I’m gasping for breath when I loosen my legs from his neck. He straightens, looks down at me, doesn’t wipe his glistening lips. Instead, with one hand, he undoes his jeans, pushes them down. He leans over me, thrusting into me so hard, my breath catches. He brings his face to mine, kisses me. I taste myself on his lips, his tongue, and I open for him. He’s rough, fucking me hard, and it’s not long before I’m coming again, clinging to him, digging my nails into his shoulders as he mutters a curse, his mouth still against mine, his breath short gasps as I feel him come inside me, filling me up.
When he pulls out of me, he lays a hand on my belly, holding me down. He’s watching cum spill out of me, I feel its warmth slide down my thighs. He looks at me as I rise to a seat, snakes his hand up my back, to my neck and into my hair and kisses me roughly, drawing me to stand. When he’s done kissing me, he keeps his hand at the back of my head, holds me close, his eyes unreadable.
“Tell me why.”
I shake my head no.
He squeezes his fingers in my hair, making me flinch.
“What did he do to you?” he asks.
I can’t tell him. I promised Jones. Besides, if I did, he’d be repulsed by me and some part of me, it needs him. It needs Killian Black. Needs him to want me.
“Will you help me?”
He releases me, steps back, tucks his dick into his briefs and pulls his jeans closed. All the while, he doesn’t release me from his gaze.
“You don’t want blood on your hands, Cilla.”
That’s not what I expect. Not what I want to hear. “I know what I want.”
He shakes his head. “Tell me why.”
“I told you I can’t. Can’t you help me without asking that one thing? Can’t you leave that one piece of me to me?”
“I’ll kill him for you, I’ll make it slow. Pound by pound if that’s what you want. But you need to tell me why.”
“I don’t want you to kill him for me. I want to take the pound of flesh. Me.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not poetry, that.” He touches my cheek. “You’re not cut out—”
“You don’t know me!” I yell. Kill stands watching. If he’s shocked or even surprised, he doesn’t show it. This man is like a vault, everything locked up tight, yet he wants everything from me. Wants me stripped naked. Laid bare.
I fist my hands at my sides, punch them into his chest. He takes my wrists, holds me there.
“You don’t know anything about me, Killian Black!” I hear how my voice has changed, hear it break. I try to pull free, but I can’t. “I thought you would help me.”
“I will. I already told you I will. I just need to know why.”
I shake my head and this time, when I try to break free, he releases me. I run into the bedroom. His. It’s where we slept last night. But I stop, shake my head, back up into the hallway. He’s standing at the other end of it watching me, so I turn, and I run into another room. The one he’d put me in the first night. I slam the door shut and slap my hands onto my face, press against my eyes.
“Cilla.”
“Leave me alone,” I manage. I’m not screaming anymore.
He opens the door, but I can’t look at him. I run into the bathroom and close the door, sit with my back to it and I cry. I just sit there and weep. There’s no sound, and somehow, I’m calm but I can’t stop crying. I can’t stop the tears and there’s just so many of them, a never-ending waterfall. And even when I know he’s gone, I just keep sitting there, weeping.
I was close. So close. But it’s gone now. All my strength of the night before, it’s gone. That sliver of light, of hope, it’s being washed away by this unending fall of tears.
18
Kill
The one thing I don’t need right now is fucking Benji in the lobby. Cilla’s in her room falling apart. I’m standing here like some asshole not knowing what the fuck to do for the first time in my life, and my idiot cousin chooses this moment to show up.
“Send him up,” I growl into the phone.
I text Hugo in the meantime. He checked in early this morning to tell me he’d landed but I haven’t heard from him since.
“Anything yet?” I text.
“Nothing. I’m about to knock on an old housekeeper’s door.”
Of course he’d have nothing. Callahan is no fool. He won’t leave a trail.
“Keep me posted.”
“She’s about ninety-four so I don’t expect much.”
“Let me know anyway.”
The elevator doors slide open and Benji steps off wearing a big grin and those stupid shoes with the platforms again. His eyes bounce around the room and he’s holding his hands together nervously like an addict in withdrawal.