“No idea. Probably heard the rumors about Vail.” Rowen’s gaze slid to the bathroom door and he sighed sadly. “He’ll be wanting an explanation.”
“How is it any of his business?” I grumbled.
Rowen raised his brows. “Ye ask him that because he’s yer brother, not mine. The closest thing I have to a brother is currently in the shower, probably fucking me boyfriend.”
I frowned, but the sound of the doorbell downstairs nearly had me toppling over. I grumbled. No doubt Padraig had come to spy on me for my parents. He loved reporting back to them. “Hold them off while I get dressed.”
Rowen nodded. “Get a move on, then.”
11
VAIL
“You’recertain you’re not injured?”
Cillian shook his head once in a curt way that had me clenching my fists. I didn’t think he would hurt me, but after the day I’d had, all my responses to him felt somehow amplified. The sex with Fallon, which I had expected to be amazing even with the need to be careful, had been so far beyond spectacular. My heart melted at how willing he’d been to have me close. And this plunge into the iciness of Cillian’s mood was probably worse because of how good everything had been with Fallon. I couldn’t control the way my pulse picked up pace and my throat tightened with anxiety.
Yet underneath the surface, my body continued to hum happily from all the sex endorphins swimming in my veins. I almost wanted to make things worse with Cillian, poke his buttons, because it seemed obscene that I could contain such stunning levels of stress and happiness all at once. My aches and pains from my rough treatment by Detective Cummins all twanged in a strange physical melody as Cillian came over and grabbed my wrist, jerking me roughly against his muscled body. I shivered, and he reached over to push a button near the light switch. A warm breeze circulated through the room and the fan overhead buzzed to life.
“The blood on your face has strange lines in it.” I squinted at him, avoiding his accusing eyes. “Like runes, or as if little fingers drew pictures. It almost seems like something fortune tellers would stare at to learn the future. You know, the history of spodomancy is quite interesting and requires a blood sacrifice—”
“What?” He startled and turned toward the large oval mirror that almost touched the ceiling. His brow furrowed and he snorted. “Pixie drawings. It’s from my sweat, most likely.” His somber attitude cracked, along with a tiny twist of his lips upward, and my pulse slowed to something closer to normal.
“There’s so much of it. The blood. Isn’t it itchy?” I tilted my head and stared at rust-like spots beginning to flake from his left cheek.
Cillian’s jaw hardened. “That cop hurt ye. There’s not much of it left on his insides. Well, there’s not much left of him at all.”
My stomach roiled and I tried to tug away from Cillian’s firm grip, but he didn’t let go of me, his fingers tightening to steel on my wrist.
“Cillian.”
He stilled, though he didn’t drop his hold on me. “Am I hurting ye?”
“No.”
We stared at each other, and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I had a moment where I felt like I was facing off with a bear in the woods. But then my thoughts bounced to how he was sort of hairy, although he wasn’t big enough for what I thought of as a bear—a big man with muscles and body fur everywhere. After a few seconds, he started shaking his head at me, and I realized I’d been mumbling my thoughts out loud.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, firebug.” He touched a finger softly to my lips, then ran it down my chin to my neck. He stopped at all the bruises between my collarbone and my navel, finally tracing around a large one on my side. Nothing he did truly hurt. Despite what he was doing and how controlling he was acting, I was comfortable in my nudity with him. We’d crossed some sort of divide in our relationship and my shame was long gone. The sensations from his exploring fingers danced on the border between pain and something dark and enticing. I’d bumped some of the bruises while I was having sex with Fallon and each poke of pain had heightened my pleasure.
What might happen if I made myself ache, just a bit, on purpose?
Cillian cupped my chin and we stared again for an immeasurable amount of time. “I should’ve fed the bastard cop his own intestines.”
“I don’t like hearing about it. I don’t want to know.”
“I don’t care,” he said, though the words were nearly sweet. “I wanted to rip him apart. I... I need ye to know. I killed him. For ye. Not for Killough or honor or any other fucking bullshite. Aspen and me and Rowen... we killed him for feckin’ touching ye. Ye’re ours and he hurt ye.” He stared into my eyes, and my heart beat fast enough my head began to feel light.
He let out a long sigh, and I flinched. Next thing I knew, Cillian pivoted with me and pressed me against the bathroom counter. The edge of the sink dug in against my lower back. He sucked on my lips and the pressure hurt my wounds in a deep, strange way I could feel scrambling around in my stomach. My dick throbbed and twitched awake, lengthening and stealing my attention. When he finally broke his lips away from mine, his eyes were too wide and full of a fierce energy that made me scrabble my hands against his solid pecs, though I wasn’t sure if I was trying to push him away or drag him closer.
“Thank you. I know whatever you did, and I really, really, really don’t want to know details, you did it for me. And that means the world to me.”
Cillian’s Adam’s apple bobbed and his breath caught. I took the chance and leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He growled and dragged me against his body until his hold on me hurt.
“If ye ever, and I meanever, go out again when ye know there’s a chance of ye being in danger—”
“What will you do?” I asked, and it was a surprise to hear myself sounding the same way I did with students who told me tall tales about why they didn’t turn in a paper on time. I didn’t care if their work was a few days late, but I did give a damn if there was lateness accompanied bya lie. The lie was the insult because it implied I was stupid, just like what he was doing now. “I’m capable of assessing risks.”
