“What areyouthinking?” I returned the question.
“I need to make you mine, Maeve O'Callaghan.” His eyes heated, the same way they did when I thought he was hungry last week.
A trembling breath whispered past my parted lips. He wasn’t hungry for food at all. He was hungry forme. I turned my eyes to the floor, giving myself a second to work up the courage to be honest.
“I need that too,” I whispered. My eyes slowly rose to meet his. His irises reflected the fire around the sides, and I was in the center—in his pupils. It was the perfect way to describe how I was feeling. “I’ve never…I’ve never had a man, so…I’ve never been with one.”
“One less man for me to kill then.”
Nothing on his face showed a hint of kidding. He was being dead serious.
He took my hand and wrapped it in his. It engulfed mine. I felt completely at ease, at home, and never safer.
“You will be my first as well.”
I kept my face even, but deep down…what?!How could that be true? He was so fine—I’d lost track of how many women I’d noticed watching him when we’d gone to Galway.
Then it hit me.
Reallyhitme.
He’d cut himself off from almost everyone and everything. It seemed like his sole focus had become…fighting. Surviving this world. It didn’t seem like Cian O'Callaghan had truly learned how to live, how to trust enough to let life and all its little pleasures in.
Somehow, without me realizing it, I had become someone he trusted.
I squeezed his hand and nodded. “It’ll only ever be us then.”
He leaned down and kissed me, like he was making an unbreakable promise. His lips were warm against mine but not all that soft—like him. It started out slow, then our tongues touched for the first time. I made a noise of deep pleasure in my throat, and he growled into my mouth. A second later, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me upstairs.
Chapter13
Maeve
It threw me some when Cian carried me to my room. I thought we’d be going to his. He set me down on the bed and took a step back, staring at me.
My heart was pounding in my ears, and my breaths were hard to catch.
Anticipation was clawing at my chest.
“Are we not going to your room?” I breathed out.
He tilted his head. “I don’t have a room.” His voice was deep, raspy, and his words came out slow.
“I thought…” My voice trailed off.
“I didn’t have a room until now. My room is wherever yours is.”
All those mornings he was standing outside of my door, sometimes sleeping, he’d been there the entire time, orbiting around wherever I was.
A sadness so profound that it made my eyes burn suddenly overtook me.
He’d aimlessly walked these halls like a ghost, only living for the hunt—of what though? To rule Boston? To take it from the Craigs because he wanted it? Or because there was a deeper, more personal side to the story?
I believed the latter, but it wasn’t the time.
Hiking my dress up higher, I revealed the garter around my thigh. Beatrice had given it to me. My something blue. She’d even attached a book charm to it.
“You’re not dead, Cian O'Callaghan,” I whispered. “I see you standing right in front of me. I can feel how warm you are from here.”
