Declan catches me before I’ve gone twenty feet.
He tackles me from behind. We crash to the living room carpet. He rolls on top of me.
Then he kisses me, hard and hungrily, his mouth fused to mine.
The fear I feel is overpowering. He’s only kissing me, not killing me, but it feels like I’m fighting for my very life.
It feels like I’m drowning.
I gasp, twisting my head away and squirming underneath him. “Get off me!”
“You’re forgetting who’s in charge here,” he growls, pulling my head back so my throat is exposed. He bites my neck, chuckling when I scream in frustration.
“You said I was in charge!”
“I lied. Submit, captive.”
“Go to hell!”
“Submit.”
“No! Stop saying that!”
My bound arms are pinned between our bodies. He reaches down, grasps the short chain that links the handcuffs, and yanks my arms over my head. Then he gives me all his weight, flattening me.
This time when he kisses me, I taste victory on his lips.
Victory and something darker.
He breaks away, panting. “Don’t run away from me. You’re braver than that.”
I’m not, though. I always thought I was tough, but he’s proven I’m nothing more than a big fat coward. I’m so scared he’ll see more than I want him to see that I can’t even look at him.
Into my ear, he says, “Cat’s already out of the bag. You can’t hide from me anymore.”
“I take it all back! I was lying!”
That infuriates him.
With a snarl that’s more than a little scary, he makes me look at him, his hand gripped around my jaw. “Bollocks. You were telling the truth, maybe for the first fucking time. Weren’t you?”
When I don’t respond, he insists, “Weren’t you?”
Shaking all over, I close my eyes and whisper, “Stop. Please. This was a mistake.”
“No, lass, it wasn’t. I’m betting this is the first real thing either of us has had.”
He takes my mouth again. When I try to break away, he doesn’t let me. He doesn’t let me move my arms, or end the kiss, or wriggle out from underneath him. He doesn’t try to command me this time, either, he simply forces me to submit.
I fight him, but he’s too strong. Or I’m too weak. Either way, in a few moments, all the fight is drained out of me. I lie limply underneath him, sucking in short, hard breaths through my nose as I’m washed over a cliff and out to sea.
He reaches down and rips open his zipper. His hard cock springs out from his jeans. He fists it in his hand, rubbing it back and forth through my wetness.
“Open your eyes.”
When I do, I find him staring down at me in blistering intensity, his face hard and beautiful. “Yes or no. I’m a lot of bad things, but a man who takes a woman against her will isn’t one of them.”
Yet he could. Easily. He could simply shove inside me and ignore my protests, knowing there was no one who could stop him.
That he doesn’t makes it all somehow so much worse.
“My gentleman gangster,” I whisper brokenly, and spread my thighs.
He thrusts. Then he’s in, and I’m moaning.
He leans over, bites my hard nipple right through the fabric of the shirt, and fucks me like he’s possessed. Like he’s starving.
This time, it isn’t making love. It’s a primal thing, raw and animalistic. He grunts as he drives into me, harsh, ragged sounds that rise from deep within his chest. He’s taking me, and I’m allowing myself to be had.
I wish I didn’t love it so much. I’m afraid this kind of surrender can be addictive.
He withdraws, flips me over, drags me up onto my knees, then fucks me from behind, his strong fingers digging into my hips and his heavy balls slapping against my pussy.
He pulls my hair.
Spanks my ass.
Reaches around between my legs and fondles my clit as he thrusts, sliding his fingers through my folds.
The carpet burning my knees, I moan and cry out deliriously.
He rasps, “Come on your master’s cock. My beautiful captive, be a good girl and come for me.”
His words work like magic. Within seconds, I’m convulsing around his erection, bucking back against it and calling out his name.
Had anyone told me a month ago that a man would handcuff me, get me to orgasm on command, and use the words “master” and “captive” to refer to our relationship, I would have laughed until I peed myself.
But here we are.
And holy hell, what a wonderful place it is to be.
Hands around my hips, Declan sits back on the balls of his feet, taking me with him so I’m upright. He rips open the front of the button-down shirt he dressed me in and starts to fondle my naked breasts with one hand, flattening the other over my belly and holding me against his body. I lean back against his chest, close my eyes, and sigh.
“I want you to come again,” he says roughly, rolling my nipple between two fingers. “Like this.”
He lightly slaps me between the legs.
I jerk, gasping. My eyes fly open wide.
“Harder or softer?” he growls, nipping at my neck.
My pulse is flying. My thighs tremble. I don’t know what’s up or down. “Harder. And faster.”
His groan is soft and filled with pleasure. I think he was hoping I’d say that.
The next slap stings, but also sends a shockwave of pleasure throughout my body. He does it again and again, holding me steady with an arm around my waist, until I’m shaking and so wet, it’s slipping down my thighs.
“How close are you?”
“There,” I gasp. “I’m right there.”
“Give me your mouth.”
I tip my head back and am immediately rewarded with a deep, hot kiss. Declan’s fingers delve between my legs, exploring every inch, sliding around where he’s buried inside me. When they brush my exquisitely sensitive clit, I whimper into his mouth.
“Ready?” he whispers.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
His exhalation is ragged. “Goddamn, woman. Goddamn.”
Then he slaps my throbbing pussy, and I come.
Sobbing and jerking in his arms, I come so hard, I lose myself. The entire time, he whispers praises into my ear, words in English and Gaelic that melt like butter over my heated skin.
Then he’s jerking, too, hips thrusting erratically, broken moans falling from his lips. I feel him throbbing inside me, feel a spreading warmth as his hand closes around my throat.
He spills himself inside me with a roar.
As we fall limp and spent to the carpet and he gathers me into his arms, I wonder how this dark fairy tale will end.
Because it will end. It has to. The only question is who will be left standing when the castle walls come crashing down—the princess? The dark knight?
Or maybe no one at all.
Back in the kitchen, neither of us speaks. Declan finishes making the salad, puts everything into a big bowl, grabs a fork, then leads me over to the dining table.
He sits in a chair and pulls me down gently to the floor.
Appalled, I stare up at him. “I’m not kneeling at your feet.”
Eyes shining, he says, “Strange, but it looks like you are.”
He waits for me to decide what I’m going to do about it. I simmer for a few moments, debating, observing from a safe distance as my ego throws a hissy fit.
He says gently, “I just want to feed you.”
“Like an owner feeds his dog scraps under the table?”
“No, lass. Like a man feeds his lover. If you don’t like it, get up.”
He proceeds to spear a bunch of salad onto the fork. Then he holds the fork to my lips, cradling my jaw in his other hand as he gazes down at me with feverish eyes.
Oh, that look. It makes me shiver. I’ve never been looked at like that by a man. The need in his eyes is so hot, it could burn us both to the ground.
I whisper, “This is a dangerous game we’re playing.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Those are his skeletons I hear behind his words. His ghosts rattling their chains. What the hell am I getting myself into?
“Promise me you’ll—”
“Aye. I promise.”
“You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
“It doesn’t matter. Ask me for anything. To be careful with you, to be honest with you, to bring you someone’s head on a plate. I’ll say aye. You’re not the only one in chains here. Now open those pretty lips and let me feed you. You’ll need your energy. I’ll want to fuck you again soon.”
He nudges my lips with the fork.
Staring up at him in a weird combination of terror, fascination, and awe, I open my mouth and let him slide the food in.
Watching me chew, he caresses my cheek. He murmurs, “Your face is red.”
“Humiliation does that to me.”
“You’re not being humiliated. You’re being worshipped. You’re just too proud to know the difference.”
“Usually when I’m being worshipped by a man, he’s the one in this position.”
“I’m not your usual man. This isn’t your usual situation. None of the old rules apply.”
I glance down, avoiding his eyes. He allows it for a moment, until he gets impatient.
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t like to think of myself as someone who’s irrational.”
He knows exactly what I mean. “You can be a feminist and still want to be dominated by a man in bed.”
“Gloria Steinem would be so disappointed in me.”
“Gloria Steinem got married, lass. The woman who coined the phrase ‘A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’ eventually wanted a husband. It’s biological. Evolutionary. Even the strongest woman needs a man.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Barf.”
He chuckles. “The opposite is also true. Even the strongest man needs a woman. We’re made for each other.”
“How do gay people fit into that gendered philosophy?”
“They’re made for each other, too. It’s not about tab A fits into slot B. It’s about who you are as a human. What turns you on. What you need. Everyone has a match. A fit. Yin to yang, light to darkness. It’s when we fight it and judge it that we run into problems. Open your mouth.”
He’s nudging my lips with another forkful of salad. I’m too caught up in the conversation to protest. Around a mouthful of salad, I say, “How is it possible that despite your rather caveman approach to things, you almost sound liberated?”
“Maybe I am. Is that so hard to fathom?”
“This from the man who ordered me off a plane with a rocket launcher. Where did you get that thing, anyway?”
“I keep an arsenal of weapons in the back of every SUV. You never know when you might need the odd machine gun or hand grenade.”
I say drily, “Right. How silly of me. One needs to be prepared. What a Boy Scout.”
He chuckles again. “Believe it or not, I was. Ireland’s version, anyway. I was involved with Scouting Ireland almost until I went into the military.”
Surprised by that tidbit of information, I raise my brows. “You were in the military?”
He pauses to take a bite of the salad for himself. It seems deliberate. Like an avoidance tactic. After he swallows, he simply says, “Aye.”
He’s not meeting my eyes.
“Declan.”
His wary gaze flashes up to meet mine.
“We can do Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell if you want. We don’t have to share our sad stories. It’s probably safer that way.”
“Safer?”
I’m flustered by his penetrating look. It seems to say he knows I’m trying desperately to protect myself from him. “I meant smarter.”
Examining my expression, he sweeps his thumb over my lips. “Don’t hide. When I said you were safe with me, I meant it.”
“Okay, but only if you don’t hide from me.”
He caresses my face a moment longer. “The difference is, you haven’t said I’m safe with you. Which is good, because we both know I’m not.”
“So this total trust thing only works one way? From me to you?”
His brows pull together. “Do you want me to trust you?”
“Could you?”
Our gazes are locked together. The air between turns crackling.
His voice low and rough, he says, “If you gave yourself to me and meant it. If I knew you’d be loyal to me the way you are with your girlfriend, Natalie. Then aye. I could trust you. But if I did, it would be with everything, including my life. I don’t do half measures. I wouldn’t hold back. And there’s a lot of ugliness my trust would expose you to. There are many things you’d discover that might make you regret ever meeting me at all.
“So before you ask for my trust, think carefully. Because if I give it to you, it means I’m yours. And you’re mine. For good. There’s never any getting out of that, even if you asked me to. Even if it got to be too much and you wanted to run away.”
His voice drops. His gaze drills into mine. “Because I take the words ‘until death do us part’ literally.”
I don’t know how we got here. One minute we’re chatting about feminism, and the next we’re falling down a rabbit hole of marriage vows and death pacts.
“Okay. Wow. That’s a lot.”
“I don’t see you running away, though.”
There’s a challenge in his tone. A challenge in his eyes. A look that says I should decide right now how this is going to go.
My heart hammering, I moisten my lips. “No. I’m not running. But I’m not promising I won’t want to.”
He smiles. “Good enough for now. If you change your mind, let me know.”
“And you’ll let me go when I ask you to?”
“If,” he corrects. “If you ask me to.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself there. I do have a life to get back to, you know.”
He gazes at me for a beat. Then he takes another bite of the salad, thinking. When he swallows, he looks back at me with something in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
Pain.
“I’m a lot older than you, as you keep pointing out. I’ve traveled more roads, many of them dark. I’ve learned that no matter how well you think you know yourself, you can still be surprised. You can’t control what moves you. The only thing in your control is the choice over whether or not you surrender to it.
“I think you realize, deep down, that you can trust me. The only thing you’re really on the fence about is if you’re willing to trust yourself. Because up till now, you haven’t met a man who knew how to handle you. Who could see what you are behind that ivory tower you’ve built around your heart. But I see you. And I know you’re scared seven shades of shite to let me in.
“I can’t convince you to. That’s a leap you have to make yourself. And I can promise you that it’ll be messy. You, me, what that would mean to everyone else…messy. But worth it, at least in my opinion. Because this half-dead gangster of yours has seen a lot in his time, but nothing as fine as this.”
When I only sit there swallowing around the lump in my throat, he says, “Now let’s finish this horrible bowl of rabbit food and go to bed.”
“Okay.”
He looks at me with an arched eyebrow.
“I mean…yes, sir.”
When he leans down and kisses me tenderly, I realize exactly how much trouble I’m really in, and how right he was about the ivory tower I’ve built to keep my heart safe.
A heart that’s safe would never ache with so much longing.
