He pushes back into me with a sound that is almost a growl, the hand in my hair anchoring me, the other gripping my waist so hard I'll wear the imprint of his fingers for days.
The rhythm is merciless, cock plunging deep and steady, the wet, filthy sound of each thrust echoing off the bookshelves, every angle calibrated to drive me toward the edge and hold me there.
"Do you feel that?" he hisses, biting along the back of my neck as he fucks into me harder, rougher, deeper.
"That's what it means to be mine."
I whimper, trying to hold back the pleasure clawing at my spine, trying to obey, but the pressure is unbearable now, the tension drawn so tight it feels like I might snap from the sheer intensity of it.
"Please," I manage, barely more than a whisper, shaking beneath him, my voice hoarse with need.
"Please, Ruairí, I can't?—"
He releases my hair, slides his hand down to grip my throat, just enough to hold me still as he bends over my back and says, "Now."
The orgasm rips through me like fire through dry grass, sudden and consuming, a full-body convulsion that tears the breath from my lungs and leaves me sobbing into the table.
My muscles clench around him, again and again, and he fucks me through every wave, relentless, his cock pounding deep until he grunts, low and guttural, and slams into me one final time.
He spills into me with a raw cry, the sound dragged from the deepest part of his chest, and I feel him pulse inside me, the heat of him claiming me, sealing everything he said with a release that leaves us both ruined.
He stays like that for a long moment, body pressed tight to mine, his hand smoothing over my back as our breathing slows, as the heat begins to cool between us and the silence settles like a blanket.
When he finally pulls back, I feel empty in a way that's almost tender, and when he reaches to lift me into his arms, I don't resist.
He carries me to the couch like something precious, and we curl into the cushions, still naked, still trembling, our bodies tangled and marked, the scent of sex clinging to the leather and the woodsmoke.
"I'm not sorry," he says at last, his mouth against my hair.
"Neither am I," I answer, although I am moments away from bursting into tears.
I move before that comes to pass, pulling my dress on quickly and somewhat clumsily.
"Keira," he begins, but I raise a hand and silence the rest of what he means to say before walking out as quickly as Ican.
On the way out, a loose page on the desk catches my eye—just a corner, a heading, something oddly familiar in its font and phrasing—but I do not stop.
Later, I eat alone.
The cook has left a plate covered in linen—roasted root vegetables, a thick slice of salted pork, and a square of something dark and soft and mercifully rich.
The quiet is almost kind.
That night, when the house has gone still and the shadows deepen, I return to the office.
I find the same page tucked half beneath a ledger.
A shipping invoice with the nameDeeganExportsat the top.
I know the name well because it is a Donnelly shell company that is now likely being used to move illicit goods, and without direct trace.
If it is still in operation, either Ruairí is running it or someone else is, in the name of a dead empire.
It would not have startled me if I had found the name Deegan on an old invoice, a relic of the years when my father's empire was still whole.
Nor would it have shaken me if Ruairí had brought it up himself, explaining that he had revived one of the Donnelly shells to streamline land transfers or launder something minor.
But he hadn't.
