“You did.” His mouth finds the hollow of my shoulder. “And I handled it.”
“Youhandledit,” I echo, rolling my hips once — slow, teasing — just to hear his breath catch. “You mean you marched in there like the Dublin Devil and scared half the classical world into repenting.”
He tilts his head back, eyes dark, lips parted. “Say it with a little more gratitude,a chroí.”
I laugh — breathless, taunting — and trace his jaw with the tip of my finger. “Maybe if you behave.”
A dangerous, delighted growl curls out of him. “God save me,” he mutters, hands sliding up the back of my thighs, “my fiancée thinks she’s in charge.”
“Thinks?” I push his shoulders back into the chair and climb fully into his lap, straddling him, skirts bunching around us like a throne of silk. “Love, IknowI am.”
His eyes flare — hunger, devotion, surrender — all tangled together.
“Siobhán.” A prayer. A warning. A vow.
“Good boy,” I whisper, dragging my lips across his cheek. “Now shut up and let me thank you properly.”
I kiss him like gratitude is oxygen and he’s been starving me for days. He catches the back of my head, fingers threading into my hair, but I’m the one who breaks him open—pressing forward, sinking deeper, demanding instead of asking.
He groans into my mouth, a sound that vibrates down my spine like a struck string. His hands—always steady, always sure—slide from my waist to my hips, gripping like he can’t decide whether to worship or devour.
“Up,” I whisper against his lips.
He obeys instantly.God, the power of that.I slide off his lap just long enough to shove the papers, the folders, the Red Hand business aside. His eyes flare—hunger, awe, the faintest edge of fear like I’ve just stepped into the center of him and turned the lights on.
“Siobhán…” He says my name like a prayer and a warning.
“Shh.” I tug him forward by his shirt, backing him toward the desk. “You wanted me to stop teasing? Then listen.”
He’s panting already, chest rising beneath my palms, pupils blown wide. I push him back until the backs of his thighs hit the desk. Then I climb up—slow, deliberate, sitting on the edge so I’m eye-level with his ruin.
His breath stutters. “Tell me,” he rasps, “what you want.”
I smile sweetly, wickedly. “Everything.”
His knees go weak. I see it. Ifeelit.
One fingertip traces down his jaw, then his throat, then the buttons of his shirt. “You,” I murmur, “are going to stand there while I decide exactly how I want to take you.”
He swears softly—one word in Irish that slips out like he didn’t mean to let it escape. Not every sentence. Just the ones that crack him open. I hook my fingers into his belt and tug him closer until he’s flush against my knees. His hands hover like he’s afraid to touch me without permission.
“Hands,” I whisper.
They land on my thighs instantly.
I drag them higher, slow enough to torture him. “Good. Now kiss me.” He leans in, but I stop him with a single finger to his lips. “Not there.” My voice drops, satin and sin. “Start lower.”
His eyes close. A shiver runs through him—my dangerous, ruthless devil undone becauseIasked. He sinks to his knees. And Christ, the sight of Cillian O’Dwyer kneeling between my legs… His hands slide up my calves, reverent. His mouth follows—ankle, knee, inner thigh—each kiss slow and starving, like he’s giving thanks for every inch he almost lost.
“Look at me,” I breathe.
He does. God, those eyes—dark, ruined with devotion.
“My duchess,” he whispers hoarsely. “Say you’re mine.”
“Yours,” I whisper back, threading my fingers through his hair and tugging just enough to make him groan. “But you’re mine too, Cill. Every inch.”
His forehead presses to my thigh, breath shaking like I’ve gutted him. Then he grips my hips and pulls me to the very edge of the desk. And he worships. Not rushed. Not frantic. Slow. Meaningful. Like he’s trying to relearn the taste of forgiveness.
