Gregor established a steady, unhurried rhythm, alternating sides with methodical consistency. Each strike landed in a slightly different spot, spreading the heat evenly across Fergal’s ass, building from a sting to a glow to a burn that radiated through him in waves.
Fergal’s resistance broke on the sixth strike. His body went limp across Gregor’s lap, the tension that had been coiling in his muscles for weeks unwinding like a spring released. His breathing changed from the shallow, rapid pattern of anxiety to something deeper, slower, each exhale carrying out a little more of the poison he’d been accumulating.
Seven. Eight. Nine. The rhythm was hypnotic and Gregor’s hand was an anchor in a sea of noise, each impact pulling Fergal further from the churning thoughts and closer to something quiet. Something still. The burn in his ass was grounding—real, physical, undeniable—and his mind latched onto it gratefully, finally having something concrete to focus on instead of the endless loop of failure and frustration and fear.
Ten. Eleven. Gregor’s free hand rubbed slow circles on his lower back between strikes, soothing and steadying, thetenderness woven so seamlessly into the discipline that Fergal couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
On the twelfth strike, the tears came.
Not because of pain. Yes, the strikes hurt, but they were measured, never brutal, never more than Fergal could handle. The tears came from somewhere deeper, somewhere that had been sealed shut since the night of the assassination, since the moment he’d stood in the library and learned his father and uncle were dead and felt the weight of an entire clan land on his shoulders.
Eight weeks of holding it together. Eight weeks of being king when he didn’t know how. Eight weeks of making decisions and attending meetings and signing documents and lying awake at night wondering if he was doing any of it right. Eight weeks of being the strong one, the steady one, the one everyone looked to for answers he didn’t have.
It all came pouring out. Fergal’s tears soaked the fabric of Gregor’s pants while Gregor’s hand continued its steady rhythm, gentler now, the strikes softening into something that was more caress than correction, easing Fergal through the release rather than driving it. Endless, relentless tears that fell until Fergal had nothing more to give, to release. Until he was completely empty.
The rhythm slowed. Stopped. Gregor’s right hand settled on Fergal’s ass, palm flat against the heat he’d created, not rubbing, just holding. His left hand continued its slow circles on Fergal’s lower back. Both points of contact were warm and steady and undemanding, asking nothing, offering everything.
“There you are,” Gregor murmured. The same words he’d said in the library the day the world changed. The same voice—low, rough, stripped of everything but tenderness.
Fergal lay across his lap, wrung out, empty in the best possible way. The noise in his head was gone. The hamster wheel had stopped. For the first time in weeks, his mind was quiet—genuinely, blissfully quiet—and the relief of it was so profound it made him dizzy.
“Up,” Gregor said softly, and his hands guided Fergal upright, steadying him when his legs wobbled. Fergal stood, swaying slightly, his face a mess of snot and tears, and his ass throbbing with a heat that felt like it would last for days.
Gregor stood too and cupped Fergal’s face in both hands, thumbs wiping the tears from his cheeks. His gray eyes searched Fergal’s face, checking, assessing, making sure the storm had passed. “Bed.”
Not a suggestion.
“Okay,” Fergal whispered, and the fact that he didn’t argue, didn’t make a joke, didn’t deflect with sarcasm, told them both how thoroughly he’d been undone.
Gregor walked him to the bedroom. Sat Fergal on the edge of the bed and knelt to unlace his boots, pulling them off one at a time with a gentleness that made Fergal’s eyes sting again. Belt next, slid from the loops with practiced ease. Then the formal shirt, unbuttoned slowly, Gregor’s fingers working each button with a steady patience.
Fergal sat in his T-shirt and pants, shivering slightly from the emotional aftermath, his nervous system still recalibrating after the release. Gregor pulled the covers back, guided him down, and drew them up to his chin, tucking the edges around him the way Fergal’s mother used to do when he was small.
The memory hit him without warning—his mom, sitting on the edge of his bed, smoothing his hair back from his forehead, whispering “spine first, then the rest follows,” and a fresh wave of tears slid down his temples into his hair.
Gregor sat on the edge of the bed. His hand found Fergal’s hair, fingers carding through the dark waves in slow, repetitive strokes that asked for nothing and gave everything.
“I’m sorry,” Fergal murmured, his voice wrecked, his eyes already heavy. “What I said about the Murphys. About you not seeing. That was?—”
“Tomorrow,” Gregor said quietly. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known, and I said the worst thing I could think of, and I?—”
“Fergal.” Gregor’s hand stilled in his hair, then resumed its steady rhythm. “Sleep.”
The command was gentle, absolute, and irresistible. Fergal’s eyes closed. The warmth of the bed, the weight of the covers, the steady motion of Gregor’s hand in his hair all conspired to pull him under, and for once, he didn’t fight it.
The last thing he felt before sleep claimed him completely was Gregor’s lips pressing against his forehead—soft, warm, lingering—and the last thing he heard, barely a whisper in the quiet room, was, “I’ve got you, baby boy.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Maeve’s kitchen was cold.
That was the first thing Duff noticed because Maeve’s kitchen was never cold. The old-fashioned cast-iron stove was her pride, her anchor, the heart of the safe house. She kept it burning day and night, summer and winter, because a cold kitchen meant an empty home, and Maeve’s home was never empty.
