I can feel him building, a dark, heavy tide that’s threatening to break his last defenses. His breath is a series of hitches, and his hands move to my hair, pulling my head back so he can see the wreck he’s making of me.
"I'm not letting you go," he warns, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly depth. "When this ends, Riley, there’s no going back to the way it was."
"Good," I breathe, leaning down to bite the hard muscle of his shoulder.
I move faster now, the friction turning from warmth to a white-hot burn. I’m a mess of tangled hair and flushed skin, my muscles coiling, a tight, frantic knot of tension building in my lower belly. I’m on the edge, the horizon of my own pleasure finally in sight, but I can feel him holding back, his jaw set ina grim, beautiful line of defiance. He’s determined to let me shatter first, to be the one who watches me fall apart.
I lean back, my spine arching as I pick up the tempo, my knees locking him into the seat. The sheer, overwhelming physicality of him is a drug, and I’m drowning in it.
"Look at me," I command, my voice a broken thing.
He does, and the raw, unmasked want in his gaze is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen.
It’s the last thing I see before the world tilts. Cillian’s hands, which had been anchored to my waist, suddenly slide up to my armpits. With a surge of that dark, dock-bred strength, he heaves me upward and then slams my hips back down onto him. The impact is a blunt, beautiful violence that forces a scream from my throat.
"My turn to drive, Riley," he says with a dark chuckle.
He doesn’t wait for my consent. He begins to thrust upward, his hips snapping with a flow that turns the interior of the car into a furnace. It’s no longer about my slow, calculated grind. It’s a heavy, unforgiving assault. Each time he hits the bottom, the car rocks on its springs, and I feel like the world is beginning and ending at the same time.
"Cillian—" I gasp, my fingers clawing at the leather of his jacket, my head falling back as he buries himself to the hilt again and again.
He doesn't let me breathe. He lunges upward, his mouth crashing against mine to stifle my cries. The kiss is frantic, desperate, tasting of salt and the iron-willed hunger he’s finally let off the leash. While he keeps the brutal, punishing pace withhis lower body, his hands move with a frantic efficiency. He tears the straps of my dress down, exposing me to the cool air that is instantly incinerated by his touch.
His mouth leaves mine to ravage my neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive cord of my throat until I’m sobbing his name. Then he moves lower, his tongue hot and heavy as he claims my breasts. He takes one taut, aching peak into his mouth, his suction a deep, pulling pressure that seems to be wired directly to the place where we’re fused together.
"Look at what you do to me," he mutters against my skin, his voice thick with a dark, lush need. "Look at how you break me."
He’s hitting a spot deep inside me, a nerve I didn't know existed, and every time his hips slam into mine, I feel a jolt of electricity shoot down my spine. The friction is turning into a white-hot burn, a frantic, coiling tension that makes my vision blur at the edges. I’m a mess of tangled hair and flushed skin, my legs wrapped so tight around his waist that I can feel the hard, pulsing muscle of his thighs.
"Please," I moan, my fingers digging into his shoulders, drawing blood through the fabric of his shirt. "Cillian, I'm—I'm going to?—"
"Do it," he commands, his voice dropping to a gravelly, guttural whisper. He picks up the pace, his thrusts becoming faster, shallower, more frantic. He reaches around to cup my backside, hoisting me even higher so he can drive in deeper, his thumb finding the hardened center of me and adding a deliciously agonizing pressure.
The knot in my belly snaps.
It’s a sudden, violent eruption that starts in my toes and surges upward, centering entirely where he’s anchored inside me. My back arches, a long, high-pitched wail ripping from my throat as the waves of pleasure hit. I’m a boneless heap of heat and static, my walls clenching around him in a frantic, pulsing vise that should have ended him.
But he doesn't stop. He drinks in the tremors of my climax, his teeth grazing my collarbone as he continues.
"Don't you dare close your eyes," he rasps, his hips hitting mine with a force that makes the dashboard rattle. "Stay right here with me."
I force my eyelids open, my vision swimming through a haze of tears and pure, unadulterated sensation. The world is nothing but the smell of rain-dampened earth outside and the suffocating, delicious heat of him inside. Cillian’s hand slides upward, his large palm wrapping around the front of my throat. He isn't squeezing to hurt. He’s anchoring me, his thumb pressing against the frantic jump of my pulse, forcing my head back so I have no choice but to witness the dark, lush ruin in his expression.
"Watch me," he growls, and then he lunges upward.
The pace changes from a frantic pace to something deeper, more primal. He’s driving into me with a slow, heavy finality that feels like it’s reaching for my very soul. Every time he bottoms out, my body feels like it’s being reconfigured. The tension he’s built—the coiling, electric pressure at the base of my spine—suddenly overflows.
I can’t hold it back. A broken cry rips from my lungs as my body gives way to a violent, liquid release. I’m surging against him,the internal pressure snapping as I squirt against his thighs, the heat of it drenching the space where we are fused. The sensation is so sharp, so overwhelming, that my fingers go numb where they’re clawing at his shoulders.
"That’s it," he chokes out, his grip on my neck tightening just a fraction as he sees me shatter. "That’s my girl."
The sight of my undone state is the final blow to his legendary restraint. I feel the change in him instantly—the way his muscles turn to granite, the way his breath hitches into a ragged, guttural sound that vibrates through my entire chest. He doesn't pull back. He drives in one last time, deeper than I thought possible, and holds me there, pinned against the seat and the steering wheel.
A low, animal roar breaks from his throat as he finally lets go. I feel him pulse inside me, a hot, searing flood that seems to go on forever. It’s a thick, warm tide that fills me up, marking me from the inside out in a way that feels more permanent than any contract or vow. He’s pouring every ounce of his hunger, his frustration, and his strange, dark loyalty into me.
The car rocks one last time and then falls still, the only sound the frantic, sobbing gasps we’re both drawing. Cillian’s head drops onto my shoulder, his forehead damp with sweat. He doesn't move to pull away. He stays buried deep, his hands still trembling where they hold me, as if he’s afraid that if he lets go, the world will remember exactly who we are and why we shouldn't be here.
I wrap my arms around his head, my fingers tangling in the dark silk of his hair, holding him to me as the fog on the windows turns the world outside into a blurred, gray ghost.
