me a few seconds more before changing the trajectory of his movements.
This man knew he was teasing me and didn’t feel bad about it at all.
As he kissed along my collarbone, his lips lingered on the small scar from my childhood accident—the one he’d been there for, holding my hand through every stitch. I’d had to fight to get him to allow me back up into the fort the three of us had built. He’d been so afraid I’d get hurt again.
Our eyes locked again, and my heart skipped a beat before it kicked into hyperspeed, syncing perfectly with his.
It was as if our bodies had always known that we were two halves of the same whole.
His hand slipped beneath the waistband of my panties, and I gasped at the scorching heat of his touch against my sensitive skin. “Killian,” I breathed, arching into his hand.
Fina-fucking-lly.
I’d been waiting for this, craving him to touch me there again since last night.
“I’ve dreamed of this for so long,” he murmured, his voice husky with desire. “Of touching you, tasting you, making you mine in every way.”
I reached up to pull him down for a kiss, pouring all my newly realized love and long-standing affection into it. “I’m yours.” I whispered against his lips. “I think I always have been, even when I was too blind to see it.”
A deep guttural growl emerged from the back of his throat, a claiming sound that sent a shiver through me straight to my pulsing clit. I needed the weight of his body on top of mine. Now.
I tugged at his arms, silently begging him to change position. He winked at me as he undid my bra, tossing it to the floor, then slipped my underwear down over my hips and legs, before throwing it over his shoulder.
He drew his lips across my ankle, slowly teasing me by dragging heavy kisses up my leg. Mini-fireworks exploded inside me. But it wasn’t nearly enough, or where I wanted him. Impatient, I reached down and circled my clit, needing relief.
Without breaking stride, he held my wrists together on my stomach. “Mine,” he growled possessively. “No touching. Don’t move them.” He let my hands go and I did as I was told.
My core hummed in approval when he finally slid his tongue along my slit, gliding over my folds, giving me slow delicious licks that made me shudder.
“Oh, God.”
Killian maneuvered his perfectly sculpted body between my thighs, his wide shoulders not allowing me to move. His tongue lapped at me, working to find the rhythm I craved. I wanted to applaud his attention to detail and my eyes wanted to roll into the back of my head. It was like he was cued into every involuntary twitch of my muscles, every hitch of breath, and every gasp.
“Yes,” I breathed in a broken whisper as his face dove into my center in such a way that drove me out of my mind. A cross between a tiny squeak and a groan escaped my mouth. His head popped up for a second, a satisfied grin stretched across his mouth, my arousal wet on his lips and chin before he went back down for more.
To say I was pleased was the understatement of my lifetime. How had I gone this long without feeling like my world began and ended with him?
He sucked my swollen nub into his mouth, his teeth lightly grazing the sensitive skin. Holy shit. My insides tightened. My legs just about crushed his head between them as my stomach jerked and my hips bucked wildly. “Don’t stop. God?—”
My fingers sunk into his dark, curly hair, needing to hold onto something. To anchor myself in the maelstrom of emotions whipping through me. I gripped so hard he grunted, and instead of pulling away he doubled down.
I was so close to finishing, almost feral with need. He slid two fingers inside me, crooked them at just the right angle and the world stilled, then came into sharp focus before my release splintered all around me in a wild kaleidoscope of colors.
Killian’s strong arm anchored me as I writhed against the sheets, their silky coolness a relief to my fevered skin. When he slipped another finger inside me, the obscene wet sounds of my desire echoed in the dim room. The warm, sweet woodsy, scent of the cologne he wore mingled in the air, making my head spin with need.
My thighs quivered against his stubbled cheeks. The taste of desperation was sweet on my tongue as I gasped his name. Undeterred, he worked faster, his talented mouth relentless in trying to bring me to another explosion. Then, with devastating precision, he curled his fingers just so, finding a spot that sent electric pulses of pleasure through my every nerve ending once more.
“Killian!” His name burst from my lips again, raw and primal, as one peak crashed into another. The room spun in a storm of sensation—his hot breath, my racing pulse, the whisper of the sheets against my sweat-slicked skin. Each wave of pleasure brought me to heights I never imagined were possible.
An intense sense of satisfaction filled me at the deep guttural sounds coming from his mouth. The hot and dirty murmurings let me know he needed this just as much as I did. The man seemed intent on consuming me. He took over my body like he owned it and was slowly decimating any control I thought I had.
He could have all of it.
When he slipped his hand free, the pressure on my clit subsided. I collapsed.
I forced my eyes to meet Killian’s. His were wild, heat flickering in their depths. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and I couldn’t look away.
His callused fingers slid his boxers down his hips to pool at his ankles before he toed them away. His dick was long and thick, my mouth watered at the sight of it, wanting a taste. When I moaned again, a shit-eating grin curved his lips.
He knew just what he was doing to me when he wrapped his hand around it with pride.
He stroked it from root to tip, squeezing tight. I fixated on the drop of pre-cum sliding down his hard shaft. The languidness that had swept my body quickly dissipated and my thighs clenched together again, needing more of him and building toward another go-around. My pussy felt hollow and lonely without him.
I needed him more than I needed my next breath.
We watched each other for a moment and I couldn’t stop myself from kneading furiously at my breasts, plucking roughly at my nipples. My clit was so sensitive I knew I wouldn’t last long if I touched it the way I wanted to, but I couldn’t stop myself as my hand inched down my chest and over my stomach.
Killian abruptly let go of his dick. It remained at attention while he placed one knee on the bed and hauled me upright in a move that left me gasping. “I want you so fucking bad, Tink.” He flipped me over onto my stomach, one arm holding me in place to keep my hips up as my face pressed into the mattress, too weak to hold myself up. And I really didn’t care if I suffocated as long as he did what I needed him to do and took me hard and fast.
One hand caressed my ass, leaving tiny bolts of electricity shooting to my overly sensitive core while the other slid through my slit. “You’re so fucking wet again.”
“I need you,” I whined. “Don’t make me wait.” I couldn’t believe the sound of my voice, this desperate, needy, tone. He’d brought me to a point where I could only think of him and his thick, glorious cock filling me.
Suddenly, he was gone. I followed the sounds, watching him yank open the drawer beside his bed, followed by the crinkling and tearing of foil. Keeping my position, I looked over my shoulder. Now it was my turn to possessively watch him as he rolled a condom down his hardened length. I’d never thought of a dick as beautiful before, but his was perfect.
The bed dipped as he re-positioned himself behind me. His hands grabbed my thick hips and he ran the tip of his cock along my slit, soaking it in my juices. With each pass, I grew more impatient.
“Why are you taking so damn long?” I ground my ass into him.
His low chuckle filled the air. “Impatient, my little fairy?”
“You know I am,” I groaned.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this. I want to savor the feeling of the first time I sink myself into your greedy pussy.”
Said pussy clenched at his dirty words.
He continued to toy with me. Every time his dick passed by my entrance, he’d slowly push in just the tip, leaving me wanting more, before he’d slide it up to tap my clit.
I didn’t know if I wanted to moan or scream. I was so worked up. My hips thrust back mindlessly, telling him what I wanted. What I needed.
While he continued with his torture, he ran a tantalising hand up my spine. I trembled under his touch with each inch he covered, crying out when he grabbed a handful of my hair at the nape of my neck. He wrapped it around his hand and as he forced my head to tilt back, he finally slammed his cock inside me.
I gasped, surprised and satisfied at the sudden invasion, of feeling so completely filled—and fulfilled. He paused for a second, allowing me to adjust before he restarted his punishing rhythm. The slap of our skin slamming into each other ricocheted throughout the room. The auditory stimuli pushed me closer to my release.
The heat of his skin seared me as his chest pressed into my back. He feathered light kisses to my shoulder and trailed them along my own burning skin and down my spine.
He played my body like he was fine tuning his favorite guitar. My muscles had gone rogue. I cried out as every one of my five senses merged and the telltale signs of my next release edged me forward. My cheek pressed into the sheets and my eyes closed, doing everything I could to concentrate and savor every second.
“Don’t come yet,” he demanded. The sharp tone was the only thing getting through to me as my consciousness focused on one thing, the place we were joined together, and how good he made me feel.
He alternated between long, hard strokes, and slow pumps.
I whimpered, “I don’t know if I can hold off.”
“You can.” A single hand connected with my ass, a sharp sting that caused me to cry out. My focus on coming took a backseat to the pain he now soothed with the palm of his hand. I shifted my ass back further into him, showing him without words I wanted another one.
My hands gripped the sheets beneath me, my forehead buried in the silky depths each time he shoved into me. This moment was more perfect than I could’ve imagined. He slid one hand around my waist to part my folds and circle my clit.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold on. My breath came out in strained pants and I bucked back violently, unable to stop or control my limbs.
All I could do was feel. “Please,” I begged through clenched teeth.
“Soon, my love.”
I focused on his voice. On the words as they caressed my heart in a way the action of our joining didn’t.
My body tensed, on the edge of a climax I knew was barrelling towards me. Tears pooled in my eyes. Every muscle hurt, but in the best way possible. It was more in anticipation of what was to come.
“Now.” I gasped. With one last pinch of my clit and final deep stroke of his cock, I convulsed around him and wept into the sheets.
“Fuck,” his hoarse voice drew the word out. “Tink, you’re squeezing my dick so hard.”
His muffled words registered through the roaring in my head. Everything inside me clenched and unclenched. I shook from the sheer force of an orgasm that didn’t seem like it was stopping any time soon. White flashes overtook my sight for a few blissful seconds before a blanket of stars appeared behind my eyes.
Each deep thrust of his cock drew out my pleasure even more. The only thing holding me up at this point was him and his punishing grip. His arms were wrapped around me so tight I could barely breathe.
Even as my cunt continued to pulse around his dick, he flipped me over and crawled up, nudging my legs over his shoulders. The way he effortlessly maneuvered me was something I’d likely think about on repeat later. It was so fucking hot. I’d have exclaimed at his strength, but I was so boneless I could barely let out a squeak of surprise that he was still inside me once we settled back down.
He must have had magic ninja-sex moves to accomplish this, and if I wasn’t so sated I might have giggled.
On his knees, staring into my eyes, he pounded into me. “You’re so goddamn perfect,” he growled.
His breathing labored, each pull of air a struggle as his legs tensed, and his thrusts became erratic. Through it all, he kept his eyes locked on mine.
His breath hitched. He gripped my hips, driving deeper. When he hit that sweet spot, I moaned, my core clenched, squeezing him desperately. My pussy quivered, chasing yet another peak—was it number three or four? I’d lost count, as tsunami-sized waves of pleasure melted all coherent thought.
A pained groan escaped as he leaned down to capture my lips in a bruising kiss before he whispered, “I fucking love you.”
Our bodies stiffened in unison, our harsh cries blending together as we screamed out our release. His thrusts went wild and out of control, then he stilled as he came inside of me. I felt every pulse of his dick through the condom. His raspy moan filled my ears as he drew me close, easing back on his knees and gently lowering my legs before rolling us both until I was sprawled out across his chest.
I relaxed on top of him like a limp blanket, his dick still inside me.
He kissed the top of my head as I nestled it just under his chin. The world felt quiet and content.
Like we were exactly where we were meant to be.
“I want to stay like this forever,” I murmured.
“If I had my way, we would.” He brushed back my sweat-dampened blonde tresses, and ran his hand lightly down my spine.
When our breathing evened out, he scooched out from under me. I watched him walk into the bathroom. He returned a few moments later and ran a washcloth over my body and gently rubbed it between my legs. When I winced his eyes drew together and he gave me a sharp look.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“A little sore.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” I assured him. “It’s been awhile for me. And you’re definitely bigger than anyone else I’ve been with.”
His smirk warred with the frown on his face. While he was pleased with my physical assessment of him, he clearly did not enjoy me speaking of past lovers or that I was sore.
But concern for my well-being won out over his annoyance of my previous sexual partners. “I’ll start a bath.”
I smiled, my fingers running along his jaw. I loved the way his scruff felt beneath my hands. “No, I want to stay here and snuggle with you.”
My aching muscles be damned.
I pulled my drowsy gaze away so it could wander over his face, admiring how the faint sheen of his tattoos caught the light on his carved muscles, the dark ink flowing down his arms and spreading across his chest. He was a masterpiece, and I silently vowed to trace each line until I knew them by heart.
We settled back into the mattress with me curled into his side. I traced my hands over the tattoos on his arm, noticing so many new ones. The black inked Maori design started at his shoulder and ended at his wrist with some of it spilling over onto the back of his hand. It took me a second to realize he’d expanded on the hook tattoo he and Peter had both gotten when they turned eighteen.
He had a cool timepiece on his left pec, like an old pocket watch, with a crocodile wrapped around it. I raised my eyebrow at that strange combination.
The husky sound of his laughter washed over me. “That was a weird time. I was contemplating life and the passage of time and how death is coming for us whether we want it to or not.”
“And you came up with this?” I pressed a kiss to the watch face.
“I’d watched the movie ‘Hook’ and took my inspiration from that.” It made me think about all the fairytale flicks I’d dragged him and Peter to over the years.
We lay there, in comfortable silence, as I lightly ran my fingers down his other arm. Goosebumps pebbled his skin. Another tattoo caught my eye. “This one’s cool.” A tarnished crown among brightly colored flames and burning embers was prominently displayed on his bicep. “When did you get this one?”
He yawned. “A few years ago with the guys.”
“You all got the same one? It’s like a permanent friendship bracelet.” I giggled as that thought took hold in my head. It wasn’t even that funny, but I was punchy from all the delicious hormones and good feelings roaming through my body.
He groaned comically, but kept his thoughts to himself, which told me how tired he was, too.
I yawned and rested my hand on his chest as his fingers ran through my hair, lulling me into a warm fuzzy space in my mind. This was the most amazing day I’d had in forever and nothing could bring me down. My eyes grew heavier and I slipped into the welcoming darkness of sleep.