Killian
Faith gasps and flinches away from me. Her eyes are wide pools of dread and growing anguish. “What?”
I kill the panic crawling up my spine. “What the fuck are you doing?” My teeth are clenched tight enough to make my jaw hurt.
Fionnella ignores me and turns to Faith. “And you, B? Did you tell him that I was the one who helped you get away from him in Cairo?”
It’s my turn to flinch. My turn to be sucker punched so hard that I think my lungs may never work again.
But our Sunday-school-teacher-turned-torturer isn’t done. “Does he know about—?”
“Stop it! What the hell do you want?”
The raw demand in Faith’s voice sobers Fionnella. She plucks her glasses off her face and absently cleans them with the corner of her sleeve. Her grimace is laced with contrition when she glances at us. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t want to wreck your happy little bubble. I really don’t. But giving that a-hole what he wants isn’t the answer. Also, keeping secrets never ends well, so I suggest you two deal with that. Later.”
I drag my gaze from Faith’s, my heart sinking at the suspicion and agony I see in her eyes. I know that look is reflected in mine.
So many fucking secrets. Will we get the chance to make things right?
“What. Do. You. Want?” My voice is an icy blade that cuts through her bullshit.
Fionnella slides her glasses back on. “Say no to the demand,” she says briskly. “Let him think you’re the arrogant, asshole billionaire he imagines you are. Hell, take it a step further. Taunt the heck out of him.”
“For what fucking purpose?”
“To lure him out. He’s desperate. We need him to make a mistake. Tip his hand as to who the mole is.”
“You want to risk Faith’s safety to catch your mole? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“Killian—”
“Hell, no,” I snarl before Faith can voice whatever unacceptable argument she’s about to offer.
She says it anyway. “Think about it! Sleazebags like Galveston are the worst kind of traffickers. They’re addicted to their product. You give him the fifty million, you’ll be jump-starting his operation again. He’ll throw bigger parties than the one he threw in Cairo, with more children. He’ll bribe more people to look the other way. You may protect me, but you’ll be condemning countless more people to hell.”
Fionnella nods approvingly. “What she said.”
Jesus. Their twin truths grab and lock into me. No matter how much I reject it—because dear God why would I readily put her in harm’s way?—I know denying Faith this will haunt her forever. Possibly even end us, if our secrets haven’t done that already.
But still I shake my head because the idea of letting Galveston within a mile of her is unthinkable.
Fionnella leans down and hits the play button again.
Galveston’s voice filters through. “And you personally owe me too, Knight. Don’t think I don’t know that you pulled that little stunt in Cairo three years ago. You have forty-eight hours to get me my money.”
The screen goes black.
“What does he mean by you owe him? What little stunt?” Faith demands.
I glance at Fionnella. Although I get the feeling she knows, she keeps her mouth shut. For once. I shove my hands into my pockets to keep them from punching something. As confessions go, this one isn’t so bad. “I bought the Cairo resort through a dummy corporation six months after the incident. A few months after that, I burned it to the ground.”
Faith’s mouth drops open. “You what?”
I shrug. “It wasn’t hard. A gas explosion, it was reported. It’s in the middle of nowhere. By the time the firefighters got there, it was gone.”
“What about the agent?” Faith asks into the silence. My heart twists at the ragged pain in her voice. A glance shows her lips pinched in a thin, white line. She’s blaming herself for this.
Fionnella doesn’t reply.
“Are you just going to leave him…wherever he is?”
“There’s protocol for this kind of thing,” she replies evasively. “It’ll be taken care of.”
Faith goes even paler.
“Are we done here?” I snap.
“Not until I have your word you won’t act…irrationally—”
“You have my word that I won’t pay a single dime in the next twenty-four hours. That should give you time to come up with a plan that suits me and keeps Faith out of danger. If you don’t, all bets are off.”
I can tell Fionnella’s not happy with that, but there’s fuck-all she can do. Although I don’t put it past her to try. “You told your guy to put your pilots on standby. Are you staying put or are you going somewhere?”
The decision I toyed with on the way back from Uniondale solidifies. “You seem to have compromised my security, so there’s no point remaining here. Besides, leaving town will create the impression that we’re spooked. That should work in both our favors before we make a plan one way or the other.”
Her frown deepens. “At least tell me where you’re going.”
I want to ask why she’s bothering to ask since she’ll probably find us anyway. But I want her out of here more than I want to argue with her.
“We’re going back to LA.”
She looks over at Faith, whose face is set in a tight mask. Then she nods. “Okay, I’ll be in touch.”
She leaves, taking the thumb drive with her. I don’t mind. Every frame and word are seared into my brain. I don’t follow her either. She let herself in. She can let herself out.
Besides, I have a much bigger problem confronting me right now.
I watch Faith move to the window, her arms hugging her middle. “Aren’t you jumping the gun, assuming I’m coming to LA with you?” she asks with her back to me.
We have a lot of shit to get through, but the issue of her safety isn’t one of them. It never will be. “I told you I wasn’t letting you out of my sight before I knew for a fact that you were in danger. You’re out of your mind if you think that position is about to change now that we have confirmation.”
She whirls around and stares at me with dark, bruised eyes before stalking out of the living room. I follow at a slower pace. She’s stripped out of her shorts and top and is heading to the bathroom when I reach the bedroom. I stare, unable to drag my gaze from her beautiful, naked body. Primal instinct rises to the fore as I track her to the bathroom.
I lean in the doorway and watch her gather her hair on top of her head. She ignores me as she steps into the cubicle and turns on the shower.
Okay. We’re fighting in the shower. I strip too and follow her in.
She smells of her usual intoxicating scent and also faintly metallic. Gunpowder residue from the shooting range. God, was that just a few short hours ago? It feels like a lifetime has passed since we made the bet that got me where I craved most to be. Inside her.
The place I yearn to be now. “Baby, don’t shut me out.”
She whips around, and the pain in her eyes slays me. “I want to know. What she said…is it true?”
“Faith—”
She shakes her head. “Tell me about Matt. Please. Why…why did you really come to Arkansas?”
I grit my teeth. I don’t want to talk about my brother. I really don’t want to talk about him while the woman he had but didn’t deserve is naked and almost in my arms. But it looks like we’re doing this. “His name popped up when we were investigating Galveston. Nothing to do with the actual trafficking as far as we could tell, just…He was mixed up in sleazy deals. He was desperate to get into Washington. He thought he could buy his way in.”
“So you came to what? Spy on him?”
I hesitate and then go for broke. “Yes. And your father.”
Her face leaches of color. Her mouth drops open, and she sways. I reach for her but she holds up her hands. “My father?” she whispers.
I sigh. “His name popped up too, but it turned out to be nothing in the long run.”
She slowly shakes her head. “My God. You came to spy on my family,” she says numbly. Then she tries to slip past me.
I catch her by the shoulders. She tries to knock my hands away again but I hold on tighter.
“Let me go, Killian.”
“No, we’re talking this out. Right here, right now.”
Stormy eyes stare at me, shock and pain building. Then she deflates. “Did he… Matt didn’t die in a random shooting, did he?”
I shake my head. “No. He died because he funded his campaign with laundered money from people who later wanted favors he couldn’t deliver on. One of them was connected to Galveston.”
She shudders and squeezes her eyes shut. “Oh God. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t love him. You were divorcing him. What I didn’t know was that you blamed yourself for Matt’s death. Not until last week.”
Her eyes pop open. “So before last week you thought I was the heartless bitch who didn’t care about why her husband was gunned down in an alley?”
“Of course not. Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t think you needed the extra burden of knowing he was involved in shit like that especially when I knew you felt guilty about us.”
She shakes her head. “What about me? Were you there to spy on me too?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes. But it became clear you weren’t involved.”
“Is that why you recruited me? So I could help you spy on my husband?”
“I recruited you because you were intelligent. And fuck it, because I wanted you away from Matt. I wanted you with me.”
Silent tears fill her eyes. The sight of them slashes my insides. “Baby…God, I’m sorry.”
A wretched sob rips from her. Desperation builds until I stop her tears the only way I know how. By putting my mouth on hers, absorbing her pain inside me. She shivers against me, her whimpers growing louder as she fights me.
Fuck that. “I’m not letting you do this,” I mutter fiercely against her lips.
She fights me harder. Steam and agony and guilt rise around us. Sharp nails dig into my sides. My mouth still fused to hers, I step forward and pin her against the wall. The torrent from the shower hits us both over the head, soaking us. I push my tongue into her mouth, feel the helpless slide of hers against mine. Another whimpered protest breaks free. Nails dig in harder. Her nipples pebble against my chest a moment before she plants her hands on me and pushes with considerable strength. I give her a little leeway up top, but from the waist down, we’re fused together. My cock is cradled by her belly, and that’s where I want to stay.
“Let me go, Killian.” Her voice is ragged with pain and arousal.
I smile because my answer is easy. “Never. Not even when I’m dead.”
I start to lower my head. She pushes harder. “No. I’m not letting you fuck me better.”
I drop my forehead against hers and say desperately, “Okay, then let me fuck you senseless.”
Her deep shudder resonates within me. “No,” she says, but her voice is weaker. Less pain, more arousal.
“Yes,” I stress. I slide my hand down one supple hip, down her thigh to her knee. And I hook my arm beneath it and lift her leg high.
She reads my intent, and her breath hitches. “Killian…”
“Please. Take me. Put me inside you,” I plead against her lips.
The hands still braced on my chest stay for an interminably long minute. Then they diverge. One heads up to curl around my neck, pulling me down to meet her angry kiss.
The other heads south, past my groin to curl around my aching cock.
“Yes,” I groan, helpless in her hold.
“We’re going to burn for this.”
“Then we’ll burn together.”
“Oh God.”
“I’m dying for you, Faith. Take me.”
She pumps me urgently, almost furiously. Then she positions me against her pussy and brushes my crown through her wet heat. My knees sag. I’m already seeing stars, and I’m not even inside her. I kiss her as I hitch her leg higher and lower my body. And then, because there’s nothing more magnificent than watching her take my cock, I lean back and watch as I slide into her tightness.
Slow. Excruciatingly steady so she feels every inch of me. So her mind shifts from what is wrong between us to everything that’s right.
She watches me fill her up until her eyes flutter and roll. Until her whole body shakes with the transcendental power of it. “Oh…”
“How can something this beautiful be wrong, Faith?” I whisper hoarsely against her mouth. I pull out and push back in, and her whimper turns into a sweet moan. “Tell me.”
“I…oh God.”
I wanted to pound her senseless, until every shard of pain is replaced by mind-numbing pleasure. But this…this spiritual union is so much more. Her head comes up, and her eyes meet mine.
I love you, I want to confess. So much. But the fear of it being rejected stays my tongue. She’s reeling from discovering why I was really at her birthday party five years ago. There are so many other layers we need to unveil before I have a hope of knowing how our future will pan out. I can’t add these three little words—no matter how much I want to—to the mix. Not just yet.
So I tell her with my body. I lift her other leg, brace them over my arms, and push deep, deeper until I feel the edge of her womb. I stay there for a blinding moment, trembling, because inside her feels like home, but right there feels like the sweetest heaven.
Her belly quivers as she clenches tight around me. “Killian…you’re so deep,” she whispers in a hushed voice.
“I’d go deeper if I could,” I whisper back. “Wrap myself around your soul.”
She stares at me, and her eyes begin to fill again. I let her cry, let whatever demons are chasing her spill free. She sobs against my shoulder when she comes. I kiss her deep as I stroke that heaven-made spot again and find my own sublime release inside her.
Afterward, in subdued silence, she lets me wash her, and then I wash myself. Damp-haired and barely dry, we tumble into bed. I pull her close and hold her tight. Our agitated hearts pound against each other in weirdly soothing matched beats.
At some point, we fall asleep.
When we wake, she slides on top of me and braces her hands on my chest. I grip her hips and deliver the pounding I promised. Again her climax ends in tears. When she collapses against me, I caress her sweaty body for minute, and then I reach for the phone.
She doesn’t protest when I arrange for us to fly out of New York in the morning.
After four long years away, I’m taking her home.
Whether she stays is another matter altogether.