"Hey," I called, rushing after her. She was little but damn was she fast. She'd only had a two-second head start, but in that moment she had managed to rush from the warehouse space and start tearing ass up the dark and deserted street, shouting for a taxi. I sprinted faster. "Hey Celia, what the fuck?"

She slowed but didn't turn around. I caught up with her under the yellow glowing pool of a streetlamp as a night bus whooshed by. "Would you fucking look at me, please?" I begged, reaching out and whirling her around.

She glared up at me. "You don't listen, do you?"

She tried to shake her arm free but I was holding her tight. Strong fingers. "I listen just fine," I snapped. "And what I heard was a bunch of excuses."

"Really?" she exploded. "You really don't see why this is a bad idea?"

I shook my head. Her eyes were wild and crazed, dark pools of black water in the night and I was already drowning. "No, really can't say that I do," I confessed. This thing, whatever hangup she had about her name and her career was not something I understood. But I knew one thing for certain. My heart was thudding way up in my throat, which was threatening to close in some panicked overreaction over how upset she was. I needed to fix this and I had no idea how. "I'm fucking mad for you CeCe and you know it. You heard the fucking song, yeah? Well, that's it, love. That's the truth as near as I can tell it and the truth is you're driving me crazy. I think about you all the fucking time, and I know you've got it bad for me too."

"You know that huh? You've got some kind of ego, you know that?"

"Love, you've got a shit poker face and you kiss me like you're drowning. This isn't rockstar ego talking. This is reality."

"Fuck off Ewan."

"No you know, I don't think I will. I think I'm gonna stay right here until you stop being daft."

"Daft?" she shouted, yanking her arm back with a mighty tug that sent her staggering backwards. "You think it's daft to want to protect everything I've worked for? You think I'm," she choked out the word, "daft for trying to protect you?" She lowered her voice, darting a look around the deserted street as if we might somehow be overheard. "Don't you know how it'll be perceived if people find out we've slept together?"

"Aye, but we haven't yet, have we love?" I moved to her, catching her hair in my fist to tilt her head back. "If that's what's bothering you lass, I'll happily remedy the situation for you."

"Ewan," she snapped, but her lips were parted and I could feel her heart beating fast under her ribcage. "Don't you see I'm trying to protect you?"

The word clanged in my head like a bell. Protect you. That's what men did, real men. They protected what was theirs. Friends, lovers, it didn't matter. That's what my father did for his dreamy, barely able to cope-in-the-real-world wife and his sullen brat of a kid.

That's what I had failed to do for Jane. If I had known, I could have protected her from Killian. If she had just trusted me enough.

"It's not your job to protect me," I told Celia as I brushed my lips past hers. Just a test. And when she didn't pull away, or worse, bite me, I smiled against her mouth in abject relief. "Celia, don't you see that I don't want you to?" I said, kissing across her cheek to her jaw. "I can take care of myself. And lass," I breathed, bending to kiss that racing pulse at her throat. "I can protect you too. If you'll let me."

"From what?" she demanded, but her voice was quavering.

"From whatever you need, love. From yourself. I can do it, you just need to let me."

She was coiled and still stiff in my arms. Like she was poised to push me away, but I held her still tighter, barely wanting to breathe lest I scare her. The sound of footsteps echoed in the night, but the unseen person never materialized. There was no other sound but the soft swish of far-off traffic.

And then she groaned.

She sagged in my arms and the sound of her groan was nearly my undoing. It sounded like music. It sounded like letting me in. I could hear it, all of the walls she'd built up inside of herself crumbling away as she lifted her head and moaned against my mouth. Suddenly all of the coiled tension in her body was dissolving away, and for the first time, I felt like she might truly be mine.

That was all it took to drive me crazy. Wrapping her hair around my fist, I pulled her head back and melded her mouth to mine. Alone on the sidewalk on a dark, lonely street, the sounds of the city swirling around sounded far away. We were all alone in the pool of lights, the only two people in the universe, and she was all that I needed. Her hands found my newly shorn hair, the mark she'd made to claim me as hers, and I groaned in return, lifting her in my arms. She wrapped her legs around my waist and I needed so much more than just standing here kissing her in the dark. I needed to hear her breathless gasp come quickly as I kissed down her throat. I needed to hear her moaning, and feel her sagging against me as my hands sought between her legs. I needed to feel her weight, lifting her up.

Without thinking, I turned and walked blindly, my lips at her neck.

It was only a matter of a few steps before we were in the shadow of an alleyway near a silent, hulking loading ramp. And if there were guard dogs or security cameras, I didn't give a shit because CeCe's fingers were tugging at my shirt, untucking it from my waistband,

I helped her lift it over my head, and it fell away, lost forever in the shadows. "Ewan," she breathed, and the way she said my name it was like she was realizing something for the very first time. Her word died in the back of her throat and she kissed me instead of speaking but I swore I heard whatever it was she had left unsaid. I understood because when I tried to speak, "Love, you're going to..." I couldn't finish the sentence. All the blood was rushing away from my brain, leaving me in a state of primitive arousal.

"Fuck," I said instead, reduced to a caveman's eloquence by the feel of her skin under my hands.

"Ewan," she said again, a mewling, begging sound. I couldn't see her face in the dark, but I could hear her breath catch and feel her body stiffen, and suddenly I remembered my promise to myself.

Next time I was going to make her scream.

There was no way I was going to miss watching her face while I made her come again and again.

My dick was straining against my pants. I felt like I was going to explode. It would be such a simple thing to lift her small body into my arms and lower her onto my cock. It would be such a simple thing to just fuck her here up against the wall of some anonymous alleyway, to sink myself into her heat and drive myself into her so hard that she yelped. It wouldn't have been the first time that I staggered into a blind alleyway for an anonymous fuck.

But not with CeCe. With her, I wanted to do it right.

"Love, I am not going to fuck you up against the side of some random building," I said and I could hear the strain my voice. "No matter how badly I want to."

Her arms uncoiled from my neck. "Dammit," she breathed, and I could feel the shape of her grin against my lips. "Well, you'd better fuck me soon. Before I change my mind."

"I'm going to make it so that you never change your mind again," I said.

"Oh, strong words," she teased, pressing her lips to my throat.

"True words," I promised her and then stooped down and swept her up into my arms.

"Oh my God!" she squeaked. "What are you doing?"

I strode out onto the street and made the turn. "Making sure you can't run away from me again."

"Where are we going?" she yelled, wrapping her arms around my neck.

I didn't answer. I was too busy relishing the feel of her in my arms, the way she clung to me. I'd told her I was going to protect her, and goddammit if I didn't need to do it on some very primitive level. I needed to show her, show her that I could. And that meant...

"We're going to my place," I told her.