My desire scared me. It was foreign, overwhelming; I enjoyed sex with Paxton, but it was also something I could go without. The famished, depraved notion that came with being with Kill was new and frightening.
“Do you trust me, Persephone?”
His voice sounded so far away, he might as well have been on another planet.
“Yes.”
The speed and conviction in my answer startled me. I didn’t know why I trusted him, or even if I should. I just knew I did. That he would never hurt me. That he would stop if things went too far for my taste.
He got up from the bed and walked to a small desk facing one of his windows. I craned my neck to watch him from my position, tied on his bed, still in my conservative teacher dress. He opened a drawer and returned with a letter opener. My entire body blossomed with goose bumps.
“Sure about that, Flower Girl?” He ran the edge of the letter opener over my calf, so gently and teasingly I wanted to push myself into it.
“I’m not scared.” I trained my voice to sound as bland as his.
I was carefully bowed like a gift—his gift—and I wanted him to unwrap and ravish me.
“Why?” He sounded curious. Almost…hopeful?
No. It couldn’t be.
Hope was an emotion, and Kill didn’t do those.
“Because I know you would never hurt me.”
“That’s an optimistic assumption to make.”
“You saved my life three times, and counting,” I said. “That’s optimistic. I’m realistic.”
The next part happened so fast my head spun. One minute, I was in my dress, and the next, it was ripped from my body by the letter opener in one clean movement. Kill grabbed the fabric so it didn’t cling to my skin and ran the blade through it, all the way down my butt. The dress pooled beneath me while my husband got rid of my panties, clipping them from each side, boomeranging the letter opener back to his nightstand.
I wormed, pushing my ass upward, toward him. It was so brazen that I didn’t recognize myself in the act. I wasn’t that girl. At least I didn’t think I was. But I guessed a dormant part of me was wild all along. I simply never let myself explore it.
Cillian paused. For a moment, everything was so quiet, I half-suspected he wasn’t in the room anymore. Maybe it was a part of the game. The waiting. The suspense. The anticipation.
“Your ass,” he said finally, pulling away from me. “It’s…”
Red as hell. I know. I peed squatting in the air all day.
“Oh, that.” I laughed it off. “My skin is super sensitive. Welsh heritage, and all.”
“I did that to you,” he said gruffly.
“It’s nothing,” I protested. And it was. Yes, he spanked me last night, but it wasn’t something I hadn’t heard about from friends or seen on HBO shows. Heck, I’d been spanked worse by my own mother growing up. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t wiggled my butt in his direction, asking for more.
His hand went to the bondage, and I felt him unfastening it, letting me loose.
“Don’t you dare.” I used my firm teacher voice. “Mr. Fitzpatrick, you did not ask for permission to untie me. You will not do so until I explicitly request it. Am I clear?”
The air was scorched with sex, bloated with endorphins.
“I don’t normally see them the morning after,” he admitted tersely. “I’ve never stopped to wonder what it looks—”
“Don’t tell me about your whores while we’re in bed!”
I was screaming at this point. I was so deep in teacher mode that he was lucky I didn’t send him to time-out. He said nothing, and I was annoyed I couldn’t see what was on his face. “Actually, don’t tell me about them out of it, either.”
“There are no whores anymore,” he barked back. “You made sure of that.”
“Good.” I felt supremely authoritative for someone who was tied naked on a bed. “I hope your mistresses go bankrupt now that you are not there to pay them, and get a real job to support themselves.”
“You’re insane,” he offered, his voice as calm as ever.
“Well, lucky for me, hubs, you’re not charting high on the sanity spectrum, either. Now do what you want to do to me. And make it worth my while.”
Cillian pulled the knot between my wrists and ankles, one gentle hand on my butt cheek. He slipped two fingers between my folds. The sound of my wetness against them filled the room.
I closed my eyes, hissing. “Yes.”
Kill fingered me, the slurps of my want for him drowned by my moans. He curled his fingers when he was inside, hitting my G-spot.
He was a generous lover, something he omitted from our conversation during our negotiations.
He snuck his free hand to my lower belly, propping me up and supporting my body as his mouth joined the party, feasting on my dripping pussy from behind, his tongue lapping between my folds.
Groans of pleasure and delight escaped both our mouths, and I mentally yelled at myself that it meant nothing. That this wasn’t intimacy. It was sex. Foreplay. Nothing but a means to an end for him.
I dropped my head to the black satin pillows, breathing in his singular scent, a white-hot thrill zinging through my spine. The electric currents of an impending orgasm chased one another. I quaked, losing control, mumbling incoherent things into his pillows.
The minute the climax hit me, he withdrew his tongue and fingers, ripped the bondage on my ankles off, and slammed into me in one go. I didn’t know if this was a trick, but it sure made my peak feel twice as violent as it rippled through me. His entire body pressed against my back, his heavy arousal sliding in and out of me from behind.
I groaned, adjusting to his weight on me.
Cillian went very still while he was inside me.
“Tell me to stop.”
“Go harder.” I pushed myself against him.
He did.
We were endless together. One searing entity without a beginning or an end.
He brushed a curtain of hair plastered to the side of my neck, pressing his lips to it as he rode me hard and deep.
“You please me, Persephone.”
I sank my teeth in his skin, not even sure what I was biting. He let me.
Allowed me to touch him, to mark him, to claim him.
Progress.
He came to his release, and I found mine again, in his words.
Once he was done, he untied my wrists, kissed the top of my head, and left the room. His unspoken words were clear and cutting as blades—we were done.