He hides his face in my neck and squeezes me so tightly, I’m left breathless.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you for telling me that. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard, but I’m so glad I know.”
His voice cracks when he says, “Why?”
“Because what I want more than anything is to know you. The real you that you keep hidden under all those smirks and that awful macho swaggering.”
“Look who’s talking. You’ve got so many ancient hell witch costumes, I can’t keep up with them all.”
I pull away, frame his face in my hands, and gently kiss him on the lips. Looking deep into his eyes, I say, “They’re not costumes.”
After a beat, we both start laughing.
It’s soft and grim, but laughter nonetheless.
I kiss him again. He drops his forehead to my shoulder and exhales. A shudder runs through his big body. I can tell he’s deeply affected by the story he just told me, that saying it aloud was excruciating and brought back horrible memories along with a mountain of guilt. But for the first time, I’m grateful for his insistence on talking things out.
But there’s one last item on the agenda that I’m not about to let go.
I pull away from him and wait until he raises his head and looks at me to say, “A small public service announcement: if you ever refer to me as ‘pussy’ again, I’ll break your face.”
He pulls his brows together. “What?”
“I heard what you told Declan about me.”
After a moment, he understands. “You were earwigging at the door?”
“If that’s an obscure Irish word for eavesdropping, then yes.”
He raises his voice. “Then you should’ve heard me tell him that I was being an idiot when I said that.”
“I’d already left by then.”
“Also,” he says, talking over me, “I didn’t even fucking know you when Declan and I had that conversation. I was talking about Lili, not you.”
“Stop talking, Quinn. You’re only digging your grave deeper.”
He stares at me for a beat in tense silence. “You’re always going to think the worst of me, aren’t you?”
“Don’t get dramatic. You’re telling me I heard something out of context, and I’m accepting that.”
His brows shoot up. “But you don’t believe it?”
I can tell he’s on the verge of another outburst. I don’t want a repeat of the episode we had in the car where I get another angry tirade shouted into my face, so I pull away from him and walk slowly over to the windows.
As I stare down at the city lights, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion settles over me.
I’m thirty-three, childless, with no career or work experience. I was raised in an environment of shame and fear by people who didn’t love each other. All I’ve ever known from every man who was supposed to care for me is violence. I’m jaded, cynical, and broken in so many places, there’s not enough glue in the world to put me back together.
And I’m starting to have real feelings for a man who might be even more broken than I am.
I say, “I believe both of us have problems that we’re not going to fix tonight. I have trauma over my past. You have trauma over yours. Both of us are haunted by bad memories. I believe you wanted an arranged marriage to try to escape all that and find some peace, but you got me instead. A woman who has as many scars as she does demons. I believe we have an intense physical connection, but neither of us knows how to live with ourselves, let alone another person.”
I turn from the window and look at him. “I also believe you would’ve let Lili out of the contract if you’d known about Juan Pablo sooner.”
“Aye,” he says crossly. “What of it?”
“It just occurred to me that we never signed a wedding license.”
Frozen, he stares at me from across the room. I see his mind in action, the mad dash as he connects the dots. Then he passes a hand over his face.
“Fucking hell.”
“Yes. We’re not legally married.”
He turns around and pours himself another scotch. He shoots it, then sets the glass down carefully. Without looking at me, he says gruffly, “So you want out of the contract.”
It’s not a question. He says it as if it’s a foregone conclusion that I wouldn’t be in this room if I wasn’t legally obligated to be.
But life is never that simple, is it?
“I don’t know what I want. The past few days have ruined my ability to think rationally.”
He waits, unmoving, staring down at the empty glass on the bar.
My voice low, I continue. “But I meant what I said when I told you I wanted to know you.”
He lifts his head. Our eyes lock. A swell of emotion tightens my chest.
“I like you, Quinn. You’re smart. You’re funny. You’re kind. You’re protective. You’re also completely unhinged. What happened with you and Riley is still fresh. You’re still processing.”
He growls, “I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not in love with her.”
“And I believe that. But you can still be fucked up over someone even if you weren’t in love.” After a moment, I add softly, “Like I would be if this pretend marriage of ours doesn’t work out.”
His eyes shine. His jaw works. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.
Then he crosses the room in a few long strides, takes me into his arms, and kisses me.
It’s passionate, bordering on desperate. He holds my head between his shaking hands and drinks deep from my mouth until we’re both breathing hard.
He breaks away and growls, “Permission to get rough. I won’t hurt you, but—”
“Granted. I trust you. Fuck me, fake husband. We can work out all the other bullshit tomorrow.”
His eyelids flutter closed as he exhales on a soft groan.
When he opens his eyes again, Quinn is gone. In his place is my black-eyed monster who comes out to play with me in the dark.
He flips me up and over his shoulder, strides over to the bed, and tosses me down to the mattress. I haven’t even caught my breath before he drags me by my ankles to the edge, thrusts my legs apart, flattens his hand on the middle of my chest, and forces me to lie back.
He tears my panties off and shoves his face between my thighs.
I cry out, arching.
He grabs my bottom in both hands and digs his fingers into my flesh as he lashes his tongue back and forth over my clit. Then he shoves it inside me, making me gasp.
I gasp even louder when he slides his finger into my ass.
“Okay, wife,” he says in a guttural voice, his mouth inches away from my exposed pussy and his finger wedged deep inside me as he kneels on the floor between my spread legs. “If this is the last time I get to fuck you, I’m gonna make sure you remember it for the rest of your life.”
He sinks his thumb inside my pussy, lowers his head, and starts to suckle my clit, filling me with his fingers and fondling me with his tongue.
The sensation is mind-blowing. As he licks, he squeezes his fingers together, then rotates his hand, then squeezes again. He’s manipulating me like a hand puppet. It’s hot and dirty and fucking incredible.
I dig my hands into his hair and start pulling as I writhe against his mouth with my legs spread as wide open as I can get them.
When I shudder and moan, he laughs darkly.
“My good girl likes to get finger fucked in all her sweet holes while she has her pussy licked, doesn’t she?”
I can’t form an answer. My eyes roll back into my head. I make an animal whimper of pleasure as I rock my hips frantically in a wordless plea.
“Aye, she does. She fucking loves it. Now come on my face so I can fuck all these tight holes with my hard cock.”
I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me. This is the way I go out, flat on my back with my legs spread in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as a crazy Irish gangster showers me in filthy words like a smut baptism.
At least I’ll die happy.
Making circles with both fingers, he flattens his tongue and drags it up and down my engorged clit, faster and faster, until I’m groaning and bucking and out of my goddamn mind.
I climax with a primal scream.
He finger fucks me through my orgasm, reaching up to yank aside the neck of my dress and pinch my throbbing nipple. I thrash against his mouth, sobbing incoherently because it feels so intensely, insanely good.
He surges up from his knees and falls on top of me, kissing me ravenously on my mouth, neck, and chest, dragging his beard over my sensitive skin. I taste myself on his lips and can’t decide if I should cry or laugh maniacally.
Rearing back onto his heels, he grabs the neckline of my dress and rips it apart with one savage pull. The sound of tearing fabric and the sight of my breasts spilling out seem to flick on his caveman switch.
His eyes flare wide. He snarls, baring his teeth.
Then he tears the rest of the dress off my body, ripping it to shreds like a tissue.
He throws the shredded remnants to the floor, yanks down the zipper on his trousers, fists his erection in his hand, and falls back on top of me, taking my mouth again as I clutch his hips and raise my own.
He embeds himself inside me with a brutal thrust.
Delirious, I cry out. He bites my neck, laughing.
“You’re gonna take it hard, sweetheart, and you’re gonna fucking love it. Wrap your legs around my waist.”
Disobedience is not an option. Even if I wanted to, my body has surrendered completely to his control. The moment the command is past his lips, I bend my legs and wrap them around him, hooking my ankles together in back.
He growls, “Good girl.”
I almost pass out.
His first thrust makes me groan. His second makes me whimper. Then, when he starts to fuck me hard, plunging into me over and over as he snaps his hips and growls something in Gaelic, I lose the ability to make a sound altogether.
All I can do is feel.
His hard chest against mine. The smooth fabric of his shirt dragging against my tight nipples. His hot breath on my neck and the cool leather of his belt biting into my thighs.
His beard on my skin.
His voice in my ear.
His rough moans of pleasure, all over me.
I hear a chant from somewhere far away, a raw and plaintive repetition of please, please, please. It takes a moment before I realize it’s coming from me.
“I love it when you beg for me,” Quinn says hotly, squeezing my breast. He pulls on my nipple, chuckling when I plead for his mouth.
He lowers his head and sucks hard on my rigid nipple, then slides his hand down my hip and under my bottom. He strokes my ass as I buck and moan underneath him.
I come, crying out his name.
“Aye, baby. Tell me who you belong to. Say it again for me, lass, and make me believe it.” His hips thrust harder. His voice drops until it’s nothing but a deep, resonant command.
“Make me believe you’re mine.”
In that moment, it’s all I want. It’s everything I’ve ever lived for. I claw his back and cry his name and give him every part of me, body and soul, holding nothing back as I convulse around his cock and hear his words of praise that blend together until they’re only sound, husky noises of approval and adoration.
I don’t have to speak the language to understand what they mean.
You’re beautiful.
I worship you.
You’re mine.
He withdraws and rolls me onto my belly. He wraps an arm around my waist and hikes me up to my knees. He sinks a hand into my hair and pulls on it so my neck is arched.
Holding me like that, he uses his other hand to slide his wet cock back and forth over my ass, nudging the crown at my entrance.
“Yes or no, wife?”
The need in his voice sets my nerves on fire.
I see our reflection in the dark windows. A naked woman on all fours on the bed. With an air of absolute dominance, a fully dressed man stands behind her.
And I know that no matter how it might look, the man in this image isn’t the one in control of the situation.
It’s a funny thing, power. As easily as it can corrupt, it can also be humbling.
Knowing that Quinn will do only what I allow, and do it all only to please me, gives me a feeling of power so absolute, I burn with it.
Trembling all over, I lick my lips. “Yes. Whatever you want, just for tonight, the answer is yes.”
He makes a sound I’ve never heard him make before, some needful, primitive sound that rises from deep within his chest. Then he flexes his hips, driving his hard cock inside me.
It’s so painful, I can’t even scream.
My eyes fly wide open. I claw my fingers into the blanket. My lips part, but no words come out.
When he hears the strangled gasp I make, he freezes. “I’m hurting you.”
“Yes! Fuck! Don’t stop!”
“Reyna—”
Whatever he was going to say is cut off as I rear back hard, taking the entire length of him inside me.
He barks out a groan that’s even louder than mine.
When he releases my hair, I collapse facedown onto the bed, pulling the covers and gritting my teeth. I have to keep blinking hard to clear my eyes of water.
Panting, he grips my hips in both hands to steady me. I feel the cool metal of his zipper on the back of my thighs and shudder.
“I can’t do this if I’m hurting you.”
Through gritted teeth, I say, “Goddammit, gangster. You better fuck that ass, or I’ll find someone else who will.”
As I knew it would, those words make him go ballistic.
He thrusts and withdraws, then does it over and over again. His balls slap against my pussy. His growls of pleasure and fury fill the air. His fingers dig into the flesh of my hips until I’m sure I’ll be bruised in the morning.
If tomorrow ever comes. We might fuck each other to death tonight, there’s really no telling.
He pauses his fervent thrusting to reach around and slide his fingers over my clit. When I jerk, sucking in a breath through my teeth, he breathes, “Your cunt is drenched.”
“And your cock is throbbing. Are we doing a play-by-play, or are you fucking me?”
I can tell his jaw is clenched when he replies. “Careful, woman. You told me I could never spank your arse, but you said nothing about this sweet pussy.”
He gives my wet folds a firm tweak, making me yelp. It also makes my ass muscles clench around him.
He groans. Then he decides to try it again.
It’s my turn to groan. His fingers are hard and calloused, and though the pinch is firm, it doesn’t hurt. If anything, it’s a lovely distraction.
I whisper, “So spank it, then.”
Breathing raggedly, he pauses for only a second before sliding his fingers all over my folds, up and down, even to the outside, over my thighs. I hear the noise it makes, his fingers covered in my slickness, and feel my face burn.
I forget about my burning face when he slaps me smartly between the legs.
“Ah!”
The sting of it is quickly replaced by a flood of heat that makes my muscles loosen and my jaw go slack. After that, a steady pulse of pleasure throbbing outward from my core makes me shiver.
Sounding triumphant, he whispers, “You liked it.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I liked it.”
He laughs. “Of course you did. Do you know why?”
“Because I’m sick.”
“No, sweet girl. Because you’re mine.”
My breath hitches. My heart pounds. I feel shaky and buzzed and so very alive. So alive, I’m flying.
My face half buried in the blankets, I whisper, “Come in me like this, Quinn. Fuck me hard and spank my pussy and come inside me. I need to feel you unravel. I want us to unravel at the same time.”
Fondling my aching clit with one hand, Quinn slides his other up my back to my nape, then down again, his fingers gently tracing the outline of my scars.
In a reverent voice, he says, “I started to unravel the first moment I laid eyes on you, viper. And even if tonight is all I get, I’ll never be wound right again.”
He pumps into me, starting off hard and continuing even harder as he plays with my pussy, stopping every once in a while to give it a brisk slap that makes me sob and lose my mind.
The motion of his hips only falters when he grits out, “I’m there.”
“Me too.”
“Ah, fuck, viper—”
“Quinn! Quinn!”
We groan loudly together, so loudly, it echoes off the walls. He shoves his finger deep inside my pussy. I rear back against him, clenching and clenching, shuddering uncontrollably.
Still pumping into my ass, he leans over and rests his forehead between my shoulder blades as he spills himself inside me.
Pressing his lips to my spine, he breathes my name on a long, low moan.
Any chance I thought I had of not falling for this man evaporates into thin air.
Whatever happens when the sun rises, my cold little heart is now in his hands.
