Cian drove us back to the castle. He was deeper inside of himself than usual. Even if he wasn’t standing on the gravesite on the hill, I knew he was back there, that void of life easy for him to slip back into.
Looking down at my hands, I cleared my throat. “That was nice of Fiona to sing that song,” I whispered.
It took a moment for his straightforward gaze to turn to me some. It was a flicker, then gone. “Sean-nós.” He pronounced it like “shan noas.”
“It sounded old.”
“It translates to old style,” he said, his voice almost vacant. “The first half of that sean-nós is the ghost of a woman callin’ to her lover from the grave. The second half is him callin’ back to her, grievin’ for her.”
A sob stuck in my throat, and I squeezed my hands together. That song would haunt me for the rest of my life. And even though I didn’t voice it aloud, I wondered if that was why Fiona had sung it. She wanted Charlie to be haunted for his wife’s mistakes.
The SUV bounced as we made our way closer to the shadowed castle.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to be there anymore.
I wanted to be back in Boston. Life was probably going to get messy there, but for some reason, it still felt like a fresh start for us. Here, Cian kept getting pulled back to the spot he’d created for himself.
Even after he picked me up and set me on my feet, taking my hand in his, we ended up on the hill. I left flowers and he stared, but I wondered if, this time, it was more about me then what had happened in the past. Rylee’s senseless death was a grim reminder of what was at stake—for both of us.
Even after we were inside and the blazing fires reached out long fingers filled with heat, I still couldn’t shake the cold. A layer of ice had formed around my heart and was haunting my veins. I took a seat on the bed while Cian removed his tie, moving toward the bathroom. A few seconds later I heard the water running in the pipes. He must have turned the shower on. He emerged out of a blossom of smoke and stared at me.
So many words inside of my chest, but it seemed like I was choking on every one of them. I couldn’t get them out. Instead, I took his outstretched hand and followed him into the bathroom. The room was already filled with steam. I shivered as I had when Fiona sang the sean-nós.
One side was the grave—cold—and the other side was life—warm.
Cian undid the buttons on his shirt and then turned to face me. It was still tucked in his pants. He gave me an expectant look. He wanted me to start undressing too. But I had to get these words off my chest, or they were going to strangle me. Because I’d realized something when I’d taken a seat on our bed.
How truly lonely my husband’s life had been until I came along. I had been imagining him going through this sort of day all alone, having no one to turn to at night once the lights went out.
When I looked into his stormy gray eyes, I made it past the chaos to the broken heart of it. As it did the day I found out what had happened to his family, my heart cried out for his.
“Cian.” My voice almost broke on his name. “I’m so glad you brought me here, with you. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. When I think about—”
Before I could even get the words out, he had me plastered to the wall. “It’s on you.” He seemed to force the words out. “The smell of death. Take these fuckin’ clothes off.” He started ripping at them, tearing them to shreds like the beast he was.
I wanted his off too, and our hands were hitting as we fought to get to the warmth of each other’s skin.
Warmth meant life.
I craved his as much as I craved my own next breath.
Our mouths came together, and our breaths tangled as my skin and his met. With a growl deep in his throat, he picked me up off my feet and carried me into the shower. He set me down, and we came together again, kissing and touching, washing each other in a frenzy. The bathroom filled with the scents of fresh water and clean soap.
By the time we were done, my skin was flushed, but I was shaking with need instead of cold.
Cian swept me up and charged toward the bedroom, but my mouth sucking over his pulse stopped him before he could even make it there. He set me down on the bathroom counter, and I wrapped my legs around him. Tilting my hips up, he entered me in a thrust that made me cry out. But even as I cried out, my hands begged for more as they reached out and held on to him, needing him to feel my desperation to hold on.
He was desperate too.
He was fucking me so hard, and so wild, sweat started to slip down his skin and mine. With the momentum of our bodies hitting, the droplets were splashing.
This went beyond want and into need.
There was no gray area here. No confusion as to why we were so crazed.
We needed this connection to feel how alive we were because we had each other.
Our bodies had taken over. Our hearts pounded, our blood rushed through our veins, our breaths came in pants, and I felt like, if he wasn’t inside of me all day, every day, then Imightdie. The pleasure was almost too much, too addicting. If he stopped, I’d go mad. If he continued like this, I wasn’t going to last much longer. I was already on the edge, about to tip over.
