by Fox, Nicole
But I’m nervous to go there.
My experience is limited, and if I’m going to give him head, I want it to be as amazing for him as his was for me.
Instead, I slide up on his hips and position myself just over his cock.
His hands fall to my hips and he massages them slowly, his eyes on me the whole time.
“You’re… big,” I say.
He smiles. “Why, thank you,” he replies. “Nicest thing you’ve said to me all night.”
I smile back at him through my nerves.
Cillian sits up a little, supporting himself on his elbows. “Don’t worry, beautiful,” he says gently. “We’ll take it slow.”
And that’s all I really need.
Reassurance.
The knowledge that I’m safe with him. That he’ll catch me like he said he would.
I lean in and kiss him hard on the lips. I kiss him until I’m wet again and desperate to soothe the beating ache between my legs.
I raise my hips and he lines up his cock with my pussy.
I can feel him at my lips, rubbing his tip up and down, teasing his way in.
And then his hands come around my hips and he grips hard. He pulls me down at the same moment he thrusts his hips up and the entire length of him fills me in one swift thrust.
“Oh, God!” I cry out. “Fuck…!”
The pain sluicing through me lasts only a few seconds. Then pleasure takes hold.
It feels thick and tangible. All-consuming.
He eases himself in and out of me, but his thrusts are slow and I know he’s holding back. Waiting for me to give a signal that I want more.
For now, though, I like how slow we’re going.
I want to drink in every moment. To savor this feeling.
But the hunger rises up sooner rather than later, and I find myself craving more. So, once I’m comfortable, I push off him and start riding him.
Cillian lies back and stares at me, his hands squeezing my breasts and running over my nipples with naked admiration.
As the heat between my legs build, I start riding him faster.
My hips thrust back and forth and he’s so deep inside me that I can barely tell where he ends and I begin.
“Fuck, baby,” Cillian groans. “I’m gonna…”
I can already feel his orgasm. It’s shivering through his body, ready to break. He’s holding back with all his might, but it’s a losing battle.
Good.
I want him to lose.
I want him to erupt for me the way I’m erupting for him.
I put my hands on his chest, and bear down, bucking hard, giving him everything I have.
My second orgasm is more intense than the first. Maybe because this time, my eyes are locked on Cillian’s, and he comes within seconds of me.
The world goes dark for a moment like a TV that’s lost its signal. I gasp, splutter, and keep riding like my life depends on it.
This is how it feels to fly.
Each wave is slightly less intense than the first, until finally the night slowly winks back to life and I can catch my breath again at last.
The moment the orgasm has finished tearing through me, I collapse onto his chest, our sweat mingling together.
“Well, fuck,” he half-laughs, half-gasps as he wraps his arms around me.
I laugh, too.
Because there are no words. Not for what just happened.
I probably just sound like some naïve teenager, but that in and of itself is miraculous to me.
I never thought I’d get to be a naïve teenager.
“What are you thinking?” Cillian asks after a minute of silence has passed, pulling me closer to him.
He smells like me.
I probably smell like him.
I answer with the truth. “I’m thinking that I don’t ever want the sun to come up.”
I can’t see his face, but I can tell he’s smiling. “I can make that happen.”
I turn my neck up so that I can see him. “Oh, can you now?”
“Fuck yeah. Haven’t you heard? I’ve got connections.”
“Clearly,” I say, gesturing towards the magical alcove we’re lying underneath.
“Got this set up all for you.”
I laugh. “You work fast.”
“Clearly,” he mimics, pinching my ass gently.
I punch him in the chest, but he just pulls me closer and plants a kiss on my forehead.
When the laughter dies down, I find my thoughts spinning out. But they’re going in new directions now, buoyed by Cillian’s presence.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he interrupts.
“Oh, yeah? Go ahead then. Tell me what I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking I’m the most gorgeous man on the planet,” Cillian says confidently.
I smirk. He’s not done yet.
“You’re thinking that I have the biggest cock you’ve seen.”
I roll my eyes.
“You’re thinking that you never want to leave my side.”
His tone there is still light, still mildly teasing, but I can sense the serious undertones beneath it.
I push up and support myself on one elbow. “Maybe you are a mind-reader,” I tease.
His eyes bore into my face. “One of my many talents,” he teases right back.
I take a deep breath. “I’ve felt alone my whole life, Cillian.”
I’m turning myself inside out for him. Regret doesn’t even cross my mind, because something tells me I’ll never regret baring my soul.
Not to him.
“I never thought I’d have anyone to rely on,” I continue. “But these last couple of hours with you… It’s made me think things could be different.”
“They can be.”
“I haven’t felt alone for a second tonight.”
“That’s because you’ve got me now,” he says gently. “Now and always.”
He says it so casually, that I have to ask the question burning me up. “Do you mean that?”
He raises his eyebrows.
I smile, knowing what he’s going to say. “Right,” I interject. “You don’t lie.”
“I don’t,” he replies with a firm shake of the head. “And I would never lie about this. About you.”
“This is insane, though,” I breathe. “You and me.”
“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “But that doesn’t make it any less real.”
I shake my head at him and press my lips to his. When I pull away, I keep my eyes on him. “You really are a poet.”
“Another one of my many talents.”
I chuckle and press my forehead to his chest for a moment.
“Cillian?”
“Hmm?”
“I have to go back,” I say, raising my eyes to his. “My father needs me. But…”
“But?”
“But I want my freedom, too,” I tell him. “One day, I want to be free from my fucked-up life.”
“Saoirse,” Cillian murmurs, “why else do you think I’m here?”
11
Cillian
I’m playing it cool. Because a part of me knows that if I freak out, she will, too.
But this is all totally fucking insane.
I’ve spent less than twenty-four hours with Saoirse Connelly. And I’m ready to move fucking mountains for her. I’m ready to kill if I have to.
I’m ready to pull down the goddamn skies just so that the sun can’t rise on us.
I trace circles on her back as she lies on my chest, her soft breaths falling against my skin.
“I can hear that,” she says suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence.
“Hear what?”
She smiles, turning her face up to meet mine. “Your thoughts,” she explains. “They’re going a million miles an hour.”
I laugh. “Well, I’m a thinker.”
“Wanna share them with me?”
“Usually, I’m the one asking you to tell me what you’re
thinking.”
“The tables have turned, pal.”
I press a kiss to her head. “I’d tell you, but—”
“Then you’d have to kill me?”
“Worse. I’d have to kiss you again.”
She laughs and I pinch her ass. She squirms, but she doesn’t move away from me. In fact, she wriggles a little closer. Her coconut scent fills my nostrils and I breathe her in.
“You smell so damn good.”
“Stop trying to change the subject.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then why are you trying to avoid giving me an answer?”
“Because I don’t want to freak you out,” I admit.
She pushes herself up and lies on her chest so that she’s facing me. “Nothing you say could possibly freak me out.”
She sounds confident, too.
But just because she believes that now doesn’t mean she’ll feel the same way when I’ve said the words out loud.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“A hundred percent?”
“Cillian.”
I laugh. What the hell is this easy rapport?
It feels like the kind of connection that takes years to build. And yet, Saoirse and I have stumbled across it during the course of a few hours.
Shit like this doesn’t happen every day.
“You wanna know what I’m thinking?” I ask. “For real?”
She sighs. “Are you building this up for dramatic effect?” she demands. “Because it’s going to be a let-down when—”
“I was thinking this is the night we’re gonna tell our children about,” I say abruptly, cutting her off.
She stops short, clearly shocked. Clearly blindsided.
I expect to feel regret, but it doesn’t come.
I’m glad I told her. It reinforces what I’ve always believed: you never regret the truth.
“Is… is that serious?” she asks softly.
“Yes.”
Our eyes meet and I know we’re both thinking the same thing.
“Insane,” we chirp simultaneously.
“Completely insane,” she adds. “But… it doesn’t feel insane.”
“Well, then maybe we should stop listening to everyone else’s rules. Let’s make our own.”
She smiles. Her aqua blue eyes catch the lights hanging above us. “Okay.”
“Tell me where you wanna be ten years from now.”
“Ten years,” she breathes slowly, weighing it. “That feels like a lifetime away. But… I think I can see it.”
“What do you see?”
We both turn our faces up to the lights above. The canopy that stretches above us is a chaos of fairy lights and creepers.
But beyond that, we can see the dark skies, churning with half-realized clouds.
“We’re living somewhere out in the country,” she murmurs like she’s caught in a lovely dream state she doesn’t want to shatter. “Somewhere with a huge backyard and tons of greenery. Preferably by a lake, but I’d be just as happy looking out my window in the morning and seeing mountains.”
I smile, seeing the image come to life with her words. “What else?”
“I have a little garden patch where I grow vegetables. And we have a chicken coop.”
“A chicken coop?” I ask. “I hate birds.”
She laughs at my expression. “You’ll get over it, you coward. We can have fresh eggs and milk every morning.”
“Jesus, you want cows, too?” I demand. “‘Cause I sure as hell won’t be milking them.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want a whole farm. I just want a little piece of it.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“No,” she says firmly. “It’s not.”
I chuckle. “Okay, we’re going to have chickens and cows and a vegetable patch. What else?”
“Bees.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, hot shot. Bees. Cute, fat little bumblebees so we can put fresh honey on our toast. And a huge, white kitchen, big enough to sing and dance in. And a living room full of sunshine with a reading nook in the window. A den with a fireplace, a shaggy dog to cuddle with, two or three cats who pretend they hate us but secretly live for scratches behind the ears.”
I want to laugh, but it all feels so real when she describes it. I can see Saoirse in that house. In that world.
But can I see myself?
I want to. I want to so fucking bad.
“Should I be taking notes?” I tease.
“Don’t be an ass,” she laughs, shoving me in the shoulder. “You asked.”
“I did,” I concede. “The wee ones will be dying to know where all that began.”
She stares into my eyes for so long that I actually get lost in hers.
She sounds tentative, shy about talking about this. Even though I’m the one who brought it up.
I can see how cautious she is about taking in concrete dreams about a future that isn’t certain.
But there is a level of certainty between us now. I can feel it between our beating hearts.
“I don’t think kids really care how their parents met,” she says, wrinkling her nose.
“All of ours will,” I say confidently. “The story’s just too damn good.”
“All of them?” Saoirse echoes. “How many are we talking?”
“A whole gaggle of them.”
“A gaggle?” she gasps. “I’m gonna need you to define that for me.”
“I’m thinking six boys and five girls. Enough to field a football team.”
She whacks my arm and laughs. “I am not pushing out eleven kids, you psychopath.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“You’d trick me into having babies?” she asks with pretend incredulity.
“No trickery necessary,” I promise. “I’m only going to get finer with age. You’re going to be all over me all the time. Pregnancies are inevitable.”
She scoffs. “I won’t be all over you all the time.”
“‘Course you are. Like I said, you’re only human.”
She shakes her head and laughs some more. “I thought this was my vision of the future?”
“Oh, right. Sorry. Continue.”
“Well, in ten years, I’ll be twenty-eight.”
“Me too.”
“So I think we’ll have two kids at that point,” she says, glancing at me as though she’s worried that I might start freaking out at any second.
“Two?”
“A boy and a girl,” she says. “They have your curly blond hair.”
“No,” I say so passionately that she actually flinches. I sit up and shake my head. “They’re not gonna have blond hair. They’re going to be redheads, like you.”
She smiles. “I dunno. I’m seeing two little blond kids.”
“And I’m seeing two little firecrackers,” I counter.
Her smile changes, becomes softer. Almost maternal. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like we’re talking in ifs and maybes anymore.
It feels like we’re planning for a future both of us want.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” she says at last.
“I guess so.”
She takes a deep breath, but it sounds more like a contented sigh. “What about you?” she asks a moment later. “Where do you see yourself in ten years? What’s your version of the future?”
I feel something pierce me right in the chest. It’s uncomfortable, almost painful.
And the first thing that pops into my head is Sean’s face.
The second is my father’s.
I feel Saoirse’s hand come down on my thigh. “Cillian,” she says gently. “Where’d you go?”
Jesus.
Can you really know someone so well so soon?
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Just talk to me about it.”
“I was just thinking… my future isn’t really my own to plan f
or,” I admit.
Her face drops slightly. “Oh.”
I grab her hand and bring it to my lips. I kiss each finger and then I press it to my heart.
“But I know you’re a part of it. I may not know much, but I know that.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I can feel it,” I say. “I can fucking feel it, Saoirse.”
She weighs that for a long, quiet second.
“When you say your future isn’t really your own, do you mean the family business?” she asks.
I nod. “With my brother gone, I’m the heir. The next don.”
She doesn’t say a word. I wonder what’s going on inside her head. But for the first time, I’m scared to ask.
“All my parents’ expectations have been transferred to me,” I tell her. “And that’s…”
“Intimidating?” she offers.
“You have no idea.”
“Do you want it?” she asks. “I mean, do you want to be the next O’Sullivan don?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice,” she points out. “Your brother made his.”
She’s right.
But that’s exactly why I can’t walk away from my family.
One brother did. I can’t put my parents through that again.
“Yes,” I concede. “But Sean is different than I am.”
“I know,” Saoirse says with a knowing nod. “You’d never walk away.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing, though,” I tell her. “I can keep you safe. You and your father. I can pay off his debts and make sure you never want for anything ever again.”
She frowns. “I don’t want to be a kept woman.”
“You wouldn’t be,” I say impatiently. “You’d be my woman.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
I pause for a moment and consider my words. I need her to know just how much she means to me. I need her to know just how sincere my thoughts are when I think of her. Of us.
“Do you believe I would ever hurt you?” I ask.
She meets my gaze, her expression both scared and hopeful. “No.”
“Do you believe I would ever lie to you?”
“No.”
“Do you believe I would ever abandon you?”
“No.”
“Then there we go. When I say you’re my woman, I mean you’re mine. Just like I’m yours.”