The bathroom feels smaller once Kieran’s lips touch mine.
My thighs press against the cool countertop. Kieran’s hands are warm as he cradles my cheeks, grounding and unmooring me at the same time. The light above the mirror hums softly, but everything else falls away as I notice him holding back.
It isn’t in his grip. That stays careful, almost reverent.
But I see it in the way his jaw tightens when we stop kissing, when I breathe his name. And it’s in the way his forehead rests against mine, like he needs the contact to stay upright and contain himself at the same time.
“This isn’t fast,” I whisper, as if naming this worry aloud will stop the emotions from constricting me.
“No,” he agrees, brushing his nose along my cheek. “It’s not too fast, Eris, but maybe it feels like that because there are three of us.”
His thumb traces the line of my hip, slow enough that it feels like a question. I answer by leaning into him, by letting my hands slide up his arms and settle at his shoulders. He exhales as if I’ve just given him permission to exist inside this moment instead of fighting for restraint over his actions.
“You feel different when it’s you,” I murmur.
“When it’s me?” he asks, his gaze curious.
“The first time… I didn’t know it was you. Kieran and Hollow were two different people.”
His mouth finds mine again, but… He’s softer this time. Patient. Like he’s learning me instead of taking from me, careless of the heat curling between us.
I wrap my leg around Kieran’s hip, running my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. He makes a sound under his breath, something raw and unguarded, and his grip on me tightens. One hand braces my back, the other steady at my thigh, anchoring us both.
We’re suspended between choice and surrender.
“I can’t give you half of me,” he mumbles. The warning is a little too late, but he shakes his head as if the words didn’t come out quite right. “You won’t get half of me.”
I meet his eyes in the mirror again, witnessing the truth swirling in his brilliant green irises. The devotion. Danger.
The man who will wait if I ask him to and burn with me if I don’t.
“Good,” I retort. “I don’t do halves, and I don’t want them.”
Kieran kisses me once more, his lips trailing a damp path from my mouth to my jaw to my neck. He claims me with delicate nips before he pulls back, his forehead resting againstmine again, sealing the moment with a type of calm that almost always makes way for chaos.
The second he lets go of his restraint, he’s kicking the door shut behind him, the bathroom becoming a casualty to our incoming war zone.
He jerks me toward his chest, redirecting me until my back hits the cool tile wall. The impact is sharp enough to steal my breath, but it only makes the heat between us burn hotter. That juxtaposition of cold porcelain and burning skin has goosebumps racing up my arms and down my legs.
“Still want this?” he murmurs, his voice echoing off the walls in the confined space.
“I wanted this before you walked in.” His shirt is soft cotton, and I resist ripping it as I drag it over his head, throwing it out of our way. “I’m getting exactly what I asked for.”
Kieran’s hands grow more insistent, almost as if he’s punishing me for being a little bratty. He grips my hips, lifting me with ease as he sets me on the bathroom counter. My legs wrap around his waist, locking him in place.
Now, there’s no need for control.
He’s breaking just as fast as I am.
My elbow collides with the products on the counter. Something clatters into the sink. A glass bottle of hydrating serum shatters against the tile floor. My tube of toothpaste knocks over the waste bin.
I don’t care.
Kieran’s lithe fingers hold both of my wrists captive with one hand as he unbuttons his jeans with the other, shoving them past his hips. His movements are fast and precise as he tries to wreck my world with one full thrust, seating himself inside me with barely a warning.
Fuck.
I didn’t realize how wet I am, how needy.
