I released any worries I had and thankfully felt no further ones as I showered, then dried off. Sometimes, I would lie in bed and read at night, mostly about the kind of man I’d once had and almost wished I could have again. Cillian was no longer a book boyfriend, but the villain, and I would do best to remember that. Deciding to just go to sleep, I turned off the light and pulled the blanket up just under my chin. It didn’t take long from there to fall asleep.
My dreams were not peaceful ones, however, as they all included Cillian. I’d long ago stopped dreaming about the way he’d wax poetically to me after we made love under the stars, and I just would imagine him appearing from the shadows to take me. And I didn’t even have to use much of my imagination,wondering how he would be now that life had hardened him, because I knew.
That night, he had awakened things inside of me that I had thought had died, but later realized had just been lying dormant. For the first time in seven years, I did not feel just like a mother, but like a woman, and it was a foreign feeling for me lately.
Tonight, I imagined that he was back on top of me, only he didn’t get up to leave like that one night, but instead spread my thighs as he thrust up into me. A cry was torn from my lips as I reached down between our bodies. My core ached so badly, and I started to rub my clit as I imagined him fucking me. Once or twice, my entire body would tighten, and I arched up a few times as I tried to hold off on coming. My fingers moved more insistently, and several broken cries escaped me.
It was all too much. I kicked the blankets off me, then went back to fingering myself while pretending it was him. This dream was so vivid, and it seemed as if every cell in my body had come alive. My nipples throbbed as they hardened into tight peaks, and my pussy grew wetter. Sweat coated my entire body, and I could feel the damp strands clinging to my face.
“I need...Oh God...Please...Cillian,” I cried out just as the edge dissipated beneath my feet, and I hurtled off it. I continued to murmur something I knew would have to have been incoherent before I bolted upright in bed and opened my eyes. “Cillian!”
There in front of me was the very man I had just imagined. It was no wonder my entire body responded, and in a much different way than usual. He had been there the entire time. Embarrassment...Anger...Shame...They all filled me, and remembering my naked state, I quickly grabbed the blanket I had previously kicked aside and pulled it over me in cover.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
He said nothing as he stared down at a mostly full glass of whiskey. He was sitting in a chair and seemed less inclined to speak or even move. The invasion of privacy was one thing, but there was such a faraway look on his face that was foreign to me, and worry soon overruled my righteous indignation.
I’d come to watch her sleep as I did most nights. It had almost become a routine, especially because she had no idea that I even did this. Maybe it had simply been that watching her sleep had been something I’d dreamed about a third of my life. Back at Summit Crest Preparatory, I would imagine the two of us not having to slink back undetected to our rooms, and that we could instead fall asleep in each other’s arms and wake up in them, too.
The one night we really had to actually do it intentionally and not by accident had been our wedding night. After I had fucked her to sleep, I lay there staring over at her and feeling a sense of contentment I’d never felt in my life before. All was actually right in my world for the briefest of moments, until I had finally gone to sleep as well.
“Cillian, what are you doing in here?” I heard her ask, and looking up from my glass, I stared at her silhouette as she sat up in bed. “Answer me.”
“I’d beaten myself up for so many years,” I said. Without elaborating, I stared back down at the glass of liquor, which was the last thing I wanted right now.
“About what?” she tentatively asked me.
“You!If only I hadn’t gone to sleep the night of our wedding. If I had stayed up, I never would’ve allowed you to leave. If you had stayed, you’d be alive.”
A small sob left her, but it was just a solitary one. “It wouldn’t have changed anything,” she finally murmured.
“It would’ve changed everything for me.”
And it hit me in that moment that although I still had so much anger inside of me over her duplicity, the simple truth of the matter was that I’d missed her. Over the years, I’d only had her ghost and a slew of memories that taunted me without mercy. Now, she was in my world. Alive, and so goddamn beautiful still that the mere sight of her was enough to take my breath away. Men, especially Brannington ones, didn’t tolerate betrayal. They punished it. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her again, not after what my grandfather had already taken from her.
“He took a lot from me, too.”
“What are you talking about, Cillian?” she asked. “How much have you had to drink? Are you drunk now?”
I chuckled wryly. “I’d poured this glass, but I’ve yet to have a single sip of it. Over the last seven years, I’d used this fucking poison to stop the memories...to erase them from my head...from my heart...But, you’re here now, and it’s real and not some fucked up mirage I can’t quite reach.”
“The past is best left in the past,” she said, and I stared straight ahead at her.
“So, why were you imagining me as you made yourself come?”
She gasped softly, but in the silence of this room, it was fully audible. “You need to leave, Cillian. Please!”
Reagan was right, and after forcing myself to stand, I tried to move my legs, but they were rooted in place. She didn’t wantto be around me any more than I wanted to be around her, so it should’ve been easy to just go. My heart and my head wanted much different things, though. I could feel her gaze centered on me, and deciding it was a huge mistake to come here after all, I gathered what little sense I could muster and walked toward the door. Once I reached it, I set the glass down onto the top of the dresser, then stopped.
“I hate you, or at least I should, but the truth of the reality is that I really don't hate you at all,” I said softly.
There were a few seconds of silence, and I convinced myself that she had thankfully not heard me, but then she got out of bed, and I sniffed the air to smell the scent of her shampoo as she drew closer to me. “What kind of game are you playing, Cillian?”
“Nothing about us is a game now, or has ever been.” I was still staring straight ahead, so I hadn’t realized she meant to touch me until I felt the slight shock from her fingers as she placed one of her hands on my arm.
“You’re so confusing. One minute you hate me, and the next you can’t bring yourself to leave. I’m here in Ireland and a prisoner, as you so eloquently put it before, so what the hell else do you want from me? Do you want to see me cry? Bleed? What is it that you need to finally let me go?”
It happened in a blur, but Reagan went from standing beside me to being pinned between me and the wall. The moonlight was shining through the window and exactly at the spot where we stood, so I could see her watery eyes as she stared up at me.
