Sick, twisted bastard!
I want to tear the photograph in half, remove him from the image and keep the rest of it somewhere safe with me. I want to run from this house. Far away into a world without this kind of bone-deep betrayal. But there’s no escape from here. Not unless I’m smart. Not unless I stick to my original game plan. I have to let Killian believe what he wants to believe. Let him use me in whatever way he needs while I figure a way out.
It will be more difficult now that he’s broken down my walls. He’s too shrewd. If I put the same ones back up, he’ll notice there’s something wrong, and I can’t allow that to happen.
I gather myself back together, mentally collect all the broken fragments of who I was and piece them back together into a form that resembles me, if not the same me from this morning.
Now I’m more like the one who first arrived here. A safer version of myself.
Then I scrub the tears from my cheeks and press a kiss on each of my parent’s faces. With steady hands, I carefully return the photograph and the envelope to its previous hiding place. I’ll build new walls—stronger than before. Impenetrable. Lincoln Knight is dead to me. And Killian Wolfe can go to hell.
Chapter 59
Lincoln/Killian
The closer I get to home, the faster I drive. Gas pedal to the floor as I wind through the lanes cutting through the forest. Although it’s not home I’m anxious to get to, it’s her. Imogen DeMotta is home.
She’s in the library when I finally arrive, flicking through a book. Her eyes scanning the pages so intently that she mustn’t hear me come in, because she doesn’t look up.
The sound of my shoes on the polished wood makes her head snap up, and there it is. The smile that could bring a man to his knees. I drop to mine at her feet and spread her knees apart with my body. “I missed you, angel.”
She puts her book down and curls a lock of hair at my temple between her fingertips. “I missed you too.”
Her smile stays in place, but there’s a hint of sadness in her eyes. I glance at her book.Watership Down.It’s not her usual kind of reading material but it explains the melancholy. I read that book once as a boy and vowed never to read it again. “Are you ready for bed, baby?”
“Yeah.” Still that smile, but everything else about her is... It’s just fucking sad.
Worry gnaws in my gut. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. That book just hit me in all my feels.” Her vernacular is another change in her these last five months—one that I enjoy seeing blossom—influenced by her love of movies and the songs she likes to sing along to when she’s working in the garden. She laughs off her comment and then leans forward, snaking her arms around my neck. “But I amdefinitelyready for bed, sir.”
My cock twitches in my pants. He’s missed her too.
I waste no time scooping her into my arms and carrying her to bed, where I lay her down and slowly peel off her clothes, kissing each inch of skin I expose.
She winds her fingers through my hair, and she makes all the soft moaning sounds she usually makes but something’s still off. There’s still an unidentifiable sadness about her.
I crawl over her, brushing all her hair back from her face and staring into her deep green eyes. “Are you okay, baby?”
“Yeah. I’m just... That book was sad, and I... I love you, Linc. I hate it when you go away and leave me.”
I nudge her thighs apart and settle between them, the crown of my cock nudging at her wet heat. “I know, but I’m here now.”
She bites down on her lip and nods.
“You want this, angel?”
She wraps her legs around my waist, sinking her heels into my ass. “Yes, sir.”
I sink inside her, bone-deep relief surging through my entire body. “I love you. I’m sorry I have to leave you sometimes.” I really wish I didn’t have to, but I can’t see a time when that won’t be the case. Or a time when I don’t have to keep her locked away in this prison for her own protection, and selfishly, for my own. She deserves a much better future than the one I’m offering her, but I’m not sure I’m a good enough man to ever let her go.
“I know,” she whispers.
Maybe her sadness is merely a reflection of my own. Maybeshe understands that this thing between us is toxic and unnatural, no matter how good it feels.
I kiss her softly, parting her lips so that I can slide my tongue into her mouth while I fuck her slowly. We don’t come up for air until she climaxes, wrenching her lips from mine as she moans my name. I would live in these moments if I could, where no one else can touch us. Perhaps that’s the key to our future. Both of us disappearing forever and forgetting that the Brotherhood even exist. But doing that would feel like a betrayal to the man whom I loved like a brother. The man who sacrificed everything for me. And I’m already betraying him enough by corrupting his innocent daughter, aren’t I?
I push thoughts of him and the Brotherhood aside, and I focus only on Imogen. On her tight heat rippling around my cock. On the heavy cadence of her breathing, the scent of her, the feel of her skin against mine. There’s no redemption for a man like me, but I’ll take whatever salvation I can find, and that’s only in her.
