I fisted her hair tighter and started fucking her mouth in earnest—deep, punishing strokes. I wanted to push past her defenses, to get to the part of her she kept locked away. She gagged and her eyes teared up, but she never pulled away. She stayed with me, her body jolting with every thrust.
“You’re perfect,” I growled, my thumb brushing a tear from her cheek even as I drove into her. I hated that I was the one making her cry, and I loved that I was the only one allowed to see it. “So fucking pretty when you choke on me.”
The wet, messy sounds filled the room—the slurping, the gagging, her desperate breaths. I held her head in place with both hands now, using her mouth with a rough, relentless rhythm that felt like a battle.
“Eyes on me,” I ordered.
She obeyed instantly, her watery gaze locked on mine. In that moment, she wasn't a strategist. She wasn't a ghost. She was just mine.
“Good girl. Keep looking at me while I fuck your throat.”
Pressure built fast. The sight of her—lips stretched wide, spit everywhere, her heavy breasts glistening—sent me over the cliff. My balls drew up tight, a low groan vibrating in my chest.
“Gonna cum soon, baby. You’re gonna swallow every drop for me, aren’t you? Like a good little ghost.”
She moaned around me, the vibration nearly breaking my resolve. I thrust deep a few more times, then buried myself as far as she could take and came hard, a low, ragged groan escaping me. Pulse after pulse spilled into her as her throat worked to swallow the evidence of how much I wanted her.
When I finally eased back, she gasped for air, coughing softly. Her lips were swollen and shiny, strings of saliva connecting her to the man who was secretly breaking for her. She didn’t pull away. She climbed back up my body, straddling my lap. Her pussy brushed against my softening dick, a reminder of the heat we’d shared all night.
She cupped my face tenderly and kissed me—deep, slow, letting me taste the salt of her tears and the ghost of myself on her tongue. It was a kiss that felt like a goodbye.
When she pulled back, her voice was quiet but steady. The light in her eyes wasn't for me; it was for the mission. “I have somewhere I need to be.”
The words were a cold splash of reality. She brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, her face beaming with a terrifying sort of hope. She was moving toward her future, and I was just the engine getting her there.
“Come with me.”
I stared at her, my chest still heaving. The morning light caught the flush on her skin and the wetness on her cheeks. I was exhausted, mourning a relationship that hadn't even truly begun, and yet, my body was already rising for her again. I was a fool, and I knew it.
For a long moment, the only sound was the drizzle against the glass.
Finally, I asked, “Where?”
Chapter 32: Chloe
I'd been out of the shower for three hours. It was now two in the afternoon. I'd spent most of that time standing in front of the closet, touching things just to confirm they were mine.Mine.I went from rags to a walk-in closet full of expensive things. It felt obscene, the abundance of it. I was living a fantasy, and I was hungry enough to devour every second of it.
I tried on so many outfits before settling.
I stood watching myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in a satin floral midi-dress that clung to my curves. The emerald green and coral orange looked magical against my skin. The stilettos on my feet looked good enough to be worth the pain Elara had warned me they would cause.
Elara had said I looked expensive dressed up pretty, and here I was—expensive. But I still felt too much of that hollow ache that had lived in my chest for fourteen years.
Thoughts of Olivia arrived without invitation. I'd been jealous when she would flounce around me in clothes and shoes bought with my momma's blood money, leaving me feral in the corner wearing hand-me-downs and rags. How did one get over that? I was still trying to figure that out.
I reached out and touched the cold glass of the mirror, my fingers trembling.
I took one breath, then another, trying hard to settle into the new me without being haunted by my ghost. I smoothed the vibrant silk over my hips, wiped away a single tear before it could ruin my makeup, and headed downstairs. I straightened my shoulders.
Killian was waiting for me in the grand foyer, leaning against the mahogany banister. I'd picked out the outfit for him the day Elara and I went shopping—olive-green linen button-down and crisp white trousers. He looked less like a soldier of fortune and more like a Ralph Lauren model. The earthy green made the gray of his eyes pop, and the way he'd rolled the sleeves up his forearms made my pulse skip.
After leaving the house, we ended up at a small restaurant tucked between two buildings that didn't look like they belonged together. It wasn't fancy. No chandeliers. No crystal. Just soft music, worn wood tables, and people who didn't look at me like I was something to be managed.
I liked it immediately.
We sat near the window. I was trying not to think about how good Killian felt, how good sex felt. My body felt different. I found myself tracing the rim of my water glass, wondering if I looked different.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked.
