AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I love you, Lily. I would give my life for yours.” His eyes searched mine for an immeasurable amount of time before he said, “I’d give you the world if you asked for it, but not at the expense of your life. Don’t ask me to stop saving you, because I don’t know how.”
If only Kieran could understand I’d never asked him to.
If only he could see what I’d been begging him for all along.
If only he knew he’d pushed me so far away that my heart was sure we’d never find a way back to who we’d been. And in that, I felt more torn in this moment than I ever could’ve imagined.
Unbidden images of secret, written words and dark, mysterious eyes entered my mind. Guilt ripped through me as I desperately tried to focus on the hope I’d clung to for so long . . .
That one day the Kieran I’d fallen in love with would come back to me.
“Then give me the boy who fought my imaginary battles. Give me the man who crept into my room to plan out a future with me in the dark. Because one day something will happen that you won’t be able to save me from. And when that day comes, I want to cling to every moment with you. I want a reason to be selfish enough to ask time to stop so that my last breath, and my last moment with you, will never end.” I reached up to brush my fingers over his lips, and licked my own as an old, familiar warming entered my chest. “I won’t ask you to stop saving me, Kieran, if you’ll just save us.”
Less than a second passed from the time the words left my lips to when his mouth crashed onto mine.
Wrapping his arms around me, he pulled me off the bench and turned us toward our room. His mouth never once left mine as he effortlessly found his way in there and laid me on the bed, tearing at my clothes as he did.
A flutter of anticipation filled my stomach and heat coursed through my veins. Both as foreign as the feeling of his mouth on my own.
I pled with my lips alone for him to show me we could have a connection like we used to. That we could have the love I’d been longing for. That we could have the kind of intimacy I so desperately needed. Missed.
I nearly started begging right then for those things, but he straightened to strip out of his clothes, then roughly forced me onto my side.
I turned my head, my mouth searching for his again when he slid onto the bed behind me and pulled me close. A moan slipped from my mouth as his hardened length pressed against me.
“Kier—” His name cut off with a hiss when he suddenly gripped my hair and yanked back, forcing me to stare at the headboard instead of him.
The hand on my hip went to my thigh to spread my legs, and before I could beg him to slow down—beg him for any of the things I’d just been thinking of—he roughly pushed into me. Again and again, each roll of his hips more forceful than the last until he released my hip and gripped my shoulder to force me down onto him harder still.
I clung to my pillow, gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulder and on my scalp, and tried to focus on the feel of him moving inside me.
Just once, I wanted him to crave my touch during this.
Just once, I wanted him to need to kiss me like a man dying as he moved inside me.
Just once, I wanted him to want to look at me as he fucked me.
Kieran growled in approval when my sharp cry broke free, and his fingers dug into my shoulder so deeply that tears pricked my eyes as his hips jerked powerfully once . . . twice . . . and then he finally came with a low roar.
He released me just as suddenly as his body left mine, but the lingering pain in my shoulder and my heart caused me to forget I’d been aching for more from him.
Gentleness. Tenderness.
I blinked quickly, forcing the wetness in my eyes away, and took slow, steadying breaths.
Breathe in.
God, Kieran, what have you done to us?
Breathe out.
I could feel the wall between us grow wider, could feel it start to solidify. And I didn’t know how to stop it.
His arm slipped over the dip in my waist, but before my mind could hope that his touch was meant to be comforting or loving, his hand hit the mattress in front of me and quickly snaked across it until he was hovering over me and reaching over the side of the bed.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing, the muscles in his forearm tensed and twitched, and my heart rate slowed as I took in the rapidly changing tone in the room.
Dark.
