I move higher, tracing her ribs, the curve beneath her breast, and I pause there to let her adjust.
“Please don’t stop.” Her voice is wrecked.
I cup her tits over the thin cotton of her bra. Small and perfect, fitting my palm like they belong there. She arches into the contact, a gasp caught in her throat.
“That’s my girl,” I tell her, my mouth on her collarbone. “So fucking perfect. No one touches you here but me. Understood?”
“Yes.” She shivers under my hand.
I slip beneath the fabric, take her nipple between my fingers, and roll it. She grips my shoulders, hips lifting off the mattress.
I want to worship every inch of her—spend hours mapping this body, learning every sound she can make. I won’t do it tonight. Tonight is about trust.
My hand trails lower—over her stomach, her hip—and stops at the edge of her underwear.
“Can I?”
Her breath is ragged. “Yes.”
I press my fingers over the fabric. She’s warm, wet, and the sound she makes damn near snaps my control.
“Has anyone ever touched this sweet pussy of yours?” I keep my voice level.
“No.”
“Good. I’m the first, and I’m going to be the last and only. Stay with me.”
She nods.
“I trust you.” A whisper.
Three words, and they gut me. I’ve built my entire empire on the principle that trust gets people killed. Every alliance I’ve formed, every deal I’ve brokered—there’s always been a contingency plan, an exit strategy, a weapon within reach. I trust no one, not fully, not even my brothers. And this girl, who has been beaten and sold and abandoned by every person who was supposed to protect her, is handing me the one thing I’ve spent my life refusing to give anyone.
I don’t deserve it. But I’ll cherish it.
I slide my hand beneath the fabric and touch her directly.
She cries out—not from pain, but from shock, sensation, raw nerve endings discovering pleasure they’ve never known.
I am patient with her. I’ve never been patient with anyone else on this earth, but with her, I will be if it kills me. I learn what makes her breath skip, what makes her hips rock, what makes her grab fistfuls of the sheets and hold on for dear life.
I circle her clit with slow, constant pressure while my mouth finds hers again. She kisses me back, messy and desperate, her fingers knotted in my hair.
“Cillian…there’s…” She can’t formthe sentence.
“I know. Let go. I’ve got you.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can. Let go for me, Nora.”
She shatters. Her body bows off the mattress, her thighs clamping around my hand, my name tearing from her throat. I hold her through it, gentling my touch, bringing her down one slow stroke at a time.
She collapses into the pillows, eyes wide, breathing ragged.
“Beautiful,” I tell her, pressing my lips to her temple. “So fucking beautiful when you come apart for me.”
She turns her face into my neck, and I gather her close, pulling her body flush with mine.
